Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time was for asylum applications in the latest period for which data is available; and what steps her Department plans to take to reduce the time taken to process asylum applications.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Available data on processing of asylum claims is published in table ASY_01 of the ‘Immigration and Protection data’. The latest data is as of 31 March 2025.
The Home Office continues to invest in a programme of transformation and business improvement, to speed up decision making and improve the quality and consistency of our work.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding has been allocated to tackle Serious Organised Crime for police forces in (a) Lancashire, (b) Cumbria, and (c) Greater Manchester in (a) this financial year and (b) the 2026-27 financial year.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
In 2025-26, the Home Office are providing c.£1 billion to the National Crime Agency to tackle Serious and Organised Crime.
The Home Office does not allocate Serious and Organised Crime (SOC) specific funding to local police forces as setting annual budgets is the responsibility of chief constables and directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many claims for compensation have been made under the Windrush Scheme from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Information on the number of people who have received documentation confirming their status and the number of people who have been granted British citizenship under the Windrush Scheme is published as part of the quarterly Transparency Data release. The latest published data, covering the period up to the end of Quarter 1 2025, is available here: Windrush Status Scheme data: Q1 2025.
Information on the number of claims received by the Windrush Compensation Scheme is published as part of the monthly Transparency Data release. The latest published data, covering the period up to the end of May 2025, is available here: Windrush Compensation Scheme data: May 2025 - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people received documentation confirming (a) their status and (b) British Citizenship under the Windrush Scheme between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Information on the number of people who have received documentation confirming their status and the number of people who have been granted British citizenship under the Windrush Scheme is published as part of the quarterly Transparency Data release. The latest published data, covering the period up to the end of Quarter 1 2025, is available here: Windrush Status Scheme data: Q1 2025.
Information on the number of claims received by the Windrush Compensation Scheme is published as part of the monthly Transparency Data release. The latest published data, covering the period up to the end of May 2025, is available here: Windrush Compensation Scheme data: May 2025 - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding has been allocated to the police to help tackle hate crimes against people from the LGBQT+ community in (a) Lancashire, (b) Cumbria and (c) Greater Manchester.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is also committed to giving police the resources they need to tackle crime. That is why the Chancellor has announced a real terms increase in police spending power over the next three years. This builds on the 25/26 police funding settlement, which provides funding of up to £19.6 billion for the policing system in England and Wales and includes an additional £200 million to kickstart the first phase of putting 13,000 additional police officers and personnel into neighbourhood policing roles. As usual, more detail on force funding allocations will be set out at the provisional police settlement.
It is for Chief Constables and directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners to make operational decisions, including how to allocate resources based on their local knowledge and experience.
We currently fund an online reporting portal to ensure victims do not have to visit a police station to report any hate crime they experience, and we also fund a National Hub which provides expert advice to police forces across the country on what they can do to tackle the increasing levels of online hate crime.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people in (a) England, (b) the North West, (c) Lancashire and (d) Preston have been (i) awarded and (ii) denied compensation from the Windrush Compensation Scheme.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Information on the number of Windrush Compensation Scheme claims that have received a compensation payment and that have received a zero entitlement decision is published as part of the Transparency Data release. The latest published data, covering the period up to the end of February 2024, is available here: Windrush Compensation Scheme data: February 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The Windrush Compensation Scheme does not publish regional data about compensation awards and zero-entitlement decisions.
A zero entitlement claim is one where the person making the claim meets the eligibility criteria under the scheme rules, but is not entitled to any compensation as we have not been able to identify any losses or impacts suffered as a result of an inability to demonstrate lawful status.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to reduce levels of drug offences in (a) Preston and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Reducing drug-related crime is a key priority of the Government’s 10-year drugs strategy.
We are making good progress. Since April 2022 we have closed over 2,500 county lines and delivered over 6,000 major and moderate organised crime group disruptions.
We are also investing £532m into drug treatment which reduces crime and reoffending. There are now 24,500 more people in treatment across England, including increases in Lancashire.
We are targeting treatment referrals at offenders. The percentage of prison leavers continuing treatment after release has also risen to a record high of 52% - an increase of 10% in the last 12 months.
We are working with the National Police Chiefs Council to increase police referrals into drug treatment, as well as expanding Drug Testing on Arrest to identify those who use drugs. This builds on £2.1 million funding to deliver Project ADDER – a co-ordinated approach across policing and treatment to crack down on supply and support people tackle their addiction – in 13 hard hit areas including Lancashire.
