Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to tackle retail theft.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises the significant impact shoplifting has on businesses, communities, and consumers. The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows neighbourhood crime is down 51% compared to findings from the year ending March 2010.
However, Police Recorded Crime figures show shoplifting offences increased by 32% in the 12 months to September 2023. Statistics also show the number of people charged with shoplifting offences has risen by 34% in the year ending September 2023, showing that police are taking action.
We have recently taken significant steps to improve the police response to retail crime, including shoplifting.
In October 2023, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) published the Retail Crime Action Plan. Through this Plan, all forces across England and Wales have committed to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, and where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel. Additionally, where CCTV or other digital images are secured, police will run this through the Police National Database to aid efforts to identify prolific offenders or potentially dangerous individuals.
This builds on the NPCC commitment that police forces across England and Wales will follow up all crimes where there is actionable evidence and the chance of identifying an offender, including shoplifting.
October also saw the launch of Pegasus, a unique private-public partnership, which involves retailers providing data, intelligence and evidence to Opal, the national police intelligence unit on organised acquisitive crime, to develop a better strategic picture and help forces crack down on serious offenders.
We are continuing to work closely with retail businesses, security representatives, trade associations and policing through the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG), which meets on a quarterly basis, to ensure the response to retail crime, including shoplifting, is as robust as it can be.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the introduction of the aggravating factor for attacks on public facing workers on levels of retail crime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is clear that violent and abusive behaviour towards any worker, particularly those who provide a valuable service to the public, is never acceptable.
In 2022, we took the significant step to introduce a statutory aggravating factor for assault against those who are serving the public. Section 156 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 means the public facing nature of a victim’s role will be considered an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing for assault offences, allowing the court to give a longer sentence within the statutory maximum for the offence.
Assaults against retail workers are not separately identifiable in police recorded crime data held centrally by the Home Office.
The Government shares concerns about the level of assaults against retailers. In October 2023, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) published the Retail Crime Action Plan. Through this Plan, all forces across England and Wales have committed to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, and where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel. Additionally, where CCTV or other digital images are secured, police will run this through the Police National Database to aid efforts to identify prolific offenders or potentially dangerous individuals.
The longer-term impact of the Action Plan will continue to be monitored; however, retailers have reported early signs of improvement in the police response to retail crime and according to data collected by the NPCC from a dip sample of forces in December 2023, police attended 60% of crimes reported by retailers where violence had been used, with 16% of forces sampled reporting 100% attendance to this type of incident: Policing Retail Crime Action Plan shows early impact (npcc.police.uk).
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of mandating additional training for police officers on community tensions following the events since 7 October 2023 in Israel and Gaza.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are grateful to police forces across the country for the steps they have taken to manage protests and protect and reassure our communities.
The police are operationally independent. As part of the national policing curriculum set by the College of Policing, all officers receive training on topics including engaging with the community to maximise community cohesion, trust and confidence; protecting the community; and tackling hate crime. This is bolstered by refresher training to maintain and enhance knowledge. The College of Policing also publish operational guidance for the police, known as ‘Authorised Professional Practice’ (APP), on how to tackle different types of crime and incidents, including hate crime.
As a result of the conflict, all forces now have established tension monitoring processes, working in partnership with community safety and voluntary partners to enable action to be taken to diffuse community tensions at the earliest possible stage. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has also provided awareness briefings to forces relating to the conflict which have been developed following consultation with key community stakeholders including Community Security Trust and Tell MAMA.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a standardised compensation scheme for students who have been falsely accused of cheating in English language tests.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Where the courts have concluded that an individual was innocent of cheating in their English Language test, it is open to that individual to request compensation through established processes.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of reintroducing mandatory fire certificates for (a) houses in multiple occupation, (b) hospitals, (c) shopping centres and (d) other designated premises where people congregate in significant numbers.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The concept of a fire safety certificate was replaced in 2006 when the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (FSO) came into force and the Fire Precautions Act 1971 was repealed. We have no current plans to re-introduce them.
The FSO places a range of legal duties on Responsible Persons (the person in control of a premises), chief among which are the need to undertake a fire risk assessment to identify any general fire safety precautions that need to be taken to ensure that the premises, and people within it, are safe from fire, put those precautions in place and ensure they are subject to a suitable system of maintenance. Houses of multiple occupation, hospitals, shopping centres and places of congregation all fall within the scope of the FSO.
