Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many UKVI MP Account Management cases are currently outstanding past the 20 working day response target.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Members written correspondence within 20 working days.
Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan. Ministers and officials have also had to instigate a remote process for drafting and signing correspondence during the period of COVID-19 restrictions.
The Department recognises it has not been able to meet service standard in some cases but has implemented an action plan to clear backlogs and drive up performance. The Department has recruited additional resources and expects to return to answering Hon. Member’s correspondence within service standard by the end of March 2022.
Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest Quarter available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q3-2021
This includes data up to and including the end of quarter 3 - 2021.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 15 November 2021 to Question 70295 on Schools: EU Countries, what were the results of the impact assessment of the potential impact of the UK's new immigration rules on the number of school trips from the EU to the UK.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Further to the answer given on 15 November 2021, the Impact Assessment can be viewed here:
Impact Assessment (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the UK's new immigration rules on the number of school trips from the EU to the UK.
Answered by Kevin Foster
As part of the changes to the Immigration Rules in September 2021, we no longer accept national identity cards as a valid travel document from EU, EEA and Swiss visitors to the UK.
An impact assessment was undertaken of this change.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many body worn cameras each police force has in England and Wales.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
According to the National Police Chief’s Council, all forces are deploying Body Worn Video. Its deployment is an operational matter for each police force and decisions will be made based on local priorities.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to standardise policies on body worn cameras on a national, rather than force-by-force, basis.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The use of imagery captured by Body Worn Video is subject to a number of national standards through the Data Protection Act 2018, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice (Management of Police Information) and the Surveillance Camera Code.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has for the further roll out of body worn video cameras to police forces.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The NPCC report all forces deploy Body Worn Video. Its deployment is an operational matter for each police force and decisions will be made based on local priorities.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many complaints have been received about the lack of recording by body worn video cameras in frontline policing, per police force.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Data is not available on how many complaints have been received about the lack of recording by body worn video cameras in frontline policing.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officers are equipped to wear body worn cameras for each police force in England and Wales.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
According to the National Police Chief’s Council, all forces are deploying Body Worn Video. Its deployment is an operational matter for each police force and decisions will be made based on local priorities.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to introduce a single comprehensive and integrated policy framework for (a) protection against gender-based violence and domestic abuse and (b) support for victims that is aligned to the provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Istanbul Convention.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Addressing Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) remains a key priority of this Government. We are committed to fighting VAWG crimes, of which domestic abuse is a high-harm and high-volume subset, warranting a dedicated strategy.
Our aim in having two strategies is for twice as much focus on these crimes. allowing space, within the VAWG strategy, for consideration of other evolving or less understood crimes, such as those perpetrated through digital or online means. The approach does not separate domestic abuse out from the umbrella term of VAWG, but allows a dedicated focus on it.
The two strategies will be complementary and work together to drive down VAWG crimes and their impact on society and will put victims and survivors at the heart of our response.
The UK signed the Istanbul Convention in 2012. Chapter IV (Articles 18-28) of the Istanbul Convention relates to protection and support for victims. As set out in the recent report on our progress towards ratification of the Convention, published on 22 October 2020, we are fully compliant with the articles which comprise Chapter IV.
We take seriously our responsibilities under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and were examined by the UN Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in February 2019. The Committee welcomed progress made by the UK in relation to violence against women and girls.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of the Government's decision to separate its Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy from the Domestic Abuse Strategy on tackling gender-based violence.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Addressing Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) remains a key priority of this Government. We are committed to fighting VAWG crimes, of which domestic abuse is a high-harm and high-volume subset.
Our aim in having two strategies is for twice as much focus on these crimes. allowing space, within the VAWG strategy, for consideration of other evolving or less understood crimes, such as those perpetrated through digital or online means. The approach does not separate domestic abuse out from the umbrella term of VAWG, but allows a dedicated focus on it.
The two strategies will be complementary and work together to drive down VAWG crimes and their impact on society and will put victims and survivors at the heart of our response.
We meet regularly with organisations that support survivors to discuss our approach to the VAWG and DA strategies, and will continue to engage with women’s, girls’ and victims’ organisations on this important work, including several sector-wide sessions in the last few months, individual calls with leading VAWG organisations, and participation in the Domestic Abuse Commissioners regular sector calls.