Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the security risk to Tun Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation (BROUK), and British citizen and Rohingya activist, by the presence of the Myanmar military attaché in the UK in the context of a leaked memo from that military on 14 January 2022 naming BROUK in connection with a universal jurisdiction case brought by BROUK against that military in Argentina.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
As a matter or long-standing policy, the Government does not comment on the detail of security or intelligence matters.
The Government takes potential risks to communities in the UK, including those from Myanmar, very seriously. I would encourage anyone who feels that they are under threat to contact the police in the first instance.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
If she will hold discussions with Cabinet colleagues on ensuring public understanding of covid-19 lockdown regulations and legislation.
Answered by Priti Patel
Everyone is making huge sacrifices in the fight against coronavirus, but, the recent worrying rise in cases means we are not out of the woods yet. The work of the Home Office is critical in protecting and serving our citizens. Ensuring everyone follows the rules is vital to controlling the virus this winter.
Across Cabinet and Government we have been clear on regulations and have enshrined them in law. Engagement, explaining and enforcement of those laws will be provided by the police and local authorities.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many firefighters were available for duty in (a) Cumbria, (b) West Yorkshire, (c) Lancashire, (d) Greater Manchester and (e) London in 2015; and how many such firefighters are available in each of those areas in 2020.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office publishes annual workforce figures for fire and rescue services (FRSs) in England. Figures for 2020 will be published in Autumn 2020.
The full published data are available here:
The Home Office does not hold data on how many of these firefighters are available for duty.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding from the public purse has been allocated to Fire and Rescue Services in (a) West Yorkshire, (b) Cumbria, (c) Lancashire, (d) Greater Manchester and (e) London in each year since 2010.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Spending power for West Yorkshire and Lancashire Fire and Rescue Services can be found at the following link.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing#history
Fire and Rescue in Cumbria, Manchester and London are part of an overall parent authority which sets the budget for the fire and rescue services in their area from their overall un-ringfenced funding. The spending power for these parent authorities can also be found in the MHCLG tables published in the link above.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what additional resources from the public purse have been allocated to Fire and Rescue Services to respond to the effects of recent storms and flooding in 2020.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Overall fire and rescue authorities will receive around £2.3 billion in 2019/20. Single purpose fire and rescue authorities will see an increase in core spending power of 2.3% in cash terms in 2019/20 and an overall increase of 0.3% from 2015/16 to 2019/20, in addition to Home Office funding for High-Volume Pumps and training for their use as part of the New Dimensions Grant to Fire and Rescue Authorities which, together with other National Resilience capabilities, totals approximately £18m.
Fire and Rescue Authorities are funded to respond to incidents, including flooding, demonstrated by the fantastic response of Fire and Rescue Services to the 2020 storms and a range of incidents in 2019 including the Wainfleet and Yorkshire floods and the Toddbrook Reservoir incident.
The Home Office provides a further £9m funding to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, the Lead Authority for National Resilience, in support of the maintenance and assurance of National Resilience Capabilities, including High Volume Pumps. Local Authorities responding to flooding in England also can make an application under the Bellwin Scheme for eligible additional costs.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people who were stopped during the recent public automated facial recognition technology trials by the Metropolitan Police were wrongly identified.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Metropolitan Police Service publish data about their use of live facial recognition on their website - https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/central/advice/met/facial-recognition/latest-past-deployment-data.pdf.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent progress her Department has made on the review of the treatment of overseas students alleged to have cheated in English language tests between 2011 and 2014.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Dissolution.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department’s response to the freedom of information request submitted to the Home Office by Liberty, what recent assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the finding that the personal details of individuals submitted to the Prevent programme have been added to the National Police Prevent Case Management database.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Dissolution.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what use is made of the £1,012 fee when an application to register a child as British is rejected.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
Refunds are not provided when applications are refused. It is made clear that the fee paid is for the consideration of an application and is payable regardless of the decision made.
Fee income is retained by the Home Office and funds the direct and indirect costs associated with the provision of chargeable visa and immigration services, and also contributes towards the cost of the wider immigration system, as permitted under Section 68(9) of the 2014 Immigration Act.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Prevent programme.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
We regularly evaluate the effectiveness of Prevent interventions to build the evidence base for what works. This year we are evaluating the impact of a number of Prevent community projects, on tackling the causes of radicalisation, and are also conducting an evaluation of the Desistance and Disengagement Programme, to understand what is working to disengage and rehabilitate those already engaged in terrorism.
In addition, on 12 August 2019, the Home Secretary appointed Lord Carlile to review the Government Strategy for supporting people vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. Lord Carlile will examine Prevent work in action and will be hearing views from supporters, critics and everyone in between, to see evidence of what is and isn’t working and build an evidenced set of recommendations. The terms of reference published on www.gov.uk confirm Lord Carlile will consider, among other things, the effectiveness of Prevent and its delivery. It is a statutory requirement that the Review report be published, and its recommendations formally responded to, by 12 August 2020.