Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of reducing the physical fitness standards required of serving police officers on (a) public safety and (b) operational effectiveness.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Chief Constables are able to locally determine the standards and assessment at recruitment for physical fitness of police officers. At the same time, chief officers have a statutory duty of care to their officers, and the public, and they must, therefore, satisfy themselves that officers can be deployed safely in a role and fulfil the duties of a police officer.
The College of Policing holds guidance to support forces on the implementation of fitness testing and standards for officers. Work is underway, led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College, to commence a review of the current demands of operational policing to inform future decisions on fitness standards at recruitment.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding her Department has allocated to support (a) leisure, (b) recreation and (c) entertainment activities for people accommodated in asylum contingency hotels since July 2024.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Home Office publishes information on asylum expenditure in the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts at HO annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of violent crime on community cohesion in high-incidence areas.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This Government recognises the devasting effects of violence on communities, that is why we work closely with community groups, including through the Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime to understand the impacts and help shape the Government’s plan to halve knife crime in ten years.
To support communities in high-incidence areas, the Government has made £47m available for Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) to continue their valuable work in 2025/26. VRUs bring together local partners to understand and tackle the drivers of serious violence in their area. They facilitate the sharing of data across organisational boundaries to build a collective understanding of the root causes of violence locally.
Additionally, the Government has awarded £66.3m in 25/26 to all 43 Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales for the Hot Spot Action Fund. This funding is for high-visibility patrolling in the areas with the highest densities (‘hotspots’) of knife crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as problem-oriented policing to tackle the longer-term drivers of crime.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of recorded violent crimes resulted in a (a) charge and (b) summons in the last 12 months.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Home Office collects and publishes information on the number of violence against the person offences, and their investigative outcomes, including those assigned a charge/summons outcome, recorded by the police in England and Wales, on a quarterly basis. The latest information, to the year ending March 2025, has been published on 24th July, and can be accessed here:
It is not possible to separately identify charges and summonses.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the proportion of violent crime that is linked to gang activity.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The ONS Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and Home Office police recorded crime data contains information on violent crime and is published by the ONS (Crime in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics and the nature of violent crime: appendix tables - Office for National Statistics).
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many officers in frontline roles are assigned to violent crime prevention units.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Home Office collects and publishes data annually on the primary function of police officers, as at 31 March each year, in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales.
Information is collected on the primary function of each officer, however, the specific team an officer is assigned to, such as “violent crime prevention unit”, is not collected. Information on the primary function of police officers is available in Table F1 of the data tables accompanying the ‘Police Workforce England and Wales’ publication here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/687f89ac37c38e28f3846871/police-workforce-mar25-tables-230725.ods.
Frontline policing is comprised of visible operational frontline roles and non-visible frontline roles, each of which contains specific functions. Further information on the functions included under visible operational frontline and non-visible frontline, including the definitions of each category can be found in Table F4 of the data tables accompanying the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ publication here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/687f89ac37c38e28f3846871/police-workforce-mar25-tables-230725.ods
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the causes of recent trends in serious violent crime.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Office for National Statistics publishes information on crime, including serious violent crime, on a quarterly basis. The latest information, for the year ending March 2025, shows that serious violence has fallen, including the first fall in knife crime for four years.
Homicide has also fallen, to 535 offences, down from 567 the previous year and there has been a 21% decline in offences involving firearms, to 5,103 offences.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the report entitled Pre-charge bail and released under investigation: Striking a balance, published on 8 December 2020, what recent discussions she has had with police forces on the (a) timeliness of (i) regular case reviews and (ii) updates to people released under investigation and (b) the steps those police forces are taking to (A) ensure the rights of those subject to investigation are respected and (B) maintain public confidence in relation to how suspects are dealt with after they are released from custody.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services regularly inspects police forces on their use of tools such as pre-charge bail and released under investigation (RUI) to manage offenders and protect victims and the wider public from harm. The College of Policing publishes and maintains the statutory guidance on the use of pre-charge bail, including guidance on RUI.
Recent police data suggests that the proportion of suspects on RUI is reducing, with a corresponding increase in the proportion of suspects on pre-charge bail. The Home Office continues to monitor the use of these powers. The latest data, covering the year to March 2024, was published on 27 February 2025 Police custody and pre-charge bail, year ending March 2024 - GOV.UK
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what data her Department holds on the (a) delivery and (b) effectiveness of knife crime prevention training provided by police forces in schools.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), the government-funded what works centre for protecting children from involvement in violence, provides detailed, practical and evidence-based guidance for schools and education settings on how best to protect children from involvement in violence. To further understand how it can support schools, the Department for Education has commissioned research with 40 schools on the ways in which they identify and respond to serious violence and knife crime. The research report will be published later this year.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Hong Kong BN(O) visa holders have settled in the UK under the bespoke immigration route since its launch; and what integration support is being provided.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Home Office publishes statistics relating to indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the Immigration system statistics publication. Data on the number of grants of ILR to those on the British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) route, is published in table Se_D02.
To help those on the route integrate into their new communities, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) has a Welcome Programme through which BN(O)s can access support on a range of issues including employment, education, housing, and access to English language provision. In March 2025, MHCLG announced its fifth year of funding for the UK-wide Welcome Programme.