Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle violence and sexual offences in Preston.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
As part of steps taken through our Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, we are tackling perpetrators and supporting victims.
We have provided funding to the Lancashire PCC to roll out the Drive Project, which focuses on the most serious domestic abuse offenders to prevent them from abusing again, and funded Preston based Saraha to provide bilingual, comprehensive, face-to-face support service for women from black and minority ethnic backgrounds who are victims of domestic abuse.
Nationally, we have invested £9.4 million to develop a New Operation Model for the investigation of rape through Operation Soteria. This ensures investigations are suspect based. All police forces in England and Wales are now implementing this new approach to rape investigations and we have provided £8.5m in 2023/24 to continue to support policing to improve their response to rape.
Through the Safer Streets and Safety of Women at Night Funds, we have invested over £150 million to deliver interventions to tackle violence against women, anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood crime.
This includes just over £3.4m for Lancashire, of which £146,568 has been awarded to Preston City Council to fund interventions such as the installation of CCTV, the deployment of taxi stewards and night-time economy sector training, along with improvements to accommodation for services assisting women at risk and recovery services for victims of sexual violence.
Since 2019, the Home Office has provided over £8m for a Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in Lancashire. VRUs bring together local partners to understand and tackle the drivers of serious violence in their area, including sexual abuse and domestic abuse.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he is taking steps to ensure that people who are arrested are tested to see if their drink has been spiked.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The Home Office has no plans to implement mandatory spiking testing for arrestees.
We urge anyone who believes they or someone around them has been spiked to contact the police as soon as possible to report the incident and submit a urine sample for testing through the approved lab-based process. Incidents can also be reported online - including anonymously.
Individuals who have been arrested by the police but believe they have been spiked can raise this with them and submit a sample for testing.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will (a) make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of crime levels in (i) Preston and (ii) Lancashire and (b) take steps to develop a plan to reduce bicycle theft in those areas.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government recognises the impact acquisitive crime can have on individuals and communities. The 2021 Beating Crime Plan, sets out the Government’s strategy for cutting crime, protecting the law-abiding majority and making neighbourhoods safe. The plan can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1015382/Crime-plan-v10.pdf.
Since 2010, overall crime excluding fraud and computer misuse is down by 55%, and we welcome the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales data, which shows that bicycle theft is also down 55% when comparing findings from the year ending September 2023 with the year ending March 2010.
A key part of making acquisitive crime less attractive to criminals is making stolen goods harder to sell on. That is why we are working closely with policing and academic leads to examine what more can be done to tackle the disposal markets for stolen goods and reduce the profit from acquisitive crime.
This Government also established the Safer Streets Fund. Since its inception in 2020, we have invested over £150 million to deliver interventions across England and Wales helping to tackle and prevent violence against women and girls, anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood crime. This includes investing just over £3.4 million in Lancashire, funding a range of initiatives such as CCTV and street lighting, improvements to home security measures and youth engagement and educational programmes.
The Home Office is working closely with the British Transport Police (BTP), the national lead for cycle theft, to tackle the theft of bicycles. The BTP has launched the ‘double lock it’ campaign with police forces and organisations, providing advice to owners on how to protect their bicycles: https://www.btp.police.uk/police-forces/british-transport-police/areas/campaigns/double-lock-it/.
The Department for Transport’s (DfT) Cycling and Walking Plan for England, also sets out initiatives to combat cycle theft, including encouraging retailers to number the bicycles they sell and offer customers the opportunity to register their bicycle on a database at the point of sale. The Plan is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-plan-for-england.
The BTP-led National Cycle Crime Group, working with DfT, have set up Cycle Crime Reduction Partnerships across the country to coordinate regional enforcement activity to disrupt organised cycle theft.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to reduce levels of drug offences in (a) Preston and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Reducing drug-related crime is a key priority of the Government’s 10-year drugs strategy.
We are making good progress. Since April 2022 we have closed over 2,500 county lines and delivered over 6,000 major and moderate organised crime group disruptions.
We are also investing £532m into drug treatment which reduces crime and reoffending. There are now 24,500 more people in treatment across England, including increases in Lancashire.
We are targeting treatment referrals at offenders. The percentage of prison leavers continuing treatment after release has also risen to a record high of 52% - an increase of 10% in the last 12 months.
We are working with the National Police Chiefs Council to increase police referrals into drug treatment, as well as expanding Drug Testing on Arrest to identify those who use drugs. This builds on £2.1 million funding to deliver Project ADDER – a co-ordinated approach across policing and treatment to crack down on supply and support people tackle their addiction – in 13 hard hit areas including Lancashire.
