Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luke Evans and Sarah Jones

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is right: a non-judgmental, victim-led approach is exactly what we need and that is what we are trying to drive through our response. We have established the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls to improve the police response to violence against women and girls, and the new trauma-informed first-line public protection programme is piloting in five forces this summer, equipping frontline officers with the skills to manage investigations and support victims.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

T5. The Home Secretary is boasting about the fact that hotel asylum seekers’ numbers are being reduced, but of course, they are being moved into houses in multiple occupation and the Government will not produce the figures of how many are going into HMOs. This means that places such as Hinckley and Bosworth are getting more HMOs. Will the Government commit to producing the data to show exactly where people are being moved from and to, so that we can see what is happening specifically around HMOs? That has not been released in the quarterly data, and I would be grateful for an answer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luke Evans and Sarah Jones

Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I am happy to take that question on board. I have spoken to the heads of all the violence reduction units across the country today, and it is clear that some of the most important work they can do is in partnership with other agencies and other bodies, whether in education, our youth services or others. We need to pull the resources we have together, use what works and follow the evidence.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

9. What steps she is taking to help reduce levels of bureaucracy for frontline police officers.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

The Government are committed to tackling bureaucracy and are investing tens of millions of pounds this year in technology to get officers on to the frontline. That includes working with police to reduce admin, using tools such as automated redaction and artificial intelligence, and deploying cutting-edge technology such as facial recognition and video response to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of policing.

[Dr Evans]

I recently met the chief constable of Leicestershire, and he explained some of the red tape that his force faces. Between April 2024 and March 2025,

it used 14,769 “use of force” forms. These are for when people go into handcuffs. Some 6,500 of those were for people who were complicit and were happy to be handcuffed. Each time that happens, it takes an average of 23 minutes to fill in one of those forms. If that could be taken away, it would save the force about £50,000. Will the Minister look at this, and will she meet me to discuss some of the other red tape that we could remove to make policing much more streamlined?

[Sarah Jones]

We need to ensure that the police are doing what we need them to be doing, and that they are out on the streets solving crime and not tied up in red tape. That is absolutely certain. The way to be tough on crime is to be smart on crime, and I am happy to look at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestions.