Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make it his policy to exempt the BNO visa scheme from the proposed extension of the standard qualifying period for settlement.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is committed to supporting members of the Hong Kong community who have relocated to the UK and those who may come here in future.
I welcomed the opportunity to listen to the views of Members in the recent 8th September Westminster Hall Debate on settlement.
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year. All will be welcome to participate. We will provide details of how the scheme will work after that consultation.
We regularly engage with representatives of the Hong Kong diaspora in the UK on issues related to the BN(O) visa and will continue to do so.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to publish a full impact assessment for the most recent statement of changes to the immigration rules on the care sector.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
It is our intention to publish the Impact Assessment (IA) at the earliest opportunity. A technical annex (Restoring control over the immigration system: technical annex (accessible) - GOV.UK) was published alongside the Immigration White Paper setting out the impact of some of the key policy changes.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will have discussions with Greater Manchester Police on the potential impact of not supplying naloxone to frontline officers on levels of drug-related deaths.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Naloxone is an important lifesaving medicine to respond to suspected opioid overdoses, when used alongside other first aid measures, and is mitigating the threat posed by synthetic opioids.
Work has been ongoing for several years led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office to support police carriage of this medicine, leveraging officers’ frequent interactions with individuals at risk of overdose to reduce drug-related deaths. In September 2024 and May 2025, I wrote to Chief Constables in England and Wales to reiterate my support for all police forces to roll-out the voluntary provision of naloxone to operational officers.
The Home Office and NPCC recently published data showing that, as of December 2024, approximately 7,300 police officers in England and Wales regularly carry naloxone. The medicine had been administered over 550 times by police since June 2019, and only two out of 43 police forces had no plans to carry. One of those forces is Greater Manchester Police.
Whilst the provision of naloxone for police officers remains voluntary and is an operational decision for Chief Constables, the Government is strongly supportive of forces making this highly effective antidote available.
The NPCC and the Home Office are in ongoing dialogue with all police forces on this topic.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help protect places of worship in Greater Manchester.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
This Government is absolutely committed to protecting the right of individuals to freely practise their religion at their chosen place of worship, and to making our streets and communities safer, including providing funding through the Jewish Community Protective Security Grant and the Protective Security for Mosques scheme.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a standalone offense of assaulting a retail worker that includes (a) bank and (b) building society workers.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Section 156 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 creates a statutory aggravating factor in sentencing cases of assault against public facing workers. It applies where an assault is committed against those providing a public service, performing a public duty or providing a service to the public, including public-facing roles in banks and building societies.
Through our Crime and Policing Bill, this Government has also introduced a specific standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker to help tackle the epidemic of shop theft and violence towards shop workers that we have seen in recent years, and protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help protect migrant social care workers from (a) substandard accommodation, (b) non-payment of wages, (c) contracts containing repayment clauses and (d) other exploitative employment relationships.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government condemns the exploitation of international care workers by rogue employers in the adult social care sector and continues to take robust action against this unscrupulous behaviour.
We have recently implemented a prohibition on Skilled Worker sponsors recouping sponsorship costs from those they sponsor, and those doing so now risk losing their licence.
Sponsor licences can also be revoked if workers are not paid correctly and on 9 April we further clarified our Skilled Worker salary assessment rules to make clear that sponsors cannot inflate wages by including loans for the worker’s immigration application.
We are also working to ensure sponsorship and employment systems are more strongly aligned.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many scientific procedures involved the use of dogs from 2020- 2024.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The number of animals used in scientific research and testing, including dogs, is published annually at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/animals-in-science-regulation-unit#statistics. Statistics for 2024 are scheduled for publication in July.
The Home Office assures that, in every research proposal, animals are replaced with non-animal alternatives wherever possible, the number of animals are reduced to the minimum necessary to achieve the result sought, and that, for those animals which must be used, procedures are refined as much as possible to minimise their suffering.
The Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) is leading on a strategy to accelerate the development, validation and uptake of alternatives to animal testing which is scheduled for publication later this year.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help support the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of police officers in Greater Manchester.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to ensuring police forces are supported to effectively tackle crime.
We are clear that visible policing is essential to restoring public confidence in the police.
For 2025-26, £376.8 million will be available to forces to maintain officer numbers. Of this £270.1m is ringfenced which Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) will be able to access by demonstrating that they have maintained their officer numbers.
Greater Manchester Police has also been allocated £11,556,938 in funding for 2025-26 to kickstart the increase of neighbourhood policing personnel as part of this Government's plan to deliver a total increase of 13,000 across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. Our approach to delivery in 2025-26, which will be year 1 of a 4-year programme, is designed to deliver an initial increase to the neighbourhood policing workforce in a manner that is flexible, and can be adapted to the local context and varied crime demands.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will (a) undertake a review of maternity leave entitlement for Police Officers and (b) update police regulations to reflect the outcome of that review.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) and Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) consider and make recommendations to the Government on the pay, allowances, hours of duty and leave for police officers.
The Home Secretary’s remit letters, published on 20 December, do not ask the PRRB and SSRB to review maternity leave entitlements. However, the Government will give very careful consideration to any commentary or recommendations the Review Bodies may make on the current entitlements.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people his Department has identified for deportation to Rwanda in (a) Stockport and (b) Greater Manchester.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
The Home Office does not routinely publish information on detention activity at a regional level.
The first illegal migrants set to be removed to Rwanda have now been detained, following a series of nationwide operations. We will not be providing a running commentary on operational activity.