Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the consultation, Government Statistical Service Harmonisation: Assessing user needs for additional response options for the new ethnicity harmonisation standard, published on 28 October 2025, whether her Department plans to make a submission.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office notes plans by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for an updated harmonised standard, which will be applied to our departmental statistics where applicable in due course.
This is an open consultation so anyone can provide a response on an individual basis. The Home Office typically gathers views from across the department prior to making any decisions about whether an organisational response is merited ahead of the deadline to respond.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of establishing a statutory Code of Practice on the Sikh articles of faith to prevent discrimination.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office has made no assessment of the potential merits of establishing a statutory Code of Practice on Sikh articles of faith to prevent discrimination as religious discrimination is not a matter for the Home Office.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions her Department has had with relevant stakeholders on the use of proactive technology to (a) identify and (b) tackle (i) deepfakes and (ii) AI generated (A) intimate image abuse and (B) child sexual abuse images.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office actively engages with relevant stakeholders on the use of proactive technology to identify and tackle AI-enabled harms, including deepfakes, intimate image abuse and child sexual abuse images.
Working in partnership with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Alan Turing Institute, and the Accelerated Capability Environment, the Home Office has led the Deepfake Detection Challenge. This initiative brought together experts and stakeholders to develop and evaluate detection tools, which are essential in addressing serious harms including online child sexual abuse. As offenders increasingly exploit AI, we must harness its potential for good.
A key outcome has been the creation of a tool which enables scientific evaluation of detection technologies, offering actionable metrics to support informed procurement decisions and helping end users select the most effective solutions. This capability is now being considered as a potential global standard and the next phase will continue to identify and benchmark AI-driven solutions.
In addition, we are engaging with industry across the AI ecosystem, recognising their vital role in mitigating and preventing AI-enabled harms.
The Home Office has also introduced world leading measures, becoming the first country to criminalise the possession, creation and distribution of AI tools to generate child sexual abuse material, as well as the possession of paedophile manuals that instruct others on creating such tools.
The Government remains committed to investing in innovation to combat these appalling crimes and will continue to collaborate with relevant stakeholders to do so.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of nudification apps on boys and girls under 18.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is aware of concerns about the impacts of nudification apps on children and in facilitating violence against women and girls. AI-generated child sexual abuse material can have direct impact on real children. Offenders use AI to create photorealistic abuse imagery that often features real children, for example children known to the offender or existing victims. We also know that offenders are using AI imagery to groom and blackmail children.
We are taking action on non-consensual intimate image abuse, having criminalised the creation of intimate images without consent (or reasonable belief in consent) in the Data (Use and Access) Act. This built on the existing offences introduced by the Online Safety Act for sharing, or threatening to share intimate images, including deepfakes.
Furthermore, in the Crime and Policing Bill, this Government is protecting children from the growing threat of online predators, by becoming the first country in the world to criminalise AI tools which generate child sexual abuse images.
We are going even further in the Crime and Policing Bill by introducing offences of taking an intimate image without consent, and installing equipment with the intent of taking an intimate image without consent, or a reasonable belief in consent.
Regarding a prohibition of ‘nudification’ apps, the Government is actively considering what action is needed to ensure that any intervention in this area is effective, and will provide an update in due course.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Sikhs are employed in her Department; and whether they are recorded as (a) an ethnic or (b) a religious group.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Home Office workforce Diversity data is published annually: Home Office workforce diversity statistics - GOV.UK.
Home Office reporting captures Sikh as a religion in line with Cabinet Office guidance.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle domestic abuse.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
This Government is committed to tackling domestic abuse in all its forms as part of our unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. We have already announced a series of bold measures designed to strengthen the police response to domestic abuse, protect victims and hold perpetrators to account.
In February, under a new approach named 'Raneem's Law', the first domestic abuse specialists were embedded in 999 control rooms in five police forces to advise on risk assessments, work with officers on the ground and ensure that victims are referred to appropriate support services swiftly.
To further strengthen protections for victims, in November 2024 we launched new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs) in selected police forces and courts - which is a huge step towards a new national approach. On 5 March, we expanded the use of DAPOs to Cleveland and we plan to onboard North Wales in the coming months - offering access to these new orders to a greater number of victims. The new DAPO brings together the strongest element of the existing protective order regime into a single comprehensive, flexible order.
On 28 November 2024, the Government announced a funding increase of £30 million, meaning a total investment of £160 million in the Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation Grant in 2025-26. This will enable local authorities to invest in essential support in frontline safe accommodation services.
We are determined to deliver a cross-Government transformative approach to halving violence against women and girls, underpinned by a new VAWG strategy to be published this year.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had discussions with representatives of the mobile phone industry on (a) using technology to prevent stolen phones from being re-used and (b) the adequacy of security on banking phone apps.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
On 6 February the Home Secretary brought together police, the National Crime Agency, the Mayor of London and leading tech companies to drive greater collaboration in breaking the business model of mobile phone thieves.
As a result of the summit, representatives from policing and tech agreed to significantly boost the sharing of data and intelligence on mobile phone theft to build a comprehensive picture of the organised criminal networks driving this problem and to instigate new work to tackle the problem.
To aid police investigations and recovery of stolen goods, our Crime and Policing Bill includes a measure to give police the power to enter and search premises for stolen property which has been electronically geolocation tracked to those premises and it is not reasonably practicable to obtain a warrant without seriously prejudicing the entry and search purpose. We are also committed to strengthening neighbourhood policing and through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, there will be thousands of additional police officers and police community support officers.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales provides national estimates of the number of victims of mobile phone theft in England and Wales; this data is not broken down to sub-national geographies.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help reduce phone theft in (a) east London and (b) Ilford South constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
On 6 February the Home Secretary brought together police, the National Crime Agency, the Mayor of London and leading tech companies to drive greater collaboration in breaking the business model of mobile phone thieves.
As a result of the summit, representatives from policing and tech agreed to significantly boost the sharing of data and intelligence on mobile phone theft to build a comprehensive picture of the organised criminal networks driving this problem and to instigate new work to tackle the problem.
To aid police investigations and recovery of stolen goods, our Crime and Policing Bill includes a measure to give police the power to enter and search premises for stolen property which has been electronically geolocation tracked to those premises and it is not reasonably practicable to obtain a warrant without seriously prejudicing the entry and search purpose. We are also committed to strengthening neighbourhood policing and through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, there will be thousands of additional police officers and police community support officers.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales provides national estimates of the number of victims of mobile phone theft in England and Wales; this data is not broken down to sub-national geographies.