Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure DBS applications for mental health volunteers working with prisoners are processed swiftly.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) operates to service standards of completing 80% of Basic check applications within 2 days, 80% of Standard check applications within 5 days, and 80% of Enhanced check applications within 14 days. DBS achieved these targets for 2021/22 and continues to do so for the current financial year.
The DBS cannot by law prioritise particular checks and does not provide a fast-track application service for any specific employment sector.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that all businesses trading in the UK conduct due diligence to eliminate child labour from their supply chains.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The landmark transparency provisions contained in section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 made the UK the first country in the world to require businesses with a turnover of £36m or more to report annually on the steps they have taken to prevent modern slavery, which includes child labour, in their operations and supply chains.
The provision seeks to create a race to the top by requiring businesses to be transparent and enable consumers, investors, civil society and others to scrutinise action and monitor progress. The Government has committed to strengthening the reporting requirements contained in section 54. This will require primary legislation and as announced in the Queen’s Speech, we intend to legislate in the forthcoming Modern Slavery Bill.
The Home Office’s statutory guidance to support organisations produce transparency statements recommends that statements should include the risk assessment and due diligence organisations undertook to prevent and tackle modern slavery.
In addition, the Government supports the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the international framework which sets out steps to guide business to do voluntary human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for, impacts on human rights.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will have discussions with officials in her Department on the potential merits of strengthening the clarity and enforceability of section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 through (a) mandating specific topics in annual self-reporting, (b) setting a single deadline, (c) introducing effective penalties and (d) making that data publicly available.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 established the UK as the first country in the world to require businesses to report annually on steps taken to prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.
The Government response to the Transparency in Supply Chains consultation, published on 22 September 2020, committed to taking forwards an ambitious package of measures to strengthen the Act’s transparency legislation, including:
In January 2021 the Government further committed to introduce financial penalties for organisations who fail to meet their statutory obligations to publish annual modern slavery statements. These measures require primary legislation and as announced in the Queen’s Speech, we intend to legislate in the forthcoming Modern Slavery Bill. The Home Office will engage with organisations so they are aware when the new reporting requirements will come into effect, so they have time to prepare. We will also publish new guidance to support organisations to meet the new requirements.
In March 2021, the Government launched the modern slavery statement registry to radically enhance transparency by bringing together modern slavery statements on a single platform and making the data readily available for the public. Since launch, over 8,350 modern slavery statements covering over 28,000 organisations have been submitted to the registry on a voluntary basis.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her timeframe is for publishing the findings of the review into potential gaps in the law in respect of public sexual harassment, as set out in the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy in July 2021.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
Sexual harassment in public places is an appalling practice, which this Government is committed to tackling. Women and girls have the right to both be and feel safe on our streets.
As set out in the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy, published last July, we have been looking carefully at where there may be gaps in existing law and how a specific offence for public sexual harassment could address those.
As a result of this work, last month we announced that by the summer recess we would launch a public consultation on whether there should be a new offence of public sexual harassment.
In the VAWG Strategy we also committed to non-legislative actions to help tackle this issue. Following this, in December the College of Policing published a new advice product for police officers, advising them about the preventative strategies and criminal offences which they can use to respond to reports of various different types of public sexual harassment, and the Crown Prosecution Service will soon be publishing an updated version of its legal guidance on public order offences, to include specific material on public sexual harassment.
In addition, on 1 March the Home Office launched the ‘Enough’ communications campaign, which seeks to change public attitudes and tolerance towards crimes such as public sexual harassment and help create an atmosphere in which women and girls can report such crimes to the police with confidence.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish the numbers of visas (a) applied for and (b) granted for (i) HGV and (ii) poultry workers given that the application windows for those worker visas closed on 2 December 2021 and 16 November 2021 respectively.
Answered by Kevin Foster
I refer the Honourable Member to the response given in another place to Lord Berkeley on 30 November, UIN HL3979.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many of the 5,000 temporary visas for overseas heavy goods vehicle drivers made available in September 2021 have been issued to date.
Answered by Kevin Foster
I refer the Honourable Member to the response given in the other place to Lord Berkeley on 30 November 2021, UIN HL3979.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times police forces outside of London have responded to instances of dangerously parked vehicles since 22 November 2020.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office does not collect data on the number of times police forces have responded to instances of dangerously parked vehicles.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many licences are in operation that use the forced swim test for the screening of antidepressant drugs; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of withdrawing licences for operations that use the test for that purpose.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Data are not collected on numbers of project licences that include the forced swim test.
No assessment has been made as to the potential merits of withdrawing licences for operations that use the test for the purpose of screening antidepressant drugs.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with the Animals in Science Regulation Unit and other stakeholders on granting licences for the use of the forced swim test for screening of antidepressant drugs or as a model of human depression in response to the recommendations of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research, published 29 July 2021.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The Animals in Science Regulation Unit were involved in contributing to and reviewing the paper cited and it thus aligns to the regulatory approach taken by the Unit.
The Home Office through the Animals in Science Regulation Unit assures that, in every research proposal animals are replaced with non-animal alternatives wherever possible; the number of animals are reduced to the minimum necessary to achieve the result sought; and that, for those animals which must be used, procedures are refined as much as possible to minimise their suffering.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what (a) discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues and (b) representations she has received from businesses and trade organisations on the potential (i) merits of adding heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers to the shortage occupation list and (ii) effect on HGV driver shortages of so adding HGV drivers to the shortage occupation list.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Heavy Goods Vehicle drivers do not qualify for Skilled Worker visas therefore cannot be added to the Shortage Occupation List.
There is no plan to introduce a new temporary visa for this sector to address recruitment problems. Some Trade Unions have recently agreed the issues affecting the haulage sector would not be solved by offering temporary visas and should focus on making pay and conditions more attractive for the domestic labour market.
While the Home Office regularly engages with other Government Departments and stakeholders on departmental business, the Department for Transport is leading the Government’s work on what can be done to support the sector.