Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help prevent bicycle theft in Eastbourne constituency.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Bike theft has a significant impact on individuals and for too long, many victims have felt not enough was being done to prevent their bikes being stolen or track down the thieves responsible.
The Crime and Policing Bill, now at Committee Stage in the House of Lords, will amend the Theft Act 1968 to give police new powers. Officers will be able to enter and search premises where stolen items – such as GPS-tracked bicycles – are reasonably believed to have been stolen and located, and where it is not reasonably practicable to obtain a court warrant. This will significantly enhance the ability of the police to act swiftly and effectively in recovering stolen property.
Additionally, the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee will ensure that every community in England and Wales will have named and contactable officers dealing with local issues, and that neighbourhood teams spend the majority of their time in their communities providing visible patrols and engaging with local communities and businesses.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to increase funding for training in (a) Sussex Police and (b) other local police forces.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to ensuring police forces are supported to effectively tackle crime. That is why we have increased funding for policing in England and Wales by up to £1.2 billion this financial year. Sussex Police will receive up to £423 million in 2025-26. This is an increase of up to £28.5 million compared to the previous year.
Training standards and the national policing curriculum are set by the College of Policing. Forces provide local training and development at several different levels ranging from initial entry, leadership and ongoing development.
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Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many hate crime incidents were recorded in Eastbourne in the latest year for which data is available.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Home Office publishes official statistics on the number of hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales at the Police Force Area level.
Data for Sussex, for the year ending March 2024, can be found here: Hate crime, England and Wales, year ending March 2024 - GOV.UK
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle crime in (a) town centres and (b) Eastbourne town centre.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Creating Safer Town Centres is a top priority for this Government and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission. This Government wants town centres to be vibrant, welcoming places where businesses thrive and people feel safe to come to shop, socialise and live.
That is why this Government has awarded £66.3 million in Hotspot Action funding to all 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales in 2025/6.
The Hotspot Action Fund will increase visible uniformed patrols in town centres and other areas most impacted by knife crime, serious violence and anti-social behaviour. The Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner has been awarded £1,436,889 as part of this funding. It will be for the PCC to decide how that money is used across the force area, including Eastbourne.
This Government has additionally made £200m available to forces in 2025/26 to kickstart the delivery of our commitment to have 13,000 more neighbourhood officers across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. This investment will be used to enhance local policing capacity, with Sussex Police’s projected growth over 2025 to 2026 to be 43 police officers (FTE), and 21 Special Constables. We are delivering more police on our streets, tackling the crimes that blight our town centres.
The Safer Streets Summer initiative will run from 30 June to the end of September 2025. The primary goal is to prevent crime and disorder and increase meaningful and visible consequences for the minority who feel it is acceptable to cause this scourge on society.
Over 500 town centres and thousands of shops will benefit from increased police patrols and local action to tackle town centre crime and anti-social behaviour with the launch of the Government’s Safer Streets Summer Initiative across England and Wales. In Sussex, they will be focussing on over 20 locations as part of the initiative, including Eastbourne.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle drug-related crime in Eastbourne.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
To deliver on our pledge to halve knife crime in the next decade, it is crucial that we tackle the gangs that lure children and young people into crime and run county lines through violence and exploitation.
County Lines are the most violent model of drug supply and a harmful form of child criminal exploitation. Through the County Lines Programme, we will continue to target exploitative drug dealing gangs and break the organised crime groups behind the trade.
From July 2024 to March 2025, policing activity delivered through the County Lines Programme has resulted in more than 1,200 deal lines closed, 2,000 arrests (including the arrest and subsequent charge of over 800 deal line holders) and 2,100 safeguarding referrals of children and vulnerable people.
Through our County Lines Programme we are funding the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre (NCLCC), to monitor the intelligence picture and co-ordinate the national law enforcement response. We also have a dedicated fund to help local police forces, including Sussex Police, tackle the scourge of county lines.