In 2019, the Home Office ran a Call for Evidence on the FSO, and the vast majority of respondents agreed that the scope and objectives of the FSO remain appropriate and it continues to provide an effective and proportionate regulatory framework.
Nevertheless, we have since taken action to further strengthen the FSO through the Fire Safety Act 2021, which clarified that the external walls, structure and flat entrance doors in multi-occupied residential premises are in scope, and through Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 which, amongst other things, introduced changes to make it easier for enforcement authorities to take action when appropriate, improve information sharing with residents and increase cooperation between Responsible Persons when there is more than one in a specific building.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a minimum safe crewing requirement to have five firefighters on every pumping appliance.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The Government supports the continuous improvement of fire and rescue services and established a sector led Fire Standards Board that develops professional standards for the sector. The suite of professional standards created by the Fire Standards Board includes strategic standards on operational preparedness and operational competence.
The Fire Standards Board consult widely on each of their standards prior to publication.
Decisions on how their resources, including staff, are best deployed to meet their core functions including crewing and meeting response times, is a matter for each fire and rescue authority, based on risks identified within local Community Risk Management Plans.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of consulting with fire safety stakeholders on the creation of UK-wide response standards in fire and rescue services.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The Government supports the continuous improvement of fire and rescue services and established a sector led Fire Standards Board that develops professional standards for the sector. The suite of professional standards created by the Fire Standards Board includes strategic standards on operational preparedness and operational competence.
The Fire Standards Board consult widely on each of their standards prior to publication.
Decisions on how their resources, including staff, are best deployed to meet their core functions including crewing and meeting response times, is a matter for each fire and rescue authority, based on risks identified within local Community Risk Management Plans.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a new equality and diversity strategy in the Fire and Rescue Services that incorporates the standards and best practice set out in the terms of reference of the Inclusive Fire Service Group (IFSG).
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The Home Office recognises the importance of improving equality, diversity and inclusion in Fire and Rescue Services. In setting the right direction, performance can be improved through unlocking talent and improving representation, as set out through Government’s actions in the Fire Reform White Paper.
The Home Office provides funding to the National Fire Chiefs Council’s (NFFC) People Programme to support leadership to fire and rescue services The People Programme provides national good practice guidance and tools to support improvements in local services.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of granting powers to Police and Crime Commissioners to take over the governance of local fire and rescue services on fire (a) safety and (b) response times in (i) Essex, (ii) Northamptonshire, (iii) North Yorkshire and (iv) Staffordshire.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Part 1 of the PCC Review explored ways in which we can strengthen fire governance and accountability. The findings signalled strong support for a directly elected individual taking on fire functions to help simplify and strengthen the governance of fire and rescue services across England. This position was reaffirmed in the Fire Reform White Paper, in which we set out our ambition to transfer fire governance to a single elected individual wherever possible. In the Government response to the White Paper, published in September 2023, we set out our intention to proactively encourage and support voluntary governance transfers to PCCs or Mayors wherever possible.
The Home Office collects data on incidents attended by Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs), with this including fire incident and response time data for Essex, Northamptonshire, North Yorkshire and Staffordshire FRSs. This data is published in a variety of published data tables, available here: Fire statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of placing a statutory duty on fire and rescue services to plan and respond to flooding.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
A statutory duty for firefighters to respond to flooding is unlikely to make a significant difference to the Fire and Rescue Services, which already provide effective response to flooding incidents. This has been consistently demonstrated through the response of Fire and Rescue Services to a range of incidents including the flooding associated with recent Storms Babet, Henk and Isha in Autumn/Winter 2023/24.
The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 makes provision for Fire and Rescue Services to respond to all kinds of emergencies, without providing specific duties for each type of incident. Each Fire and Rescue Authority is required to plan for the foreseeable risks in their area through their Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP), having regard to other key local responders, the top local and national risks, and the communities which they serve.
Furthermore, the Government provides the Fire and Rescue Service with additional resource to tackle flooding via the provision of High-Volume Pumps and Water Rescue Assets. [Note: Water Rescue Assets are Defra Funded].