Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to create a statutory definition of honour-based abuse.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is tackling ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) through its landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. Key to this is ensuring that HBA is well understood by frontline professionals, Government agencies, and impacted communities.
Currently there is a definition of HBA used by the criminal justice system, but we recognise there is more that can be done to raise the level of consistency of understanding regarding HBA in Government and across statutory services.
The Home Office is considering this alongside other measures to prevent HBA from happening, support victims and bring perpetrators to justice. More detail will be set out in our forthcoming Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been charged under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 in each year since 2021.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes information on the number of charges for modern slavery in England and Wales. The number of individuals charged or summonsed for modern slavery offences was 226 in 2021, 192 in 2022, 167 in 2023 and 209 in 2024.
More information on the latest police recorded crime data can be accessed here: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables - GOV.UK
Where a charge outcome has been recorded for a modern slavery crime it is not necessarily always a charge under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what checks her Department carries out to verify the identity documents of migrants applying for taxi licences.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer sent on the 20 May 2025 to UIN 51642.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made for the years 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 of the proportion of anti-social behaviour recorded by police which is (1) associated with racism, (2) associated with religious hatred, and (3) associated with religious hatred towards Muslims.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes information about the number of anti-social behaviour incidents recorded by the police in England and Wales on a quarterly basis. However, information about whether these incidents were associated with racism or religious hate is not separately identifiable.
Asked by: Bradley Thomas (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many breathalyser tests were carried out across West Mercia in the last 12 months; how many tested positive; and how many resulted in a prosecution.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes data on roadside breath tests for alcohol as part of its annual ‘Police Powers and Procedures: Roads policing’ statistical release. The latest data is available here Police powers and procedures: Roads policing, to December 2023 - GOV.UK and covers the calendar year ending December 2023.
In 2023, West Mercia Police carried out 7,811 roadside breath tests for alcohol, of which 1,248 were positive or refused.
The Home Office does not hold information on how many of these resulted in a prosecution.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the level of funding for the police over the period of the Spending Review 2025 on levels of (a) shoplifting, (b) phone theft and (c) violence against women.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to supporting the police to tackle crime. The Chancellor has announced a real terms increase in police spending power over the next three years.That included £200 million to kickstart recruitment of neighbourhood officers and PCSOs across the country. As is usual, more detail on force funding allocations for future years will be set out at the police settlement later.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner on how funding will be allocated throughout the West Midlands over the period of the Spending Review 2025.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Force funding allocations will be set out at the police settlement later this year.
It is up to Chief Constables and directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners to make decisions on local resourcing. They are best placed to make these decisions based on their local knowledge and experience.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to model the level of police officer (a) attrition and (b) recruitment required to (i) maintain and (ii) increase overall frontline police numbers in the next three years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on police officer attrition as part of the Police Workforce Statistics, England and Wales. Attrition varies by force and in the year ending March 2024, 9,080 FTE police officers left the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales (excluding transfers), a decrease of 112 (or 1.2%) on the previous year.
It is for Chief Constables and directly elected PCCs, and Mayors with PCC functions to put in place robust workforce plans to deliver sufficient recruitment to replace officers leaving the service to ensure officer numbers can be maintained. Through the Police Funding Settlement for 2025/26, a total of up to £376.8 million has been allocated to support the maintenance of police officer numbers in England and Wales in 2025-26. This is in addition to £200m which has been made available in 2025/26 to kick start the growth in neighbourhood policing personnel. By the end of this parliament there will be 13,000 more neighbourhood policing personnel across England and Wales, including up to 3000 additional neighbourhood officers by the end of March 2026.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to bring forward legislative proposals to give (a) police and (b) councils powers to issue (i) nuisance begging directions, (ii) nuisance begging prevention notices, (iii) nuisance begging prevention orders, (iv) nuisance rough sleeping directions, (v) nuisance rough sleeping prevention notices and (vi) nuisance rough sleeping prevention orders.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
On 10th June, the Government announced its intention to repeal the outdated Vagrancy Act 1824. We have introduced targeted replacement measures in the Crime and Policing Bill to ensure police have the powers they need to keep communities safe, including a new criminal offence of facilitating begging for gain, and an offence of trespassing with the intention of committing a crime, both of which were previously provided for under the 1824 Act.
We know police forces make effective use of existing powers to tackle anti-social behaviour that occurs in this context, and we will update statutory guidance on the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to provide more certainty on how existing powers can be applied to anti-social behaviour where it occurs in these scenarios.
Asked by: Mike Martin (Liberal Democrat - Tunbridge Wells)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions her Department has had with (a) police forces and (b) community groups on the potential impact of Respect Orders on community cohesion.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Respect Orders, which were introduced in the Crime and Policing Bill in February, will be behavioural court orders which focus on combatting anti-social behaviour. We have undertaken extensive consultation with policing partners, including the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), and other key stakeholders in the Anti-social Behaviour sector to ensure the Respect Order will be as effective as possible.
Respect Orders will enable courts to ban adult offenders from engaging in harmful anti-social behaviour. They can also compel adult perpetrators to take action to address the root cause of their behaviour.
Breach of the order will be a criminal offence, allowing the police to arrest anyone suspected of breach. Courts will have a wide range of sentencing options, including community orders, unlimited fines and, for the most severe cases, imprisonment.
The Respect Order will be piloted prior to national rollout to ensure it is as effective as possible.