Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, by which date applicants to the Windrush Compensation Scheme will have received their final decision letter.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
We cannot provide a specific timeframe by when claimants will receive their final decisions.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to publish the Government's response to the Firearms Safety Consultation.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government recognises the interest generated by the firearms safety consultation which ran from 24 November 2020 to16 February 2021. The public consultation sought views on a number of proposals on firearms safety issues and received over 12,000 responses. The Government will publish a response to the consultation following a full and careful consideration of the responses we received.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what additional resources she plans to allocate to law enforcement agencies to ensure effective action against people perpetrating online fraud.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Government is aware fraudsters are exploiting the pandemic to commit opportunistic crimes such as fraud. We are regularly monitoring the number of cases being reported to the police and these – at present- remain very low.
Despite a difficult fiscal backdrop, as part of the 2020 Spending Review, the Government committed a further £63m to the Home Office to tackle economic crime, including fraud. This is in addition to funding the Home Office commits each year to the National Crime Agency, National Economic Crime Centre and police forces, including the City of London Police as the national lead force for fraud and the operator of the Action Fraud and National Fraud Intelligence Bureau services.
Our efforts to tackle online scams have been ramping up, including working with the National Cyber Security Centre to establish a new Suspicious Email Reporting Service which was launched in April 2020. This service allows the public to report potential scams safely and effectively. As of 28 February 2021, the number of reports received stand at more than 5,000,000 with the removal of more than 36,000 scams and 71,000 URLs.
The best way to deal with these scams is for the public to be well-informed on how to protect themselves. We have launched a gov.uk page containing easy-to-follow steps for people to spot potential frauds and the steps they can take to avoid them. It also signposts advice and support to those who may unfortunately have fallen victim. This page can currently be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-fraud-and-cyber-crime.
We continue to encourage anyone who has been a targeted by a scam to report it. Action Fraud is the central police reporting point for all victims of fraud and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/reporting-fraud-and-cyber-crime
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of online fraud during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Government is aware fraudsters are exploiting the pandemic to commit opportunistic crimes such as fraud. We are regularly monitoring the number of cases being reported to the police and these – at present- remain very low.
Despite a difficult fiscal backdrop, as part of the 2020 Spending Review, the Government committed a further £63m to the Home Office to tackle economic crime, including fraud. This is in addition to funding the Home Office commits each year to the National Crime Agency, National Economic Crime Centre and police forces, including the City of London Police as the national lead force for fraud and the operator of the Action Fraud and National Fraud Intelligence Bureau services.
Our efforts to tackle online scams have been ramping up, including working with the National Cyber Security Centre to establish a new Suspicious Email Reporting Service which was launched in April 2020. This service allows the public to report potential scams safely and effectively. As of 28 February 2021, the number of reports received stand at more than 5,000,000 with the removal of more than 36,000 scams and 71,000 URLs.
The best way to deal with these scams is for the public to be well-informed on how to protect themselves. We have launched a gov.uk page containing easy-to-follow steps for people to spot potential frauds and the steps they can take to avoid them. It also signposts advice and support to those who may unfortunately have fallen victim. This page can currently be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-fraud-and-cyber-crime.
We continue to encourage anyone who has been a targeted by a scam to report it. Action Fraud is the central police reporting point for all victims of fraud and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/reporting-fraud-and-cyber-crime
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to publish the Government’s response to the Firearms Safety Consultation.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government conducted a review of air weapons regulation following the death of a child involving an air weapon. We invited views on the issue from a wide range of interested parties. As part of the review, the Government also looked at the arrangements that apply to the controls on air weapons in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but we did not solicit specific evidence in relation to the position in those administrations.
We published the outcomes of the review and sought views on our proposals for changes to the regulation of air weapons in the public consultation on firearms safety issues which ran from 24 November 2020 to 16 February 2021.
We will publish our formal response to the consultation, including in relation to air weapons controls in due course, following a full and careful consideration of the responses we received.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 8 February 2021 to Question 147915 on Airguns, if she will publish the evidence on controls on air weapons in Scotland and Northern Ireland that her Department considered as part of its review of air weapons.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government conducted a review of air weapons regulation following the death of a child involving an air weapon. We invited views on the issue from a wide range of interested parties. As part of the review, the Government also looked at the arrangements that apply to the controls on air weapons in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but we did not solicit specific evidence in relation to the position in those administrations.
We published the outcomes of the review and sought views on our proposals for changes to the regulation of air weapons in the public consultation on firearms safety issues which ran from 24 November 2020 to 16 February 2021.
We will publish our formal response to the consultation, including in relation to air weapons controls in due course, following a full and careful consideration of the responses we received.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason the Government conducted aspects of the Air Weapons Review in private.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government conducted a review of air weapons regulation following the death of a child involving an air weapon. We invited views on the issue from a wide range of interested parties. As part of the review, the Government also looked at the arrangements that apply to the controls on air weapons in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but we did not solicit specific evidence in relation to the position in those administrations.
We published the outcomes of the review and sought views on our proposals for changes to the regulation of air weapons in the public consultation on firearms safety issues which ran from 24 November 2020 to 16 February 2021.
We will publish our formal response to the consultation, including in relation to air weapons controls in due course, following a full and careful consideration of the responses we received.