In addition, as committed to in the Government’s manifesto, we are introducing a new offence of the criminal exploitation of children in the Crime and Policing Bill to go after the gangs who are luring young people into violence and crime. As part of this legislation, we are also delivering new civil preventative orders which will support the police and NCA to disrupt and prevent child criminal exploitation from occurring or re-occurring.
We are also going further in our response to wider criminal exploitation introducing a new offence of ‘cuckooing’ and have also introduced a new offence to tackle coerced internal concealment. These three new offences will all work to tackle the interconnected and exploitative practices often used by criminal gangs, especially in county lines.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle youth offending in Eastbourne.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In 2025/26 the Home Office is investing over £1.04m in grant funding to the Sussex Violence Reduction Unit, alongside £269k to continue the implementation of the Serious Violence Duty. This funding will support delivery of a range of early intervention and prevention programmes, which includes the continuation of a Focussed Deterrence intervention in East Sussex. This project is targeted at young people who carry knives and provides them with tailored multi-agency support to desist from violence, alongside enforcement measures.
We are also investing more than £43m in the County Lines Programme this financial year to target exploitative drug dealing gangs and break the organised crime groups behind the trade. Through our County Lines Programme, we are funding the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre to monitor the intelligence picture and co-ordinate the national law enforcement response. We also have a dedicated fund to help local police forces, including Sussex Police, tackle the scourge of county lines.
Going further, the Young Futures Programme is a key part of the Safer Streets Mission and will help deliver the Government’s target to halve knife crime over the next decade. Under this programme the Government will intervene earlier, to ensure Children and Young People (CYP) who are facing poorer outcomes and are vulnerable to being drawn into crime are identified and offered support in a more systematic way. The programme also aims to create more support and opportunities for them in their communities.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions her Department has had with Sussex Police on the adequacy of police response times in Eastbourne.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Chief Constables are responsible for determining the allocation of resources for operational policing and managing their response times, in line with the priorities set out by their Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) assesses the operational performance of forces in England and Wales. HMICFRS last published a Police Effectiveness Efficiency and Legitimacy inspection (PEEL) report for Sussex Police on 13 April 2023. Its next PEEL report is expected to be published shortly.
Katy Bourne, as the directly elected PCC for Sussex Police, is responsible for holding the Chief Constable of the force to account for its performance.
In November 2024, the Home Secretary announced the creation of a new Performance Framework and a Home Office performance unit to help deliver this ambition.
The new Police Performance Framework will help to ensure consistent collection and analysis of police performance data and enable greater Government oversight of performance to ensure that all forces are delivering the level of performance that the public expect of them.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help prevent (a) hate crime and (b) harassment towards people with hidden disabilities.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are clear that all hate crimes, including those targeting disability, are completely unacceptable. There must be zero tolerance for every form of hate crime in Britain and we back the police in taking strong action against the perpetrators of these appalling offences.
The Government funds an online hate crime reporting portal called True Vision, designed so victims of all types of hate crime do not have to visit a police station to report what has happened to them. We also continue to fund the National Online Hate Crime Hub which supports individual local police forces in dealing specifically with online hate crime.
The Equality Act 2010 provides strong protection from harassment for people who meet the Act's definition of disability, which can include hidden conditions. Protection from harassment related to a person's disability applies in a variety of settings such as employment and when accessing goods and services. A person who thinks they have been harassed may take their case to a court or an employment tribunal.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) the Government Actuary Department and (b) fire service pension providers have adequate tools to calculate pension entitlements for retired fire service workers.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Home Office works closely with the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) to ensure that all actuarial advice, guidance and tools provided to Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRAs) actively reflect changes to the firefighters’ pension schemes and regulations.
GAD, in partnership with the Home Office, support FRAs by providing appropriate actuarial guidance to pensions administrators, ensuring they have the means to accurately calculate pension entitlements for retired firefighters, where necessary.
While the Home Office has responsibility for overarching policy and legislative changes to the firefighters’ pension scheme regulations, the firefighters’ pension scheme is locally administered by each individual FRA.