Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were (a) arrested and (b) charged for shoplifting offences in 2024.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes information on the number of shoplifting offences, and their investigative outcomes (including those resulting in charged/summons), on a quarterly basis. The latest information, to the year ending September 2024, were on published Thursday 30 January 2025 and can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of arrests made by police in England and Wales, broken down by offence group, on an annual basis. The latest data, covering the period to March 2024, is available here:
The data is collected by broader offence group, such as ‘Theft offences’.
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 increasing the length of prison sentences for violent shoplifting offences.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
In the last year of the previous government, shoplifting soared to a twenty-year high, with more and more offenders using violence and abuse . We will not stand for this.
Everybody has a right to feel safe at their place of work and this Government is committed to tackling retail crime.
That’s why we will introduce a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores. We will also end the effective immunity, introduced by the previous Government, granted to shop theft of goods of £200 and under. This will remove any perception that offenders will escape punishment
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase the number of students from low income backgrounds enrolled on university access programmes.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Access to higher education (HE) should be based on ability and attainment, not background. Opportunity should be available to all and it is the department’s aspiration that no groups are left behind.
Grants and loans are available for students to undertake access to HE courses, subject to eligibility. The Adult Skills Fund, previously the Adult Education Budget, fully funds or co-funds education and skills training up to and including level 3 for eligible adults aged 19 and above. Where grant-funded provision is not available, individuals can choose to access Advanced Learner Loans, which can support them to access a level 3 qualification.
The government also provides financial support through the Office for Students (OfS) to support student access and success, including for disadvantaged students. £301 million was provided for the 2024/25 academic year.
All HE providers registered with the OfS that intend to charge higher level tuition fees must also have an Access and Participation Plan approved by the OfS. Access and Participation Plans articulate how HE providers will improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented and disadvantaged groups, including how they will support greater access. In creating their plans, providers should consider the Equality of Opportunity Risk Register, which details 12 key sector risks across the student lifecycle and the student groups most likely to experience these, including students from low-income backgrounds.
There are already many excellent examples of activities to support access to HE that providers are delivering, but the department wants the sector to go further. We are calling on providers to play a stronger role in expanding access and improving outcomes for disadvantaged students, making sure that they are delivering robust and ambitious Access and Participation Plans.
By the summer, the department will set out its plan for HE reform and the part it expects HE providers to play in this.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the number of people referred to the Prevent programme more than once.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
Based on data provided to the Home Office by Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters (CTPHQ), it is estimated that between 2015 – 2025, circa 12% of all individuals on the Prevent Case Management database had multiple Prevent cases.
This data is an extract from a live database and as such is a snapshot in time. The Prevent Case Management database is used to record details of all referrals to Prevent and the subsequent outcomes.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people under the age of twenty five were referred to Prevent in each of the last ten years, broken down by sex.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes annual information on the number of referrals to Prevent, with the latest published figures being found here: Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme, April 2023 to March 2024.
Table 8 within the data tables accompanying this publication provides the number of referrals, number of cases discussed at a Channel Panel, and the number of cases adopted by Channel, broken down by age group and sex.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number of asylum seekers enrolled in university access programmes in each of the last five years.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The UK has a longstanding and proud tradition of providing a safe haven to those who have no choice but to leave their home country because of endangerment to their lives or to those of their families. Higher education (HE) student support is available to those recognised as refugees, as well as their spouses, civil partners and children who were family members on the date the refugee applied for asylum, provided they have been ordinarily, i.e. lawfully, resident in the UK and Islands (Channel Islands and Isle of Man) since being recognised by the government as a refugee and are ordinarily resident in England on the course start date. They are exempt from the three-year ordinary residence requirement.
Individuals seeking asylum are not entitled to student support in England whilst they are seeking asylum.
The department does not hold data on the number of asylum seekers that have started or are currently enrolled on an HE course at a UK HE provider in any of the last five years.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many asylum seekers have begun degree qualifications whilst waiting for leave to remain in the UK.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The UK has a longstanding and proud tradition of providing a safe haven to those who have no choice but to leave their home country because of endangerment to their lives or to those of their families. Higher education (HE) student support is available to those recognised as refugees, as well as their spouses, civil partners and children who were family members on the date the refugee applied for asylum, provided they have been ordinarily, i.e. lawfully, resident in the UK and Islands (Channel Islands and Isle of Man) since being recognised by the government as a refugee and are ordinarily resident in England on the course start date. They are exempt from the three-year ordinary residence requirement.
Individuals seeking asylum are not entitled to student support in England whilst they are seeking asylum.
The department does not hold data on the number of asylum seekers that have started or are currently enrolled on an HE course at a UK HE provider in any of the last five years.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to provide (a) educational and (b) training support to apprentices, in the context of of recent trends in the level of Level 7 funding.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to spreading opportunities and economic growth with the support of a strong skills system. The government is reforming the current apprenticeship offer to ensure that more young people can benefit from high quality training.
The new growth and skills offer will deliver greater flexibility for both learners and employers in England and will be aligned with the government’s industrial strategy, creating routes into good jobs in growing industries. As a first step, the department will be introducing new foundation apprenticeships for young people, as well as shorter duration apprenticeships, in targeted sectors. These flexibilities will provide high quality entry pathways for young people, help more people learn new high quality skills at work and fuel innovation in businesses across the country. The department will set out more detail in due course.
This government has an extremely challenging fiscal inheritance. There are tough choices that need to be taken on how funding should be prioritised in order to generate opportunities for young people that enable them to make a start in good, fulfilling careers. The government will therefore be asking more employers to step forward and fund a significant number of level 7 apprenticeships themselves. The department is taking advice from Skills England, who engaged with employers on funding for level 7 apprenticeships over the autumn, and the department expects to make a final decision on affected apprenticeships shortly. Learners who have started these apprenticeships will be funded through to completion.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to help (a) first-time buyers and (b) low-income families secure housing in Ashfield constituency.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The affordability challenges facing prospective first-time buyers mean that too many people are now locked out of homeownership.
The government is committed to delivering 1.5 million homes, including the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.
In addition to increasing the supply of homes of all tenures, we are committed to introducing a permanent, comprehensive mortgage guarantee scheme which will support first-time buyers in Ashfield and across the country who are struggling to save for a large deposit.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he has had discussions with veterans who were guarding the Qarmat Ali water treatment in Iraq in 2003 on their exposure to sodium dichromate.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
On 15 January I met with veterans who guarded the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant in Iraq in 2003. It was a positive meeting in which my priority was giving the veterans the space to be able to share their experiences and concerns.
I am committed to regularly engaging with veteran groups, and as a veteran myself, I would like to reassure you that the health and wellbeing of all our veterans is of the upmost importance. This Government is committed to renewing the nation’s contract with those who serve, who have served and their families.