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 (a) reports of, (b) charges for and (c) convictions for shoplifting in (i) Preston and (ii) England there were in each of the last three years for which figures are available.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the number of recorded offences for shoplifting and their investigative outcomes from police forces in England and Wales. These can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
Data for the Preston Community Safety Partnership Area and England can be found in the table below:
Number of recorded offences of shoplifting and charges, by calendar year:
Recorded Crimes | Charges | |||||
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Preston | 735 | 898 | 1,214 | 93 | 64 | 102 |
England* | 240,157 | 238,097 | 291,120 | 45,604 | 35,381 | 43,592 |
* - Figures for England exclude Devon & Cornwall and British Transport Police
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of convictions for the offence ’46 Theft from shops’ in the Outcomes by Offence data tool: December 2022, which can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2022
Information about the number of convictions by Community Safety Partnership (CSP) is not available. Police Force Area-level breakdowns are available in this tool, though note this will relate to the location of the convicting court which differ from where the offence took place.
The Home Office collects and publishes data on arrests made by police forces in England and Wales, these are available here:
However, these data are only collected and published at the broader offence level, for example 'theft offences', therefore more detailed breakdowns such as 'shoplifting' are not available.
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 (a) incidents of and (b) arrests for shoplifting were recorded in each police force across England in each of the last three years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the number of recorded offences for shoplifting and their investigative outcomes from police forces in England and Wales. These can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
Data for the Preston Community Safety Partnership Area and England can be found in the table below:
Number of recorded offences of shoplifting and charges, by calendar year:
Recorded Crimes | Charges | |||||
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Preston | 735 | 898 | 1,214 | 93 | 64 | 102 |
England* | 240,157 | 238,097 | 291,120 | 45,604 | 35,381 | 43,592 |
* - Figures for England exclude Devon & Cornwall and British Transport Police
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of convictions for the offence ’46 Theft from shops’ in the Outcomes by Offence data tool: December 2022, which can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2022
Information about the number of convictions by Community Safety Partnership (CSP) is not available. Police Force Area-level breakdowns are available in this tool, though note this will relate to the location of the convicting court which differ from where the offence took place.
The Home Office collects and publishes data on arrests made by police forces in England and Wales, these are available here:
However, these data are only collected and published at the broader offence level, for example 'theft offences', therefore more detailed breakdowns such as 'shoplifting' are not available.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has plans to introduce a policy similar to Homes for Ukraine scheme for individuals from (a) Afghanistan, (b) Syria, (c) Sundan and (d) Ethiopa.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The UK continues to welcome refugees through existing resettlement schemes which are global in scope, including the UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS), Community Sponsorship, the Mandate Resettlement Scheme and the Family Reunion Scheme. The UK has offered a place through these routes to just under 500,000 individuals since 2015.
Under these schemes, the UNHCR will refer refugees for resettlement after undertaking an assessment of people’s needs and vulnerabilities. The UK does not seek to influence which cases are referred by the UNHCR under these global schemes.
The Community Sponsorship Scheme is open to refugees of all nationalities under the UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS), or the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS). As such, there are currently no plans to establish any new sponsorship schemes specifically for individuals from Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan or Ethiopia.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to ensure the (a) monitoring of and (b) correct compensation for cancer among firefighters.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The health and safety of firefighters is of great importance. The Home Office will consider the recently published study that covers Scotland to understand its conclusions. It is for individual fire and rescue authorities, as employers with responsibility for health and wellbeing, to ensure that firefighters receive the appropriate equipment and training they need to safely respond to the wide range of incidents which they attend.
The “Fire and Rescue National Framework” also directs that all Fire and Rescue Authorities should have a people strategy which covers “health and safety, wellbeing, disabilities, and support (including mental health and physical support)”.
In addition, The National Fire Chiefs’ Council’s Health and Wellbeing lead has established a health and wellbeing board to drive positive change across the sector which focuses on prevention, early intervention and support for individuals. The Home Office will support these initiatives.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to ensure that children are given British citizenship when they are born outside the UK to British parents in same-sex couples.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
A child born overseas will acquire British citizenship automatically if one of their parents is a British citizen, able to pass on that status, and recognised as the legal parent in UK law. Where a child is not British automatically there are options to register the child as a British citizen.
The Department for Health and Social Care have asked the fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority, to start a consultation process about prioritising issues for reform in fertility law. This legislation covers who is a child’s parent in cases of assisted reproduction.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to bring forward legislative proposals to create the Protect Duty.
