Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign nationals held in the prison estate have previously been detained after conviction.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. This is because it would require data linking between prison data and the Ministry of Justice extract of the police national computer.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether provisions have been made for employees of The Bodyshop who were made redundant.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
I understand this will be a concerning time for those impacted. The Department for Work and Pensions’ Rapid Response Service is a service designed to give support and advice to employers and their employees when faced with redundancy.
The range of support may include:
Employees may be entitled to statutory redundancy pay, compensatory notice pay and holiday pay from the Insolvency Service. Further information may be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-body-shop-in-administration-information-for-employees-and-creditors.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many Perinatal Mortality Review Tool reviews into (a) stillbirths and (b) baby deaths had an external panel member in the last year.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This information is not held in the format requested. On 14 December 2023, Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK published their fifth annual Perinatal Mortality Review Tool report. The report presents data from the 4,111 reviews conducted between March 2022 to February 2023. The report sets out that an external member was present in 45% of reviews, which is an increase from only one in three involving an external member from the previous year. An external panel member is strongly recommended due to the importance of providing fresh eyes to support the review.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding has been allocated to the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigation programme; and whether that funding is time limited.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department has allocated £16 million to the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations Programme for this financial year, which is the last year of this spending review period. Future budgets will be allocated in the usual way as part of the next Spending Review.
The lifespan of the programme is under review and will continue to be overseen by the Care Quality Commission, until directed otherwise by the Department. The Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, is funding an evaluation to understand whether Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch investigations and Perinatal Mortality Review Tool reviews have met their anticipated requirements, resulted in system level quality improvements in maternity care, and improved outcomes for parents and families.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether she has made representations to Royal Mail on the impact of price rises on SMEs.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government does not have a role in Royal Mail’s commercial decisions, including the prices of stamps and other services.
In setting its prices, Royal Mail must observe the regulatory framework set by Ofcom which imposes prices controls, ‘safeguard caps’, on certain second-class products to ensure a basic universal service is available to all at affordable prices.
On 24 January 2024, following a public consultation, Ofcom announced its decisions regarding retail price caps on Royal Mail’s universal postal services to apply from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2027.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish a breakdown of offences committed by foreign nationals held in the prison estate.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The requested information can be found in the attached spreadsheet.
The removal of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) is a Government priority and my department continues to work closely with the Home Office to maximise the number of deportations.
Published figures show that FNO returns have increased following the pandemic, in the latest 12-month period (ending December 2023) by 27% when compared to the previous 12-month period. Between January 2019 and December 2023 17,795 FNOs have been removed.
The proportion of FNOs held in custody is 12% of the total prison population and has remained stable in recent years while the overall prison population has grown.
On 11 March, the Government set out a plan to increase the number of FNOs removed through:
These actions build on our expansion of the Early Removal Scheme to allow for removal of FNOs up to 18 months before the end of the custodial element of their sentence, and expediting prisoner transfers with priority countries such as Albania and seeking to conclude new transfer agreements with partner countries.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign nationals are held in the prison estate by nationality.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on how many Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) are held in custody are published in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly: Offender management statistics quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). For data on the prison population by nationality, see prison population table 1_7.
The latest published data from 31 December 2023 shows that there were 10,423 (3,333 remand, 6,697 sentenced and 393 non-criminal) FNOs held in custody; representing 12% of the total prison population. The most common nationalities after British Nationals in prisons are Albanian (13% of the FNO prison population), Polish (9%), Romanian (7%), Irish (6%) and Jamaican (4%).
The removal of FNOs is a Government priority and my department continues to work closely with the Home Office to maximise the number of deportations.
Published figures show that FNO returns have increased following the pandemic, in the latest 12-month period (ending December 2023) by 27% when compared to the previous 12-month period. Between January 2019 and December 2023 17,795 FNOs have been removed.
The proportion of FNOs held in custody is 12% of the total prison population and has remained stable in recent years while the overall prison population has grown.
On 11 March, the Government set out a plan to increase the number of FNOs removed through:
These actions build on our expansion of the Early Removal Scheme to allow for removal of FNOs up to 18 months before the end of the custodial element of their sentence, and expediting prisoner transfers with priority countries such as Albania and seeking to conclude new transfer agreements with partner countries.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what funding the UK has committed to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank since becoming a member.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Details on UK funding committed to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) can be found in the AIIB Capital Order 2015 and in the published guidance relating to the AIIB Project Preparation Special Fund.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign nationals held in the prison estate have previously been deported.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The information requested is not available from published statistics.
Our Nationality and Borders Act became law in April 2022. A factsheet can be viewed here: Nationality and Borders Bill: factsheet - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The same act also amended legislation which means a foreign offender who returns to the United Kingdom in breach of a deportation order can be sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Anyone who enters the UK without leave, or without a visa, also faces a maximum penalty of four years.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign national offenders of which nationality were deported in each of the last five years.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office does publish statistics on the returns of foreign national offenders by nationality and year. These returns are published in the Returns Detailed Datasets, Year Ending December 2023; which are available at: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The term ‘deportations’ refers to a legally defined subset of returns, which are enforced either following a criminal conviction, or when it is judged that a person’s removal from the UK is beneficial to the public good. The published statistics refer to enforced returns which include deportations, as well as cases where a person has breached UK immigration laws, and those removed under other administrative and illegal entry powers that have declined to leave voluntarily. Figures on deportations, which are a subset of enforced returns, are not separately available.