Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officers West Mercia Police have recruited since 2018-19.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of joiners to the police service in England and Wales on an annual basis in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, available here: Police workforce England and Wales statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
These data show that West Mercia Police recruited a total of 622 full-time equivalent police officers between the financial years ending 31 March 2019 and 2021, excluding transfers.
While the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin remains the key measure of the size of the police workforce, as part of the Police Officer Uplift Programme, the Home Office also publishes a quarterly update on the number of officers (headcount) in England and Wales, including the number of new recruits. Data are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-officer-uplift-statistics
As at 30 September 2021 there were 2,329 officers in West Mercia Police. West Mercia Police has recruited 155 additional officers (headcount) out of an allocated total of 184 additional officers for years one and two of the uplift combined. Allocations for year 3 and the remaining 8,000 officers towards the 20,000 are yet to be confirmed.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure supermarket supply chains do not support modern slavery through third party suppliers.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires businesses, including supermarkets, with a turnover of £36m or more to report annually on the steps they have taken to prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.
The prevalence of modern slavery and complexity of global supply chains means that it is highly unlikely that any sector or company is immune from the risks of modern slavery. The Home Office’s statutory guidance on producing modern slavery statements suggests that statements should include the risk assessment and due diligence organisations undertook to prevent and tackle modern slavery. The Government encourages companies to report transparently about how they are identifying and mitigating modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains, and to use their modern slavery statements to demonstrate year on year progress.
To enhance the impact of transparency and accelerate action to prevent modern slavery, the Government announced an ambitious package of changes to strengthen the reporting requirements on businesses and has committed to introduce financial penalties for those that fail to meet their obligations to publish statements under section 54. To further enhance transparency, in March 2021, the Government launched a digital registry for modern slavery statements to make statements available in one place. The registry will make it easier for investors, consumers and civil society to scrutinise the action being taken by different organisations and monitor progress.
The Government is currently reviewing its Modern Slavery Strategy and will consider whether there are further opportunities to enhance our approach to transparency in supply chains.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
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 bringing forward legislative proposals to expand the powers of police community support officers to be able to impose fines for minor traffic violations.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Policing and Crime Act 2017 allows chief officers of police to designate their staff with powers they consider necessary in their force areas. It also enables chief officers to designate PCSOs directly with the necessary traffic powers that constables have to deal with low level motoring offences. How these powers are designated is an operational matter for chief officers in conjunction with local policing plans.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many drivers were summonsed for driving (a) without insurance and (b) without a valid MOT using evidence from ANPR technology in England and Wales in the latest 12 month period for which figures are available.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of vehicle insurance offences and vehicle test offences that resulted in court action.
The latest published data can be found in the accompanying table FPN_03 of ‘Police Powers and Procedures, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, which can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales
Information on whether or not evidence from ANPR technology was used to detect these offences is not collected by the Home Office.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officers in England and Wales were (a) cautioned, (b) reprimanded and (c) dismissed for being members of proscribed religious or political organisations in 2018-19.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects and publishes information annually on the outcome of misconduct proceedings and criminal investigations involving officers, including the number of officers that have been dismissed following proceedings. However, information on a) the number of police officers issued with a police caution and b) the circumstances that led to a case being brought is not collected centrally by the Home Office
The data on the outcomes following misconduct proceedings, which covers cases in the year ending March 2019, is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-30-september-2019.
The College of Policing publish data annually relating to those who have been dismissed from policing and placed on the Police Barred List. There are no categories specifically on extremist material or being members of proscribed organisations but, between April 2018 and March 2019, 17 officers were dismissed under the category of ‘notifiable association’. This data is available here:
https://www.college.police.uk/News/College-news/Documents/Barred_List_2019.pdf.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officers in England and Wales were (a) cautioned, (b) reprimanded and (c) dismissed for viewing political or religious extremist material online in 2018-19.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects and publishes information annually on the outcome of misconduct proceedings and criminal investigations involving officers, including the number of officers that have been dismissed following proceedings. However, information on a) the number of police officers issued with a police caution and b) the circumstances that led to a case being brought is not collected centrally by the Home Office
The data on the outcomes following misconduct proceedings, which covers cases in the year ending March 2019, is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-30-september-2019.
The College of Policing publish data annually relating to those who have been dismissed from policing and placed on the Police Barred List. There are no categories specifically on extremist material or being members of proscribed organisations but, between April 2018 and March 2019, 17 officers were dismissed under the category of ‘notifiable association’. This data is available here:
https://www.college.police.uk/News/College-news/Documents/Barred_List_2019.pdf.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will bring forward legislation proposals to regulate magnet fishing to make it mandatory to declare all finds of (a) barrelled weapons, (b) bladed instruments above three inches and (c) munitions.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
It is already the case that anybody who finds a firearm or ammunition under any circumstances, including whilst magnet fishing, must notify the police. They are likely otherwise to be committing an offence by being in unlawful possession, given that most of these items are subject to strict licensing controls under firearms legislation.
Similar considerations apply for bladed articles which are found. These may be prohibited under the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 or the Criminal Justice Act 1988. In addition, it is an offence to carry an article with blade or point in public without good reason, under section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The Offensive Weapons Act 2019 strengthens the law further in respect of knives and bladed articles and will make it an offence to possess prohibited weapons in private.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish the number of (a) UK nationals and (b) non-UK nationals who have been issued with fines for not complying with the requirement to quarantine upon entering the UK; and if she will publish the number of fines issued for each day that the quarantine requirement has been in place.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Information on the number of fixed penalty notices that have been issued by the police in England and Wales in relation to a breach of the COVID-19 health regulations are published by the National Police Chiefs Council on a fortnightly basis.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of passengers entering the UK who cannot provide a residential address and will need to be provided with accommodation by the Government in order to comply with quarantine restrictions in response to the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We don’t have an assessment of this data. However, we expect numbers to be very low. Passenger numbers in total have decreased by a significant amount and a very small proportion of those who do arrive in the UK will require Government provided accommodation. To ensure we have the resources in place to deal with this, we have setup a flexible accommodation booking service to ensure we can meet any arising demand.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of enforcement officers required to visit residential addresses to check that people who have returned to the UK from overseas are complying with quarantine requirements in response to the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
New measures being introduced from 8 June will require all passengers arriving in the UK, who do not fall under a specified exemption, to self-isolate for 14 days to reduce cases of COVID-19 being brought in from abroad and to help prevent a devastating second wave of the disease.
These passengers, who will be required to complete a locator form up to 48 hours before their arrival in the UK, could be contacted throughout this 14-day period via an assurance service that will randomly sample and contact non-exempted arrivals to ensure compliance. They will ensure that people understand the restrictions as well as how to recognise symptoms, and what to do if they are experiencing them. Calls will also include an assurance check as to whether individuals are complying with restrictions.
Where there is reason to suspect that an individual is not complying, details will be passed to the relevant police force who will consider enforcement action. Police will continue to take the 4 ‘E’s approach of engage, explain, encourage and, as a last resort, enforce. Given the high levels of compliance we have seen to our measures to date, we expect that the majority of people would do the right thing and abide by these measures.