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  • Stephen Gethins – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Stephen Gethins – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Gethins on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the humanitarian situation in South Sudan.

    Grant Shapps

    We remain deeply concerned by the dire humanitarian situation in South Sudan. In October 2015, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) assessed that 3.9 million South Sudanese people were severely food insecure in September, an 80% increase compared to last year at the same time and unprecedented in the country. The IPC found 30,000 people in Unity state experiencing catastrophic food insecurity. The risk of famine in the absence of urgent and immediate unrestricted humanitarian access is very real.

    The UK is second largest bilateral donor to the humanitarian response in South Sudan £172m has been committed since the start of the crisis in December 2013, along with an additional £88.9m to the regional response for South Sudanese refugees.

    The South Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan has sought $1.63 billion to meet the most urgent needs until the end of 2015 and it is so far 55% funded. The low level of funding is concerning. The UK Government continues to urge the international community to respond as we have and follow our lead.

  • Margaret Ferrier – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Margaret Ferrier – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Ferrier on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to increase the number of (a) women and (b) people from ethnic minorities in the police forces.

    Mike Penning

    It is vital that the police reflect the communities they serve and the Government is determined to improve BME representation in all 43 forces in England and Wales.

    Decisions on when and how to recruit individuals are for the chief officer of a police force. It is important that they use equalities legislation, including positive action provisions, to make better progress in terms of recruitment of under-represented groups.

    The Home Secretary announced on 22 October the publication of data showing the gender and ethnicity of police officers by force area. This represents an important step in making it easier for the public to access the data they need to see how representative their force is compared to the local population. It is clear that the current representation of women and officers from minority ethnic backgrounds in the officer ranks is not good enough and the Home Secretary has challenged forces to do more.

    The Government’s reforms have already made improvements, for example we set up the College of Policing which has embarked on a major programme of work, BME Progression 2018, looking at recruitment, retention and progression of black and minority ethnic officers, including the development of an evidence base of successful approaches used by forces.

    We have worked with the College to develop its Reverse Mentoring programme, which seeks to give police leaders an insight into the direct lived experience of officers from under-represented groups. I am grateful to the five Chief Constables who have signed their force up to the programme. We also worked with the College to produce its Positive Action Practical Advice, which advises forces on the use of lawful positive action to support the recruitment, retention and progression of officers from under-represented groups.

    Under this Government innovative schemes such as Direct Entry and Police Now are increasing the number of BME recruits to the police, showing that you can achieve better representation whilst attracting the best and the brightest into policing.

    Of the nine direct entry superintendents who began their superintendent training on November 2014 four (44%) are women and two (22%) are from an ethnic minority background. This is significantly more representative than the current make up of the superintendent rank which is comprised of 17% women and 4% ethnic minority.

    Police Now, implemented in the Metropolitan Police, appointed 69 people to start their training, up from an anticipated 50 owing to the high calibre of applicants. Of these, 43% are women and 9% are from a BME background, compared to the national BME proportion of 5.5%.

  • 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.

  • 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 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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 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.

  • 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.