Author: admin

  • Stuart McDonald – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Stuart McDonald – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart McDonald on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) prosecutions have taken place and (b) penalty notices have been issued under paragraphs (i) 13 and (ii) 12 of the Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006 in each year since those regulations entered into force.

    James Brokenshire

    The number of prosecutions under Regulations 12 and 13 of the Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006, in each of the years the regulations were in force, 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013, is shown in Table 1. The data in the table has been provided by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and is not held by the Home Office. MoJ Court Proceedings Database holds information on defendants proceeded against, found guilty and sentenced for criminal offences in England and Wales.

    The Regulations only allowed for employees to be served with a Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) under Regulation 13. The sanction against employers under Regulation 12 was prosecution through the Courts. The Home Office does not hold Management Information for this period which would explain why the prosecution numbers are low. Management information in Table 2 shows the number of FPNs notified to the Home Office as having been served in each of the financial years the Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006 were in force.

    The Home Office has no record of any Fixed Penalty Notices being issued to Croatian nationals working in breach of the Accession of Croatia (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2013. The Home Office has not issued any civil penalties to employers in respect of breaches of the Accession of Croatia (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2013.

  • Stuart McDonald – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Stuart McDonald – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart McDonald on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) prosecutions have taken place and (b) penalty notices have been issued under paragraphs (i) 15 and (ii) 16 of the Accession of Croatia (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2013 in each year since those regulations entered into force.

    James Brokenshire

    The number of prosecutions under Regulations 12 and 13 of the Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006, in each of the years the regulations were in force, 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013, is shown in Table 1. The data in the table has been provided by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and is not held by the Home Office. MoJ Court Proceedings Database holds information on defendants proceeded against, found guilty and sentenced for criminal offences in England and Wales.

    The Regulations only allowed for employees to be served with a Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) under Regulation 13. The sanction against employers under Regulation 12 was prosecution through the Courts. The Home Office does not hold Management Information for this period which would explain why the prosecution numbers are low. Management information in Table 2 shows the number of FPNs notified to the Home Office as having been served in each of the financial years the Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006 were in force.

    The Home Office has no record of any Fixed Penalty Notices being issued to Croatian nationals working in breach of the Accession of Croatia (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2013. The Home Office has not issued any civil penalties to employers in respect of breaches of the Accession of Croatia (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2013.

  • Bill Wiggin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Bill Wiggin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bill Wiggin on 2015-10-21.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many investigations into estate agents have taken place under money laundering regulations in the last five years.

    Harriett Baldwin

    In 2014-15 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) issued 677 penalties to the total value of £768,000 across all the sectors it regulates. HMRC considers that releasing the number of investigations and visits made to businesses in different sectors could enable opportunists to identify where resource is being focussed, allowing criminals to arrange their activities accordingly to escape challenge. HMRC must protect information which could be used by criminals in this way and therefore is not able to release numbers on how many investigations are conducted in the Estate Agency Businesses (EAB) sector. HMRC took on supervision of Estate Agency Businesses under the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) on 1 April 2014. Since becoming supervisor HMRC has used a range of interventions such as face to face visits, telephone interventions and webinars to reach hundreds of businesses in the EAB sector, and test and challenge their compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations. In addition to direct interventions, as supervisor, HMRC conducts risking work which involves using a range of sophisticated data exploitation tools – including their state-of-the-art Connect system – to identify cases which warrant further investigation. It is not possible to quantify how many businesses have been looked at in this way, as it is a routine aspect of supervision for HMRC. Where cases require criminal investigation, they are passed to HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service. HMRC is unable to disclose details of cases which are currently under criminal investigation for operational reasons.

    I can confirm that estate agents that do not hold client money fall within the scope of the Money Laundering Regulations 2007.

  • Bill Wiggin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Attorney General

    Bill Wiggin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Attorney General

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bill Wiggin on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Attorney General, how many estate agents have been prosecuted for money laundering in the last five years.

    Robert Buckland

    The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains no central record of the occupations of defendants prosecuted. This information could only be obtained by examining CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost.

  • Fiona Bruce – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Fiona Bruce – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Fiona Bruce on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how her Department plans to work in partnership with (a) communities and (b) other Government departments on tackling hate crimes and challenging extremism which leads to violence.

    Karen Bradley

    The Government’s Counter-Extremism Strategy was published on 19 October. This sets out how all parts of government will work together to tackle all forms of extremism.

    To defeat extremism, we must work in partnership with communities. The strategy sets out how we will develop a network of civil society groups and individuals who share our commitment to defeat extremism and protect communities.

    The Prime Minister also recently announced that as the Government had promised in 2016 UK Police Forces across England and Wales will record Anti Muslim Hatred alongside other religious hate crime as a specific categorised offence.

    The New Cross-Government Hate Crime Action Plan is currently being developed by the Home Office in partnership with other Government departments, policing colleagues and external stakeholders.

  • Bill Wiggin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Bill Wiggin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bill Wiggin on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to increase the number of appointments available for premium passport applications in London.

    James Brokenshire

    Her Majesty’s Passport Office continues to review services to ensure they meet customer expectations and needs. During 2015, the London Passport Office has consistently offered customers a premium service appointment the next day and has always remained within the target of 3 working days.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what representations she has received from local authorities in Yorkshire about stone theft.

    Mike Penning

    We have received no recent representations from local authorities in Yorkshire on this issue.

    Existing legislation provides the police and courts with sufficient powers to respond to stone theft.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of legislation to prevent stone theft.

    Mike Penning

    We have received no recent representations from local authorities in Yorkshire on this issue.

    Existing legislation provides the police and courts with sufficient powers to respond to stone theft.

  • Bridget Phillipson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Bridget Phillipson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bridget Phillipson on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of changes in police officer numbers on the ability of police to respond to anti-social behaviour.

    Mike Penning

    The number of police recorded incidents of anti-social behaviour has declined year-on-year from 2.7 million incidents in 2011/12 to 1.9 million in the year ending June 2015. The number of anti-social behaviour incidents recorded by police in England and Wales in the year ending June 2015 decreased by 9% compared with the previous year. However, we recognise that anti-social behaviour continues to blight too many communities. This is why new and more flexible powers were introduced in the Anti-social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 to make it quicker and easier for police forces and local authorities to protect communities from unacceptable behaviour.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Government’s Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group.

    Mr Marcus Jones

    The Government set up the first Anti-Muslim Hatred working group in 2012 and we are proud of its achievements. We are committed to tackling anti-Muslim hatred and see the group as an important role in advising Ministers.