Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the recommendations in the report by the Traveller Movement entitled Fair Sentencing for Romani (Gypsy), Roma and Irish Traveller People, published in December 2023.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

HMPPS has been working closely with The Traveller Movement since the publication of ‘Pre-Sentencing Report Toolkit Fair Sentencing for Romani (Gypsy), Roma and Irish Traveller People’.

We are working through the report together to see how the some of the findings can better support our work.

As part of the HMPPS Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) Strategy, an Aide Memoir: ‘Preparing pre-sentence reports for ethnic minority people’ was published in December 2023, giving specific guidance and information regarding GRT community members. We will add to this as appropriate through the above-mentioned collaboration. We will also carefully consider the findings of the report regarding future policy reviews and updates.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had recent discussions with representatives of the live music industry on introducing a ticket levy on large scale music arenas to support grassroots live music.

Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The Government is committed to supporting our grassroots music venues, which play an absolutely crucial role in our world-leading music sector and developing homegrown talent.

That is why we are supporting live music through a range of measures. This includes an additional £5 million to Arts Council England’s (ACE’s) successful Supporting Grassroots Music fund, as set out in the Creative Industries Sector Vision in June. This expands and extends ACE’s existing grassroots fund, and takes our total investment in grassroots music through the fund to almost £15 million since 2019. This fund will enable venues to increase support for young and emerging artists, improve equipment and physical infrastructure, and support venues to become more financially resilient and develop new income streams.

This is in addition to other Government support including the Culture Recovery Fund, which provided over £200m of support for live music venues, the £800m Live Events Reinsurance Scheme, alongside the cross-sector grants, loans, and reduction of VAT on tickets to 5%. Further, over £3 million was provided during the pandemic from the Emergency Grassroots Music Venues Fund.

Music venues are also eligible for the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Business Rates Relief, with a 75% relief up to a cash cap limit of £110,000 per business. This relief was extended for a further year during the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. DCMS and DLUHC are also working closely with the sector to revise planning guidelines to ensure that new developments engage with existing music venues before being built.

Industry-led discussions are ongoing regarding increased support for grassroots music venues from larger events and venues, and DCMS actively supports these sector-led initiatives. Ministers and officials continue to engage with industry to understand the challenges and review opportunities to strengthen the financial resilience of the grassroots music sector.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will take steps to provide urgent support to grassroots music venues at risk of closure in the context of increased costs.

Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The Government is committed to supporting our grassroots music venues, which play an absolutely crucial role in our world-leading music sector and developing homegrown talent.

That is why we are supporting live music through a range of measures. This includes an additional £5 million to Arts Council England’s (ACE’s) successful Supporting Grassroots Music fund, as set out in the Creative Industries Sector Vision in June. This expands and extends ACE’s existing grassroots fund, and takes our total investment in grassroots music through the fund to almost £15 million since 2019. This fund will enable venues to increase support for young and emerging artists, improve equipment and physical infrastructure, and support venues to become more financially resilient and develop new income streams.

This is in addition to other Government support including the Culture Recovery Fund, which provided over £200m of support for live music venues, the £800m Live Events Reinsurance Scheme, alongside the cross-sector grants, loans, and reduction of VAT on tickets to 5%. Further, over £3 million was provided during the pandemic from the Emergency Grassroots Music Venues Fund.

Music venues are also eligible for the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Business Rates Relief, with a 75% relief up to a cash cap limit of £110,000 per business. This relief was extended for a further year during the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. DCMS and DLUHC are also working closely with the sector to revise planning guidelines to ensure that new developments engage with existing music venues before being built.

Industry-led discussions are ongoing regarding increased support for grassroots music venues from larger events and venues, and DCMS actively supports these sector-led initiatives. Ministers and officials continue to engage with industry to understand the challenges and review opportunities to strengthen the financial resilience of the grassroots music sector.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to rectify the misidentification of individuals by the Home Office Person Centric Data Platform.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The Person Centric Data Platform (PCDP) holds millions of identities that have been submitted or otherwise provided in support of immigration applications. Individuals have not been ‘misidentified’ by the PCDP. Rather, the Home Office has for some time been aware of issues around ‘merged identity’ - where a single ‘identity island’ has been formed with data belonging to two or more individuals.

The ‘merged identities’ issue affects around 0.02% of PCDP customer records - over 99.98% of records are not impacted by this issue. We have identified around 46,000 records with an identity issue, of which over 13,000 have already been resolved and we have a dedicated team working on the remainder.

The Home Office takes data security and accuracy very seriously. We continue detailed analysis to identify erroneous PCDP records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible.

Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre to enable this to be investigated and resolved.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate he has made of the number of individuals misidentified by the Home Office Person Centric Data Platform in the last 12 months.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The Person Centric Data Platform (PCDP) holds millions of identities that have been submitted or otherwise provided in support of immigration applications. Individuals have not been ‘misidentified’ by the PCDP. Rather, the Home Office has for some time been aware of issues around ‘merged identity’ - where a single ‘identity island’ has been formed with data belonging to two or more individuals.

The ‘merged identities’ issue affects around 0.02% of PCDP customer records - over 99.98% of records are not impacted by this issue. We have identified around 46,000 records with an identity issue, of which over 13,000 have already been resolved and we have a dedicated team working on the remainder.

The Home Office takes data security and accuracy very seriously. We continue detailed analysis to identify erroneous PCDP records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible.

Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre to enable this to be investigated and resolved.

Found: Stevenson MP (Conservative, Wolverhampton North East ) Giles Watling MP (Conservative, Clacton ) Kevin

Found: _3 Kevin Brennan Clause 6, page 7, line 36, at end insert— “(ga) the offence is— (i) any sexual

Found: _3 Kevin Brennan Clause 6, page 7, line 36, at end insert— “(ga) the offence is— (i) any sexual

Found: _3 Kevin Brennan Clause 6, page 7, line 36, at end insert— “(ga) the offence is— (i) any sexual