The government has asked every area in England to form a Combating Drugs Partnership (CDP) to work together to reduce drug-related harm and crime. Preston is covered by the Lancashire CDP, and the Government has supported the establishment of the Pan Lancashire Drugs and Alcohol Alliance, to help coordinate work across Lancashire’s three CDPs.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department plans to incorporate wildlife crime into the Policing Education Qualification Framework.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government recognises the importance of tackling wildlife crime, which is why, along with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Home Office directly funds the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) to help tackle these crimes.
The NWCU provides intelligence, analysis and investigative assistance to the police and other law enforcement agencies across the UK to support them in investigating wildlife crime. This includes supporting cases referred by Border Force to the National Crime Agency or to individual forces. The NWCU is also the UK policing focal point for EUROPOL and INTERPOL wildlife crime activity.
In addition, the National Police Chiefs’ Council Wildlife and Rural Crime Strategy 2022-2025 provides a framework through which policing, and its partners, can work together to tackle the most prevalent threats and emerging issues which predominantly affect rural communities.
Training standards and the national policing curriculum (covering initial training for all officers) are set by the College of Policing to ensure all officers benefit from the same high standard of initial training, regardless of which force they join. Officers undertake further training and development in the course of their career, which may be tailored to their specific role.
We do not currently have plans to incorporate wildlife crime into the Policing Education Qualification Framework.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff left his Department in each year since 2015.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This information is published annually and can be found via the links below.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics
Data before 2019
Civil Service statistics - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many major cyber crime incidents have been reported since the National Cyber Strategy was introduced.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Since the announcement of the National Cyber Strategy on 15 December 2021, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has received 71 reports associated with cyber crime activity, considered to be significant.
The NCSC categorise incidents based on numerous contemporaneous factors, including but not limited to, the technical impact of the incident, the nature of the affected organisation, and contextual considerations at the time of the incident report being received.
NCSC and law enforcement take action against cyber criminals by taking down their malicious URLs used to defraud people.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help ensure that anti-social behaviour is investigated in (a) Preston and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The investigation of anti-social behaviour in Lancashire is a matter for the Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire.
Last year the Government launched the Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/anti-social-behaviour-action-plan) ensuring the police, local authorities and other relevant agencies have the tools they need to tackle anti-social behaviour.
The Plan is backed by £160m of funding. This includes funding an increased police and other uniformed presence to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, targeting hotspots. Initially we worked with 10 police force areas, including Lancashire Constabulary which received £1,050,000. From April this has been extended to every police force in England and Wales and Lancashire will receive £ 1,713,512 for the hotspot programme tackling areas of high incidents of both ASB and serious violence.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made a recent estimate of the total amount of money that has been returned to victims of gambling-related crimes by (a) the gambling industry, (b) Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings and (c) any other means in the 2023-24 financial year.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Neither the Government nor the Gambling Commission hold information on how many crimes related to harmful gambling were committed in the last 12 months and there has been no recent estimate as to the total amount of money that has been returned to victims of gambling-related crimes.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) in Department of Health and Social Care have undertaken an evidence review which provides estimates of the economic costs of harmful gambling, which includes a section on criminal activity (chapter 6).The economic cost of gambling-related harm in England: evidence update 2023 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
The Gambling Act 2005 sets out the following licensing objectives:
As the statutory regulator, the Gambling Commission is responsible for making sure all licensing applications meet these objectives. The Commission has published a statement of principles for licensing and regulation which sets out how it governs what it does and how they help to meet the Act's licensing objectives.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many crimes related to harmful gambling were committed in the last 12 months; what the nature of those crimes was; and if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of those crimes on (a) the economy and (b) wider society.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Neither the Government nor the Gambling Commission hold information on how many crimes related to harmful gambling were committed in the last 12 months and there has been no recent estimate as to the total amount of money that has been returned to victims of gambling-related crimes.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) in Department of Health and Social Care have undertaken an evidence review which provides estimates of the economic costs of harmful gambling, which includes a section on criminal activity (chapter 6).The economic cost of gambling-related harm in England: evidence update 2023 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
The Gambling Act 2005 sets out the following licensing objectives:
As the statutory regulator, the Gambling Commission is responsible for making sure all licensing applications meet these objectives. The Commission has published a statement of principles for licensing and regulation which sets out how it governs what it does and how they help to meet the Act's licensing objectives.