Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has provided any (a) grants, (b) contracts and (c) other funding to (i) Stand Up to Racism, (ii) Unite the Union,(ii) Migrants Organise, (iv) the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, (v) the Refugee Council and (vi) Care4Calais since 2020; and how much funding was provided to each for what purposes.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Home Office made grant payments to the Refugee Council totalling £ 3.2m for the purpose of Children’s Advisory Projects to support Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) through the asylum process., with a further £ 215,244 for Asylum Seeker Mental Health and Wellbeing Grant to provide assistance to vulnerable adult asylum seekers.
The figures represent budgeted values which may not have been spent in full.
Since 2020 the Home Office has provided contract and other funding payments to the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants totalling £47,015.
Further, the Home Office provided contract and other funding to the Refugee Council totalling £8,026,673 for the same time period.
Information on purpose has been withheld and related contracts as it would only be available at disproportionate cost.
Outside of Home Office funding, for the period FY 21/22 to FY 24/25 inclusive Home Office facilitated £5.37m of EU financed AMIF Integration Funding to the Refugee Council.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many full time equivalent civil servants in her Department are working on recouping profits from private providers with contracts to house asylum seekers.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
Excess profits of £45.9m have been returned to the Department in relation to the contract’s profit share provisions.
The Home Office is supported by a Commercial Department within which is a dedicated Asylum Support Commercial Contract Management Team. This team prioritise and work on all aspects of commercial contract management, including recouping profits share amounts owed to the Home Office. On financial matters, this team work with other Home Office specialists.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much money from private providers with contracts to house asylum seekers is owed to her Department in excess profits since 2021.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
Excess profits of £45.9m have been returned to the Department in relation to the contract’s profit share provisions.
The Home Office is supported by a Commercial Department within which is a dedicated Asylum Support Commercial Contract Management Team. This team prioritise and work on all aspects of commercial contract management, including recouping profits share amounts owed to the Home Office. On financial matters, this team work with other Home Office specialists.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing detention capacity to a level that would facilitate the deportation of between 100,000 and 150,000 people per year.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office (specifically Immigration Enforcement), is currently expanding detention capacity through an active programme that will deliver an additional 1,000 beds over the coming years at Campsfield (Oxfordshire) and Haslar (Hampshire). This expansion will significantly increase the number of enforced returns once operational.
Decisions on the required estate size will be based on several factors, including:
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on funding for (a) voluntary and (b) enforced removal schemes of foreign national offenders in the 2025-26 financial year.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
We will not provide a running commentary on discussions between the Home Office and HMT on in-year funding for removal schemes. The costs associated with voluntary and enforced removals (including foreign national offenders) are varied. The total amount spent on returning people in the 2025/26 financial year will be published in the Home Office annual report and accounts in Summer 2026.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will make an assessment of the ability of police and courts to detect and prosecute offences relating to coercion as set out in the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
As is standard when introducing a new offence, the Ministry of Justice will engage with criminal justice agencies, including the police, CPS, and judiciary, before commencement. These bodies will develop guidance and training through their respective organisations, such as the College of Policing and the Judicial College, to ensure officers and practitioners have the necessary powers, knowledge, and skills to detect and prosecute offences under the Bill.
Asked by: Michael Wheeler (Labour - Worsley and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department’s publication entitled Annual statistics of scientific procedures on living animals, Great Britain 2024, published on 23 October 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the increase in the number of procedures conducted for LD50 and LC50 tests from 2023 to 2024.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Lethal Dose 50 and Lethal Concentration 50 procedures are subject to strict regulations under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. This legal framework requires that animals are only ever used in science where there are no alternatives, where the number of animals used is the minimum needed to achieve the scientific benefit, and where the potential harm to animals is limited to that needed to achieve the scientific benefit.
Some authorised medicines in the UK include quality control tests which require the use of animals, conducted to ensure the quality, safety, and efficacy of specific medicines. These tests account for the LD50 cases still conducted.
The requirement for LD50 and LC50 tests is set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines and the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations set by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
This Government is committed to the development of non-animal alternatives and will publish a strategy by the end of this year to support the development, validation and uptake of alternatives to animal testing.
Asked by: Michael Wheeler (Labour - Worsley and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department’s publication entitled Annual statistics of scientific procedures on living animals, Great Britain 2024, published on 23 October 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the increase in the number of (a) marmosets and tamarins and (b) rhesus monkeys used for the first time in scientific procedures from 2023 to 2024.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The requirements for regulatory testing are set by regulators such as the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which regulates medicines, medical devices and blood components for transfusion in the UK.
The use of non-human primates continues to represent a very small proportion of the total number of procedures carried out in Great Britain, accounting for approximately 0.1% of all experimental procedures in 2024. The total number of procedures using non-human primates, and the total number of non-human primates used decreased in 2024 compared to 2023. Non-human primates are required by regulatory authorities for use in their assessments of whether potential medicines and other therapeutics are to be considered safe for human use. Non-human primates are also used for the safety assessment of novel pharmaceuticals in cases where they are the most appropriate and scientifically justified species.
Non-human primates are classed as specially protected species, and their use is permitted only under exceptional circumstances.
The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 ensures that all use of non-human primates in the UK is strictly regulated and licences that authorise testing on non-human primates are only granted where there is robust scientific justification and no viable alternative. Each project licence application is subject to a rigorous harm-benefit analysis, and the welfare of the animals is a primary consideration at every stage.
This Government is committed to the development of non-animal alternatives and will publish a strategy by the end of this year to support the development, validation and uptake of alternatives to animal testing.
Asked by: Michael Wheeler (Labour - Worsley and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department’s publication entitled Annual statistics of scientific procedures on living animals, Great Britain 2024, published on 23 October 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the increase in the number of procedures involving (a) fish, (b) rats and (c) horses from 2023 to 2024.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
In 2024, there were 2.64 million regulated scientific procedures carried out in Great Britain involving living animals. This is a decrease of 1% on the previous year, and the lowest number since 2001.
The trends in the number of animals and types of procedures carried out each year are influenced by a range of extraneous factors, for example requirements for research and testing which include products being brought to market.
The Home Office is responsible for regulating under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) to assure compliance with protections afforded to animals used in science and to administrate the licensing framework. Data trends and requirements will be assessed by the authorities whom have particular responsibilities and requirements for the use of animals of science.
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many National Fraud Intelligence Bureau 1D dating scam offences were recorded in the (a) 2024-25, (b) 2023-24. (c) 2019-20 and (d) 2014-15 financial year.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Home Office does not collect information on romance fraud. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which sits within City of London Police, collects data on Dating Scam Fraud. This is collected from the reports made to Action Fraud that amounted to a crime under the Home Office crime recording rules.
The table below summarises the number of dating scams recorded by NFIB on 1D dating fraud offences.
| 2014/15 | 2019/20 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
Dating scam (NFIB1D) | 2,735 | 5,541 | 8,388 | 9,296 |