Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of trends in levels of Islamic extremism in the UK.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, provides a comprehensive framework for tackling all forms of terrorism and is kept under constant review to ensure our approach remains fit for purpose in response to emerging risks and challenges.
As outlined in the publication of the most recent iteration of CONTEST, in July 2023, the primary domestic terrorist threat comes from Islamist terrorism, which accounts for about three quarters of MI5 caseload.
The threat we see today and in the coming years is more diverse, dynamic and complex. This includes a domestic threat which is less predictable and harder to detect. This is combined with an evolving threat from Islamist terrorist groups overseas, and an operating environment where accelerating advances in technology provide both opportunity and risk to our counter-terrorism efforts.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to close migrant hotels.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
At its peak under the previous government, around 400 hotels were used to accommodate asylum seekers – costing £9 million per day. That figure is now under 200 - the government remains committed no longer using hotels to accommodate asylum seekers by the end of this Parliament.
Hotel closures are prioritised based on a wide range of criteria. The hotel exit plan will continue to be carefully managed to ensure that all supported asylum seekers are accommodated in suitable alternative accommodation, including large sites, elsewhere in the estate.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many migrant hotels have been closed in the last year.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
At its peak under the previous government, around 400 hotels were used to accommodate asylum seekers – costing £9 million per day. That figure is now under 200 - the government remains committed no longer using hotels to accommodate asylum seekers by the end of this Parliament.
Data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation, including hotels, and by local authority can be found within the Asy_D11 tab for our most recent statistics release: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many individual properties are being used as dispersal accommodation for asylum seekers.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on the number of asylum seekers at a regional and local level. The department does not publish data at a property level, but at a person level.
The latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of supported asylum seekers. These statistics can be found at: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her department are taking to increase visible policing on streets.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee ensures that every neighbourhood has named, contactable officers and that communities are now benefitting from more visible patrols, and stronger engagement.
Additionally, as part of the Guarantee, 3,000 additional officers and PCSOs will be deployed to neighbourhood policing teams across England and Wales by March 2026.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to make (a) streets and (b) communities safer for women and girls.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a top priority for this Government with a manifesto mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. We will deliver a cross-government transformative approach, underpinned by a new strategy which we aim to publish as soon as possible.
In advance of the strategy, we have already introduced measures designed to strengthen the police response to VAWG, protect victims and hold perpetrators to account.
These include: funding to rollout Drive Project, a proven intervention for high-risk and high-harm domestic abuse perpetrators across England and Wales; embedding the first domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms in five police forces; measures to tackle spiking to strengthen the law and improve the response victims receive, including committing to introducing a new criminal offence for spiking and piloting new spiking training for bar staff; measures focusing on preventing and tackling ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA), developing a statutory definition for HBA, community engagement campaigns, enhanced training and funding for support services; six measures to tackle stalking including statutory guidance to empower the police to release the identities of online stalkers to protect victims, and a review of the stalking legislation to ensure it is fit for purpose; and launching the new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders in selected police forces and courts which go further than any existing orders.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing stronger penalties for antisocial nuisance bikers.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling anti-social behaviour is a top priority for the Government, and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission. We are giving police the powers they need to tackle anti-social driving in both rural and urban areas so that they will be able to more easily seize these vehicles from offenders and dispose of them.
The Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, will enhance police powers to seize nuisance vehicles which are used in an anti-social manner by removing the requirement to first give a warning to the offender and allow police to put an immediate stop to offending.
The Government has also recently consulted on proposals to allow the police to more quickly dispose of seized vehicles which have been used anti-socially. The consultation closed on 8 July and the Government response will be published in due course.
Combined, these proposals will help tackle the scourge of vehicles ridden anti-socially by sending a clear message to would-be offenders and local communities that this behaviour will not be tolerated.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to give the police more powers to deal with antisocial nuisance bikers.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling anti-social behaviour is a top priority for the Government, and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission. We are giving police the powers they need to tackle anti-social driving in both rural and urban areas so that they will be able to more easily seize these vehicles from offenders and dispose of them.
The Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, will enhance police powers to seize nuisance vehicles which are used in an anti-social manner by removing the requirement to first give a warning to the offender and allow police to put an immediate stop to offending.
The Government has also recently consulted on proposals to allow the police to more quickly dispose of seized vehicles which have been used anti-socially. The consultation closed on 8 July and the Government response will be published in due course.
Combined, these proposals will help tackle the scourge of vehicles ridden anti-socially by sending a clear message to would-be offenders and local communities that this behaviour will not be tolerated.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to increase police recruitment.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
For 2025/26, we are providing a total of up to £376.8 million specifically to support officer headcount levels as set out in the Police Funding Settlement. This includes £270.1m which is administered through a ringfenced grant. Police and Crime Commissioners will be able to access this ringfenced funding by demonstrating that they have met their officer headcount targets.
In addition, we have made £200 million available in FY 2025/26 to support the first steps towards delivering 13,000 more neighbourhood policing personnel across England and Wales by the end of this parliament, including up to 3,000 additional neighbourhood officers by the end of March 2026.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of victims reporting spiking to the police.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Spiking is an abhorrent crime and illegal in any form, whether through food or drink, vape, or needle. It can affect anyone, at any time and in any setting, regardless of gender, sexuality or age.
Between January 2021 and June 2023, the police received 19,347 reports of spiking. However, it is important to note that the principal offence rule prioritises recording the most serious offence, which means cases of spiking linked to other offences are captured under that substantive category rather than separately in central data.
Additionally, we assess that spiking crimes are underreported for a range of reasons, including embarrassment, lack of trust in the police or assumption that the police could not help or would not believe victims. To help overcome this and encourage more suspected victims of spiking to come forward, including anonymously if they so wish, the Police have launched an online reporting tool, available on police.uk.
The government is enhancing how the police record and report spiking crimes. From April 2026, spiking will be part of the Police’s Annual Data Requirement which will improve both the quality and quantity of data, as well as the frequency of reporting.
The Home Office will also look to utilise the National Data Quality Improvement Service (NDQIS), a computer-assisted classification tool, to greatly improve the analysis of the data it receives. NDQIS will have a range of benefits including being able to identify crimes which were facilitated by spiking, such as rape or sexual assault. We expect this to give us a better understanding of the scale of spiking and its use in enabling other crimes.
Tackling spiking is a government priority. We are implementing a comprehensive set of actions to strengthen awareness, prevention and detection, enhance support for victims and ensure perpetrators are brought to justice, including: