Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department issues to police forces to ensure that they use their public order powers at protests in compliance with human rights legislation.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Guidance on the use of public order powers is jointly produced by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
The College of Policing publishes the Public Order Public Safety Authorised Professional Practice, while the Protest Operational Advice Document is issued collaboratively by both organisations.
These documents provide comprehensive operational guidance and include robust, detailed consideration of human rights legislation, ensuring that policing practices align with legal obligations and uphold fundamental rights.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the number of recorded offences related to the illegal use of an e-scooter in a public place in the past 5 years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the number of notifiable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales.
The Home Office does not hold information on whether an offence was related to the use of e-scooters.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to support (a) local authorities and (b) police forces to tackle anti-social behaviour (i) in town centres and (ii) on high streets.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government wants town centres to be vibrant, welcoming places where businesses thrive and people feel safe and come to shop, socialise and live.
The Safer Streets Summer Initiative commenced on 30 June and runs until the end of September. It is tackling crime and anti-social behaviour in town centres, including city centres, through enhanced police visibility and meaningful consequences.
Police and Crime Commissioners are leading on targeted action to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB) that blights our town centres and high streets. The work is being delivered in partnership with councils, schools, health services, business, transport providers and community groups all playing a role over the summer. Under the initiative, partners will use targeted enforcement, visible policing and place-based interventions to reduce retail and street crime and ASB in over 500 town centres and high streets, across England and Wales, including Slough.
£200m has been made available to forces in 2025/26 to kickstart the delivery of 13,000 more neighbourhood officers across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament - of which up to 3,000 will be in place by March 2026. In particular, Thames Valley Police has been awarded £6,093,042 as part of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee.
In addition to this, £66.3 million in Hotspot Action (HAF) funding has been made available for 2025/26 to all 43 territorial police forces across England and Wales. The Fund will increase visible uniformed patrols (delivered by police and local authority wardens) in Town Centres and areas (hotspots) most impacted by knife crime, serious violence and ASB. This includes allocating £1,690,460 to Thames Valley Police.
In support, all police officers are receiving national guidance, a policy toolkit and access to hyper-local ASB crime mapping analysis, which overlays crime concentration data against hotspot responses and points of interest such as town centres. It aims to support analysis, identification of priority town centres, planning, and delivery.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps have been taken to prevent knife crime in (a) Slough and (b) the Thames Valley region.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Halving knife crime over the next decade is a key part of the Government’s Safer Streets Mission. Preventing knife crime across the UK, including Slough and the Thames Valley region, will play a key role in meeting this ambition.
To date, we have taken action to ban zombie knives and the ban on ninja swords came into force on 1 August 2025 - it is now illegal to sell or own these weapons. We have also implemented, “Ronan’s Law”, a range of measures which will include stricter rules for online sellers of knives.
Over £66 million is available to all 43 police force areas to fund the 'Hotspot Action' programme in 2025/26. This includes Thames Valley Police who have been allocated £1.69m for 2025/26. This programme is a combination of increased high visibility foot patrols and funding of problem-oriented policing (POP) tactics. POP is bespoke to the local areas to tackle the underlying drivers of crime using a comprehensive menu of policing interventions, such as increased targeted knife sweeps, and licensed premises checks.
Through the Young Futures Programme, the Government will establish Young Futures Hubs and Young Futures Prevention Partnerships across the country, to intervene earlier and ensure that children and young people vulnerable to being drawn into crime are identified and offered support in a more systematic way.
As part of this, the Government will pilot new multi-agency Prevention Partnership Panels, led by Violence Reduction Units (VRUs), to identify and refer vulnerable children and young people to a range of support services, including the Young Futures Hubs. More than twenty panels will be up and running in the coming months, across the areas of the country that collectively account for more than 80% knife crime, with more to follow.
VRUs bring together partners, including from the voluntary and community sector, to understand and tackle the drivers of serious violence in their area. In 2025/26 the Home Office is investing £1.5m in grant funding to the Thames Valley Violence Prevention Partnership (VPP), alongside £280k to continue the implementation of the Serious Violence Duty. The Home Office has also made additional funding available for the set up of panels.
This funding will support delivery of a range of early intervention and prevention programmes, which includes the continuation of a Focused Deterrence intervention in Slough. This project will be targeted to young people who carry knives and provide them with tailored multi-agency support to desist from violence, alongside enforcement measures. Funding will also support the delivery of Operation Deter, which provides support for young people in custody following knife possession offences, helping them access education, mentoring and rehabilitation services.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the White Paper entitled Restoring control over the immigration system, published on 12 May 2025, what her planned timeline is for bringing the proposals into effect.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Further details of all the measures announced in the White Paper will be set out in due course, and where necessary, subject to consultation.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with retailers on the prevention of shoplifting.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Shop theft continues to increase at an unacceptable level and we will not stand for it. That’s why our Crime and Policing Bill introduces a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores. Also included as part of the Bill, we will be repealing the legislation which makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence, which means it can only be tried in a magistrate’s court, sending a clear message that any level of shop theft is illegal and will be taken seriously.
Retail crime is regularly discussed with the sector at both Ministerial and official level. I am committed to chairing the Retail Crime Forum, which has held two very productive meetings to date. The Forum brings together representatives from the retail sector, security providers and law enforcement agencies to promote collaboration, share best practice and to work collectively to tackle the serious issue of retail crime.
This work includes the development of a new strategy to tackle shop theft published by retail sector representatives and policing. The strategy builds on previous progress made by police and retailers but provides a more comprehensive and intelligence-led approach to tackle all perpetrators of shop theft – not just organised criminal gangs.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of training available to police forces for engaging with neurodiverse suspects.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Training on mental ill health and autism is already integrated throughout the initial police learning programme which all new recruits must complete.
Policing is operationally independent, and it is a matter for the chief constables of each force to decide which additional training their officers should undertake. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has produced an e-learning course and a glossary of terms on neurodiversity, which are available to all police officers.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle car-related crimes in Slough.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This Government is determined to drive down vehicle crime and we are working with the automotive industry and police, including working closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on the issue, to ensure the strongest response possible to this damaging crime.
Through the Crime and Policing Bill, we have introduced measures to ban electronic devices used to steal vehicles, empowering the police and courts to target the criminals using, manufacturing and supplying them. This will support the changes manufacturers continue to make to prevent thefts.
We also provided £250,000 funding in the last financial year to help support work at the ports to prevent stolen vehicles and vehicle parts being shipped abroad.
Via the National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership and the police-led National Vehicle Crime Working Group, we are focusing on prevention and deterrence of theft of and from vehicles. This includes training police officers on the methods used to steal vehicles, encouraging vehicle owners to secure their vehicles, and working with industry to address vulnerabilities in vehicles.
In recent weeks, the Security Minister and I have each met vehicle manufacturers to discuss these issues. Officials also regularly engage and work with industry to discuss workable solutions to help prevent vehicle theft.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to protect British consumers against fraud.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
We committed in our manifesto to introduce an expanded Fraud Strategy. Development of the Strategy has begun and details of the government’s approach to tackling fraud will be set out in due course.
Work continues to ensure that the public are better equipped to spot and avoid frauds, through our Stop! Think Fraud campaign. Furthermore, as of March 2025, the Online Safety Act’s illegal content duties are now enforceable by Ofcom. This will cut off key online vectors by which criminals are able to identify and communicate with potential victims, such as fraudulent advertising. We are also banning SIM farms, technical devices that allow criminals to send thousands of scam texts and calls at once, as part of the ongoing passage of the Crime and Policing Bill.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to support victims of modern slavery.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government has developed a Modern Slavery Action Plan which reinforces our commitment to working across Government and with civil society, businesses, and international partners to prevent exploitation, protect victims, and pursue those responsible for these heinous crimes.
In England and Wales, the Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract (MSVCC) provides victims safe accommodation, financial support and a support worker to help them access other support such as NHS medical care. We will soon be tendering for the new Support for Victims of Modern Slavery (SVMS) contract to replace the MSVCC when it ends. The SVMS contract has been informed by engagement with survivors and key organisations across the modern slavery sector.
In addition to the statutory support local authorities provide to children in need in their areas, the Government's Independent Child Trafficking Guardianship (ICTG) service is available in two-thirds of local authorities in England and Wales. The ICTG service provides an additional source of advice and support for potential child victims of modern slavery and exploitation and advocates on a child's behalf to ensure their best interests are reflected in the decision-making of the public authorities involved in their care.
An ICTG's advocacy and involvement throughout the decision-making process is intended to ensure the child is protected from further harm, to promote their recovery and prevent them from possible repeat victimisation, re-trafficking or going missing.
The Government intends to go out to tender for the contract for the roll out of a national ICTG service that will cover the whole of England and Wales in Summer 2025.