Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to support the expanded remit of the Gangmaster Licensing and Abuse Authority.
Answered by Laura Farris
The Government allocates a yearly budget to the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) to enable it to undertake its regulatory and enforcement activities. The GLAA’s remit was expanded in 2016. Since then, the Government has increased the annual funding it provides the GLAA from £1.97m in 2015/16 to £7.77m in 2023/24.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much their Department spent on hospitality in (a) 2021, (b) 2022 and (c) 2023.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
We do not routinely publish this data, as has been the case under successive administrations.
All Business Units within the Home Department have a responsibility to keep official hospitality costs as low as possible and demonstrate good value for money.
Details of ministerial and senior official hospitality are published on a quarterly basis and are available on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many stalking protection orders were issued in each of the last five years; and what proportion of stalking cases reported to the police resulted in a stalking protection order in each of those years.
Answered by Sarah Dines
Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs) were introduced on 20 January 2020 to protect victims of stalking at the earliest possible opportunity and address the perpetrator’s behaviours before they become entrenched or escalate in severity, by placing restrictions and requirements on those perpetrating stalking behaviours.
From February 2020 to December 2020, 413 Stalking Protection Orders (245 interim and 168 full orders) were issued in England and Wales. From January 2021 to December 2021, 583 (330 interim and 253 full orders) were issued in England and Wales. These statistics can be found here: Management information: Stalking Protection Orders - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), alongside a review which the Home Office conducted of how SPOs operated during their first 12 months. We aim to publish data on Stalking Protection Orders for 2022 and 2023 in due course.
Data is not available on the proportion of stalking cases reported to the police which resulted in a Stalking Protection Order.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many email enquiries from hon. Members are awaiting a response from the Passport Office as of 6 January 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office does not have the information requested.
Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest quarter available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q3-2022.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department spent on taxi cabs for (a) ministers and (b) civil servants in each of the last three years.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
Determining the amount spent on taxi cabs in the last three years is not readily available from our management systems. This is because the cost information is not held in an easily identifiable format.
Firstly, the Home Office does not have separate codes or fields for Ministers’ and Officials’ travel in our management systems. To identify ministers costs separately would require a manual review of all relevant records held by our travel provider over a three year time period.
Secondly, many taxi journeys are also reimbursed via a manual expenses process. The information required to identify civil servant taxi claims is not easily distinguishable within the central financial system and a manual review of all these records would also be required.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department spent on first class train travel for (a) ministers and (b) civil servants in (i) 2020, (i) 2021 and (iii) 2022.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Shadow Minister (Home Office) (Security)
The Home Office does not hold the information in the format requested.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department has spent on (a) agency workers and (b) agency retainer fees in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021 and (iii) 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Agency workers, more commonly referred to as contingent labour or temporary workers, are subject to a Cabinet Office controls framework to ensure robust governance of spending in this area. See:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contingent-labour-spend-control
The Home Office does hold information on contingent labour spending and reports this in the Annual Report and Accounts by financial year (April to March).
You can refer to the links and pages below for the available published information that relates to contingent labour costs:
Pages 107-108 of the 2021-22 Home Office Annual Report and Accounts
Home_Office_ARA_21-22_Final_-_Gov.uk.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Pages 99-101 of the 2020-21 Home Office Annual Report and Accounts
HO annual report and accounts 2020-21 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Pages 88-89 of the 2019-20 Home Office Annual Report and Accounts
Home Office annual report and accounts 2019 - 2020 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
We have interpreted your reference to agency retainer fees as the fees charged at the commencement of the provision of a search recruitment service; this is only applicable when recruiting for a permanent or fixed term post.
Agency retainer fees are not applicable to the contingent labour market. The Home Office does not pay agency retainer fees.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much their Department has spent on air travel for (a) Ministers and (b) officials in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021 and (iii) 2022.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Home Office does not hold the information in the format requested. This is because we do not have separate codes or fields for Ministers’ and Officials’ travel in our management systems.
However the Home Office does report expenditure on total official business travel (including domestic air travel) and domestic air travel separately in the Annual Report and Accounts, which includes both Ministers and Officials.
Please refer to page 53 of the 2021-22 Annual Report and Accounts.
Home_Office_ARA_21-22_Final_-_Gov.uk.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much their Department and its associated agencies spent on legal disputes in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Department has interpreted a “legal dispute” to be a claim brought in a tribunal or court, either against or by the department. Spending on legal disputes can include a range of costs, including fees for external representation before a court or supporting the preparation of the litigation.
The Department does not keep a central record of all of its spend on legal disputes and neither does it keep a record of such spending by its associated agencies. Accordingly, the Department considers the disproportionate cost threshold applies for the collection of this additional information.
However, where the Department is represented by the Government Legal Department in legal proceedings before most Courts and Tribunals in England and Wales, it does have a record of the charges levied on it for those costs. These figures take into account:
(a) that they are charges levied by the Government Legal Department for representing the Department in legal disputes during the relevant periods whenever the legal dispute may have arisen;
(b) That the charges can be subject to retrospective changes;
(c) The figures are inclusive of Value Added Tax where this is payable;
(d) The figures do not include sums awarded in costs against the Department or sums awarded to the Department as a result of legal disputes.
2020 - £35,616,827
2021 - £37,286,712
2022 (for the period 1 January – 30 June) - £18,634,689
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Normanton and Hemsworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department spent on advertising in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Home Office does not publish the information sought to the level of granularity required and identifying spending on advertising specifically from our management systems can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.