Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions he has held with representatives of retail sector employees on the adequacy of measures to tackle physical assaults in the workplace.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
I regularly co-chair, with the British Retail Consortium, the National Retail Crime Steering Group which brings together Government, trade organisations, representatives of the retail sector and enforcement partners to ensure the response to crimes affecting the retail sector is a partnership approach and as robust as it can be.
I have also recently been convening additional meetings with retailers and police, to discuss how we can tackle the issue of retail crime, including assaults.
As part of a roundtable with policing and retailers, on 23 October, the National Police Chiefs’ Council launched their Retail Crime Action Plan, which includes a police commitment to prioritise attending the scene of retail crime instances where violence has been used; where an offender has been detained; or where evidence needs to be promptly secured and can only be done in person by police personnel.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 5 November 2019 to Question 4944 on Passports: Republic of Ireland, how many British passports were printed for residents of the Republic of Ireland whose applications were processed by the Belfast passport office between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Following the introduction of a new passport application processing system that distributes work digitally across all available work locations, the data for the number of applications processed is not broken down by office. The information requested is therefore not held in a reportable format from 2020 onwards.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the King's Speech 2023, whether he has had discussions with the Leader of the House on the timetable for introducing Protect Duty legislation.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
I continue to engage with my Ministerial colleagues on the Government’s important legislative program, including the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, also known as Martyn’s Law.
The pre-legislative scrutiny of the bill provided important feedback which I have been carefully considering, Ahead of introduction to Parliament, the Government will launch a public consultation on the Standard Tier ensuring the Bill strikes the right balance between public protection and avoiding undue burdens on smaller premises.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how long his Department expects to keep open the second stage of Pathway 3 referrals for the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The resettlement of eligible Afghans remains a top priority for this government. As of September 2023, around 24,600 vulnerable people affected by the events in Afghanistan have been brought to safety. This includes the first individuals to be relocated under Pathway 3 of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS).
In the second stage of Pathway 3, our commitment to work with international partners and NGOs to welcome wider groups of Afghans still stands. We are not able to open for referrals at this present time for the second stage of Pathway 3 but further information will be published in due course.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been granted (a) permission to stay and (b) to join their families in the UK through the family reunion process in each year from 2018 to 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office does not publish information on how many people have been granted permission to stay through the family reunion process, (in-country grants of leave to remain).
The Home Office publishes data on the number of Family Reunion visas granted, in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data covering the period January 2010 onwards are published in table FAM_D01 (with more detailed data in the Data – FAM_D01 tab) from Family reunion visa grants detailed datasets, year ending September 2023. (Downloads new file).
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many passport applications from residents of the Republic of Ireland were processed by the Belfast Passport Office in each year between 2017 and 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The data below shows the volume of passport applications from residents of the Republic of Ireland that were processed by the passport office in Belfast for each year from 2017 to 2019:
2017 | 9,812 |
2018 | 9,401 |
2019 | 9,936 |
Following the introduction of a new passport application processing system that distributes work digitally across all available work locations, the data for the number of applications processed is not broken down by office. The information requested is therefore not held in a reportable format from 2020 onwards.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the fraud sector charter on telecommunications.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Government and industry signed the Telecommunications Fraud Sector Charter, a voluntary agreement to improve counter-fraud efforts, in October 2021.
Under the Charter, the sector has introduced firewalls that detect and stop scam texts from reaching customers. The firewalls have proved successful, and have stopped 700 million scam text messages since January 2022. The firewalls also monitor and stop “FluBot malware” used by criminals to infect and take over a victim’s phone to steal credit or debit card details.
We are keen to build on the success of the first Charter and start work on a renewed version in the coming months to push criminals out of using telecommunications to contact victims.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many passports were issued from HM Passport Office in Belfast in the last three years; and how many and what proportion of these passports were issued to people declaring that they held an Irish passport.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Passport applications are distributed across offices throughout the UK. The data for the volume of passports issued following a successful application by office, and the data for the number of applications processed by office, is not held in a reportable format.
The data for applications where the holding of a non-British passport has been declared is not broken down by the issuing country of that passport, and is therefore not held in a reportable format.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 15 November 2023 to Question 1309 on Northern Ireland Strategic Migration Partnership, with which relevant partners in Northern Ireland his Department consulted; and when these consultations took place.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
This approach was taken following discussions over financial years 22-23 and 23-24 with Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA) as the NI SMP host and The Executive Office of Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much money has been frozen under the freezing orders implemented by the Combatting Kleptocracy Cell on the finances since the start of the war in Ukraine; and what assessment she has made of the impact of those freezing orders on the finances of the people and organisations affected.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The NCA's Combatting Kleptocracy Cell has currently frozen approximately £1.36 million under account freezing orders, or had monies detained under a cash detention orders.
Due to operational security matters the NCA cannot provide further detail on cases, including the impact on the finances of specific individuals or organisations.