Answered by Suella Braverman
I would like to pay tribute to those [Figen Murray and Brendan Cox, amongst others] who have campaigned for this legislation. The foundational aspects of the Protect Duty, now to be known as Martyn’s Law, were detailed this morning in Written Ministerial Statements issued in both Houses.
It will keep people safe, by introducing proportionate new security requirements to ensure preparedness for, and protection from terrorist attacks.
This Government will introduce these measures to the House as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the potential number of small boats Channel crossings each year if the proposed asylum deal with France is implemented.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The department does not publish modelling of small boat arrivals. The new agreement is being implemented and builds on the work to date with the French which has seen 30,000 crossings prevented this year, nearly twice the number compared to this time last year, and marks a next step towards even deeper cooperation on tackling these crossings.
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 staff from her Department were assigned to processing visa applications for entry into the UK from nationals from (a) Afghanistan and (b) Ukraine, as of 10 March 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We are committed to ensuring our operational teams have the resources they need to run an efficient and effective system, and we actively monitor workflows to ensure sufficient resources are in place to meet demand, including from pressures relating to the situations in Afghanistan and Ukraine.
The Home Office, alongside the commercial provider operating our Visa Application Centres have surged staff across Europe to meet demand, so we can offer over 13,000 appointments to visa applicants. UKVI staff in the UK are working seven days a week to process applications, with personnel drawn from across its operations as needed.
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 staff in her Department are assigned to visa application centres in (a) France, (b) Poland, (c) Hungary, (d) Moldova, (e) Romania and (f) other overseas centres as of 10 March 2022; and if she will provide a breakdown of the number of staff assigned to each of those countries.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We are committed to ensuring our operational teams have the resources they need to run an efficient and effective system, and we actively monitor workflows to ensure sufficient resources are in place to meet demand, including from pressures relating to Ukraine.
The Home Office and the commercial provider operating our Visa Application Centres have surged staff across Europe to meet demand, where we can offer over 13,000 appointments to visa applicants. We review demand in individual locations regularly and flex resources to meet it as needed.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the long-term effects on children who did not apply to the EU settlement scheme before they turned 18.
Answered by Kevin Foster
In line with the Citizens’ Rights Agreements, there remains scope, indefinitely, for a person eligible for status under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) to make a late application to the scheme where there are reasonable grounds for their failure to meet the deadline applicable to them.
The Home Office published non-exhaustive guidance on 1 April 2021 on what
may constitute such reasonable grounds, to underpin a flexible and pragmatic
approach to considering late applications to the EUSS in light of the
circumstances of each case. The guidance refers, as an example of reasonable grounds, to where a parent, guardian or Local Authority has failed to apply on behalf of a child by the relevant deadline. The relevant guidance is now available at pages 32 to 50 here:
EU Settlement Scheme EU, other EEA, Swiss citizens and family members (publishing.service.gov.uk)
There are no plans to implement automatic enrolment to the EUSS for children under 18 who were born in the UK to parents from European Union member states. It is important all those eligible for the EUSS obtain the individual status under the scheme and the secure evidence of this which they will need to prove their rights in the UK for years to come, such a provision could also conflict with nationality law as a child born in the UK to an EU citizen will automatically be a British citizen if one of their parents was settled in the UK, for example by holding Settled Status under the EUSS, at the time of their birth.
In addition, a child of an EU citizen has an entitlement to registration as a British citizen if the parent becomes settled after the child’s birth. The Home Office also introduced Regulations earlier this year to ensure a specific group of children, born between the end of the grace period on 30 June 2021 and their parent being granted settled status under the EUSS, will automatically be a British citizen. However, the basic position described above is the same for all children born in the UK: we do not intend to create a separate route to British citizenship for the children of EU citizens.
The Home Office continues to work closely with Local Authorities to monitor their progress in making applications to the EUSS on behalf of looked after children and care leavers and to ensure the EUSS remains a high priority in their work with that group. The latest survey indicates that, as of 30 November 2021, for children for whom the Local Authority has parental responsibility, 96% of those identified as eligible for the EUSS had so far had an application to the scheme made for them by the Local Authority. The full survey can be found at:
To ensure information and assistance gets through to those who are hardest to reach, and no one is left behind, the Home Office has provided £25 million in grant funding through to 31 March 2022 to a network of 72 organisations across the UK, which includes local authorities and local government associations, working to help vulnerable people apply to the EUSS.