Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Bethell on 15 January (HL Deb, col 707), who in the Home Office decided that the historical backlog of criminal record convictions should not be passed on.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office is working to support ACRO to resolve the issue and find a technical fix which will be implemented as soon as possible.
Last year the UK sent over 30,000 conviction notifications to EU Member States and received over 16,000 from the EU.
This has led to many hundreds of criminals being brought to justice and ACRO are working urgently to resolve any outstanding alerts.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Bethell on 15 January (HL Deb, col 707), when partner agencies and governments in Europe were first notified of the problem with the Police National Computer.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office is working to support ACRO to resolve the issue and find a technical fix which will be implemented as soon as possible.
Last year the UK sent over 30,000 conviction notifications to EU Member States and received over 16,000 from the EU.
This has led to many hundreds of criminals being brought to justice and ACRO are working urgently to resolve any outstanding alerts.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Bethell on 15 January (HL Deb, col 707), when the Home Office was notified of the problems with the Police National Computer.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office is working to support ACRO to resolve the issue and find a technical fix which will be implemented as soon as possible.
Last year the UK sent over 30,000 conviction notifications to EU Member States and received over 16,000 from the EU.
This has led to many hundreds of criminals being brought to justice and ACRO are working urgently to resolve any outstanding alerts.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Bethell on 15 January (HL Deb, col 707), when the Association of Chief Police Officers Records Office first become aware of the problem with the Police National Computer.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office is working to support ACRO to resolve the issue and find a technical fix which will be implemented as soon as possible.
Last year the UK sent over 30,000 conviction notifications to EU Member States and received over 16,000 from the EU.
This has led to many hundreds of criminals being brought to justice and ACRO are working urgently to resolve any outstanding alerts.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent online and digital fraud.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Government is working with industry to close down the vulnerabilities that fraudsters exploit. This is a shared endeavour between government, regulators, law enforcement and the private sector, with the Joint Fraud Taskforce (JFT) leading work to tackle the fraud threat collectively.
On 14 September new rules under the second Payment Services Directive, known as Strong Customer Authentication, came into effect. These rules set out how banks and payment services providers verify their customers' identity or validate specific payment instructions. These measures will strengthen the authentication of electronic payments and help to limit Card Not Present fraud. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have agreed to give firms up to 18 months to fully implement the Strong Customer Authentication rules.
The industry-led Confirmation of Payee scheme is due to be introduced in early 2020. This scheme will make it harder for fraudsters to trick victims into sending money by impersonating a legitimate organisation. The scheme will check that names on accounts match those of the intended recipient and provide the customer with a warning where it does not.
The National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) Active Cyber Defence (ACD) initiative aims to protect the UK from high-volume commodity attacks that affect people’s everyday lives. ACD seeks to protect people in the UK from the harm caused by online attacks. The NCSC has delivered advice and guidance to the UK economy and wider society, and tools like ACD are designed to stop many malicious emails and links from reaching their targets.
The Government continues to boost the law enforcement capabilities of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU), supported by dedicated funding for specialist cyber units in all 43 local forces.
The Government is also undertaking a Serious and Organised Crime (SOC) review led by Sir Craig Mackey QPM. The review will cover the powers, capabilities, governance and effectiveness of funding across the policing and law enforcement landscape, including the NCA and the wider justice system, and will make recommendations that should be delivered through the 2020 spending review to strengthen the SOC system.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to bring the law in respect of the treatment and care of modern slavery victims in England and Wales in line with the standards in force in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Government is committed to tackling the heinous crime of modern slavery; ensuring that victims are provided with the support they need to begin rebuilding their lives and that those responsible are prosecuted. In July 2018, the Government commissioned an independent review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, led by Frank Field MP, Maria Miller MP and Baroness Butler-Sloss to ensure our legislative framework remains truly world-leading. The Government welcomed the findings of the Independent Review and has accepted or partially accepted the majority of the Review’s recommendations.