The government has asked every area in England to form a Combating Drugs Partnership (CDP) to work together to reduce drug-related harm and crime. Preston is covered by the Lancashire CDP, and the Government has supported the establishment of the Pan Lancashire Drugs and Alcohol Alliance, to help coordinate work across Lancashire’s three CDPs.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help ensure that anti-social behaviour is investigated in (a) Preston and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The investigation of anti-social behaviour in Lancashire is a matter for the Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire.
Last year the Government launched the Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/anti-social-behaviour-action-plan) ensuring the police, local authorities and other relevant agencies have the tools they need to tackle anti-social behaviour.
The Plan is backed by £160m of funding. This includes funding an increased police and other uniformed presence to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, targeting hotspots. Initially we worked with 10 police force areas, including Lancashire Constabulary which received £1,050,000. From April this has been extended to every police force in England and Wales and Lancashire will receive £ 1,713,512 for the hotspot programme tackling areas of high incidents of both ASB and serious violence.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will (a) make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of crime levels in (i) Preston and (ii) Lancashire and (b) take steps to develop a plan to reduce bicycle theft in those areas.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
This Government recognises the impact acquisitive crime can have on individuals and communities. The 2021 Beating Crime Plan, sets out the Government’s strategy for cutting crime, protecting the law-abiding majority and making neighbourhoods safe. The plan can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1015382/Crime-plan-v10.pdf.
Since 2010, overall crime excluding fraud and computer misuse is down by 55%, and we welcome the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales data, which shows that bicycle theft is also down 55% when comparing findings from the year ending September 2023 with the year ending March 2010.
A key part of making acquisitive crime less attractive to criminals is making stolen goods harder to sell on. That is why we are working closely with policing and academic leads to examine what more can be done to tackle the disposal markets for stolen goods and reduce the profit from acquisitive crime.
This Government also established the Safer Streets Fund. Since its inception in 2020, we have invested over £150 million to deliver interventions across England and Wales helping to tackle and prevent violence against women and girls, anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood crime. This includes investing just over £3.4 million in Lancashire, funding a range of initiatives such as CCTV and street lighting, improvements to home security measures and youth engagement and educational programmes.
The Home Office is working closely with the British Transport Police (BTP), the national lead for cycle theft, to tackle the theft of bicycles. The BTP has launched the ‘double lock it’ campaign with police forces and organisations, providing advice to owners on how to protect their bicycles: https://www.btp.police.uk/police-forces/british-transport-police/areas/campaigns/double-lock-it/.
The Department for Transport’s (DfT) Cycling and Walking Plan for England, also sets out initiatives to combat cycle theft, including encouraging retailers to number the bicycles they sell and offer customers the opportunity to register their bicycle on a database at the point of sale. The Plan is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-plan-for-england.
The BTP-led National Cycle Crime Group, working with DfT, have set up Cycle Crime Reduction Partnerships across the country to coordinate regional enforcement activity to disrupt organised cycle theft.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle violence and sexual offences in Preston.
Answered by Laura Farris
As part of steps taken through our Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, we are tackling perpetrators and supporting victims.
We have provided funding to the Lancashire PCC to roll out the Drive Project, which focuses on the most serious domestic abuse offenders to prevent them from abusing again, and funded Preston based Saraha to provide bilingual, comprehensive, face-to-face support service for women from black and minority ethnic backgrounds who are victims of domestic abuse.
Nationally, we have invested £9.4 million to develop a New Operation Model for the investigation of rape through Operation Soteria. This ensures investigations are suspect based. All police forces in England and Wales are now implementing this new approach to rape investigations and we have provided £8.5m in 2023/24 to continue to support policing to improve their response to rape.
Through the Safer Streets and Safety of Women at Night Funds, we have invested over £150 million to deliver interventions to tackle violence against women, anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood crime.
This includes just over £3.4m for Lancashire, of which £146,568 has been awarded to Preston City Council to fund interventions such as the installation of CCTV, the deployment of taxi stewards and night-time economy sector training, along with improvements to accommodation for services assisting women at risk and recovery services for victims of sexual violence.
Since 2019, the Home Office has provided over £8m for a Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in Lancashire. VRUs bring together local partners to understand and tackle the drivers of serious violence in their area, including sexual abuse and domestic abuse.