Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many people applied to join the (a) Intelligence Corps, (b) Parachute Regiment and (c) Royal Marine Commando Forces in each of the last eight years.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
It is taking time to collate the required information to answer the hon. Member's questions. I will write to her when the information is available, and a copy of this letter will be placed in the Library of The House.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the headcount was of the Ranger Regiment on every 1 January since its creation.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
It is taking time to collate the required information to answer the hon. Member's questions. I will write to her when the information is available, and a copy of this letter will be placed in the Library of The House.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many service personnel were living in grade four single living accommodation in each local authority area on 10 January 2024.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
It is taking time to collate the required information to answer the hon. Member's Question. I will write to her when the information is available, and a copy of this letter will be placed in the Library of The House.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders were subsequently convicted of murder by index sentence in each financial year between 2010-11 and 2015-16.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Serious Further Offences (SFOs) are rare. Fewer than 0.5% of offenders under statutory supervision are convicted of SFOs. Nonetheless, every single SFO is taken extremely seriously, and in all cases a review is carried out to identify any improvements that need to be made in the management of future cases.
We have increased funding for the Probation Service by an additional £155m a year to recruit staff, bring down caseloads and deliver better supervision of offenders in the community.
We have exceeded our recruitment targets for the last three years. As a result, over 4,000 trainee probation officers joined the Probation sService between 2020/21 and 2022/23, which we anticipate will start to reduce the number of cases held by a probation officer at any one time, with all the benefits which that brings in terms of the quality of risk assessment and risk management.
The table below sets out the total number of convictions where an offender subject to probation supervision was charged with a SFO which resulted in a conviction for murder, for all cases notified to HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2014.
Index Sentence | 2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 |
Community Supervision | 31 | 42 | 30 | 28 |
Determinate Prison Sentence | 17 | 24 | 21 | 27 |
Life Licence | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
IPP | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Total | 50 | 67 | 51 | 59 |
1. Time period for conviction data relates to the date of SFO notification to HMPPS not the date of conviction.
2. Index sentence refers to the sentencing disposal imposed by the court which led to probation services supervision of the offender.
3. The data only includes convictions for serious further offences of murder that have been notified to the national SFO Team, HMPPS.
4. The data includes cases where the SFO was committed within 28 days of the end of the supervision period.
5. Conviction data also includes cases where the offender committed suicide or died prior to the trial, where the judicial process concluded that they were responsible.
6. The data for has been updated and may differ to any original publication due to data cleansing, re-categorising and re-grouping.
7. Data Sources and Quality. We have drawn these figures from administrative IT systems which, as with some large-scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
The number of convictions where an offender subject to probation supervision was charged with a serious further offence which resulted in a conviction for murder, for all cases notified to HMPPS between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2016 are published at the following link: Serious_Further_Offences_2023.ods (live.com).
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps HMRC is taking to help reduce the risk of a (a) major IT failure and (b) security breach.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HMRC continually upgrades IT systems as part of ongoing maintenance.
HMRC has 24/7 support operation in place with established processes for early identification of incidents and respond to these appropriately.
Customer data is subject to high levels of protection and HMRC takes data protection seriously.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions she has had with local government leaders on water and river quality.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Secretary of State frequently holds meetings with key stakeholders on water and river quality.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that Ofwat effectively challenges water companies for breaches of their responsibilities.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has established a robust system of independent economic regulation for the purpose of ensuring the public receive value for money from their water companies. The Government’s Strategic Policy Statement for Ofwat makes it clear that we expect Ofwat to work with other regulators and wider stakeholders to ensure security of supply and protect and enhance the environment.
Through the Environment Act 2021, the Government has given Ofwat improved powers to modify water company licenses without consent. On Monday 20 March 2023, Ofwat announced a new measure that will enable it to take enforcement action against water companies that do not link dividend payments to performance for both customers and the environment.
Where companies fail to meet their obligations, regulators have not hesitated to act. Ofwat’s annual performance assessment process, and the automatic penalties that apply to companies who underperform, represents an excellent example of strong economic and environmental regulation. In November 2022, Ofwat announced financial penalties of £132 million applying to 11 water companies, in response to underperformance in areas such as water supply interruptions, pollution incidents and internal sewer flooding. Money from Ofwat’s penalties will rightly be returned to customers through water bills in 2023-24.
Ofwat is currently undertaking the largest ever civil investigations into over two thousand wastewater treatment works.
The Government will continue to work with water sector regulators to hold water companies to account on poor performance and drive improvements which benefit customers and the environment.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when the new funding scheme for remediation or mitigation of the fire safety risks linked to external wall system defects on medium rise (11–18 metres) buildings will be extended to all buildings.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Schemes to cover buildings over 18m have been in place for some time; an increasing number of properties are undergoing and completing remediation. A pilot for 11-18m buildings has been underway since late 2022, and has recently been expanded in scope; we anticipate a full opening in the months ahead.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that energy suppliers promptly remunerate customers who sell renewable energy back to the grid.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Suppliers make payments to householders in line with their Smart Export Guarantee contract terms and conditions. Whilst some suppliers have chosen to make payments on a yearly basis to minimise the administrative costs associated with the very small amounts of export involved, there are other suppliers that offer more frequent renumeration.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to page 95 of the Central Government Supply Estimates 2022-23: Supplementary Estimates, published on 21 February 2023, how the additional £269,000,000 funding to tackle illegal immigration was spent.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Funding drawn down to cover illegal migration spend across the illegal migration portfolio was used for both: a range of measures announced during the financial year 22/23; and additional asylum support costs. The £269,000,000 referenced was principally used for two areas: the Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP) with Rwanda Factsheet: Migration and Economic Development Partnership - Home Office in the media (blog.gov.uk); and to cover increasing asylum support costs.
Asylum Support costs represent spending to meet our statutory obligations for providing support to destitute asylum seekers in the UK, which includes the provision of accommodation, transportation, and support services to the Supported Population. We also fund Local Authorities for their costs incurred in supporting Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children & Care Leavers.