The Government also recognises the importance of publishing statutory guidance to ensure that victims are provided with the support they need and deserve. We have made significant progress in developing statutory guidance for England and Wales under Section 49 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, setting out the indicators someone may be a victim of modern slavery, the support to which victims are entitled, and the process for determining whether someone is a victim. This will be published in the coming months.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to protect victims of abuse from being stalked through applications placed on their phones.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Stalking is an insidious crime that has a deep and significant impact on victims’ wellbeing. Both online and offline, perpetrators leave victims feeling constantly at risk and looking over their shoulder. This Government is committed to ensuring that victims are supported. In March this year the Stalking Protection Act obtained Royal Assent – it introduces Stalking Protection Orders, which will provide protection to people who are stalked online and by phone, as well as offline. The Home Office part-funds the National Stalking Helpline, operated by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which helps victims of all methods of stalking.
On 16 July we introduced our Domestic Abuse Bill which sets out our intention to transform the response to domestic abuse, including the risk of technology being used to perpetrate abuse. We published the Government Online Harms White Paper on 8 April which sets out our plans for world-leading legislation to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. This covers a broad range of online harms, including cyberstalking.
The Government has provided Refuge with £250,000 of funding through the Tampon Tax Fund to provide specialist nationwide support to staff and survivors who experience technologically facilitated abuse. We have also provided Northumbria PCC with £646,000 through the Home Office Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Service Transformation Fund for a project which includes work to tackle cyberstalking.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much foreign owned property is currently subject to asset freezing orders in the UK.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
7 unexplained wealth orders (UWOs) have been made on 3 cases, including one which was discharged and replaced by another.
6 interim freezing orders (IFOs) related to the UWOs have been made, covering a number of properties. The total estimated value of the IFOs is £140m. At this stage it is not possible to determine how much of this property is foreign owned.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many unexplained wealth orders have been issued since those orders were introduced.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
7 unexplained wealth orders (UWOs) have been made on 3 cases, including one which was discharged and replaced by another.
6 interim freezing orders (IFOs) related to the UWOs have been made, covering a number of properties. The total estimated value of the IFOs is £140m. At this stage it is not possible to determine how much of this property is foreign owned.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the research published by the Cooperative Group on 1 March that said that 18 per cent of the British public were unaware of modern slavery; and what plans they have to increase public awareness of modern slavery.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Tackling modern slavery remains a top priority for this Government. We are aware of the Cooperative Group’s research. We are committed to collabo-rating with business, civil society organisations and the public sector to im-prove the evidence about the nature and scale of modern slavery. We con-tinue to take action to raise awareness to encourage reporting and to prevent this crime from happening in the first place.
For example;
• In March 2019, the Home Office worked closely with the Cabinet Office to launch a targeted pilot communications campaign focusing on labour exploitation in the West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire. We are working with frontline professionals in the banking, healthcare and job centre sectors to im-prove how they spot the signs of modern slavery and encourage greater reporting.
• In January 2018, the National Crime Agency launched the Invisible People campaign, a touring photographic exhibition which portrayed the signs of slavery and exploitation to raise awareness across the country
• In 2018, we piloted a targeted, localised communications activity in Manchester, Barking and Dagenham focused on particular types of modern slavery. We worked with communities to co-create and pilot communications activity designed to help spot the signs of domestic servitude and encourage reporting
• Following the introduction of Anti-Slavery Day (18 October), in 2018 we launched a week long social media campaign to raise awareness of modern slavery across the UK.
• Border Force continue to work with port operators across the country to encourage display of anti-modern slavery messaging. This includes communications materials visible in all UK ports, such as Heathrow airport who collaborated with A21 to produce and display the ‘can you see me’ posters at its terminals. Border Force is also working with the NGO Unseen to ensure that information about the Modern Slavery Helpline is displayed at arrival points in the UK.
• Prosecutions for Modern Slavery continue to receive extensive media coverage which is increasing public awareness of these crimes. For example, the 2018 trial of British citizen Josephine Iyamu who was the first ever convicted cross border sex-trafficker under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, receiving an 18-year sentence. This highlights that any crimes relating to modern slavery, will not be tolerated.