Tag: Home Office

The press release issued by the Home Office on 14 July 2023.

The governments of Canada and the United Kingdom are committed to providing Canadian and British youth with work opportunities that will empower them to achieve their full potential.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 14 July 2023.

The men were sentenced to over six years in prison for smuggling seven Indian migrants into the UK.

Two British men were sentenced yesterday (13 July 2023) to over six years in prison for smuggling seven Indian migrants – including women and children – into the UK, in the boots of two cars.

Palvinder Singh Phull, 48, from Hounslow, received three and half years for assisting unlawful immigration. On 8 July 2018, Mr Phull was stopped at the UK border in Dover, and three Indian nationals claiming to be Afghan Sikhs were found in the boot of his hire car.

His co-accused, Harjit Singh Dhaliwal, 45, from Middlesex, was jailed for three years and two months, also for assisting unlawful immigration. Four days after Mr Phull was arrested, on 12 July 2018, Mr Dhaliwal was stopped at the UK border and four Indian nationals also claiming to be Afghan Sikhs were found hiding in the boot of his car.

Following an investigation by the Home Office Criminal and Financial Investigations (CFI) unit, the suspects were found to be linked via mobile phone records.

The sentencing took place at Canterbury Crown Court, where the defendants both pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration.

Chris Foster, Deputy Director of Criminal and Financial Investigations at the Home Office, said:

Today’s sentencing sends a clear message to those abusing our laws and borders: we will stop at nothing to bring to justice anyone attempting to smuggle people into the UK.

I would like to pay tribute to the hard work of my team, and their tireless efforts to tackle this type of crime. We will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners to disrupt people smuggling gangs and make sure those who break our laws face the consequences.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 13 July 2023.

Asylum seekers have moved to the first large-scale asylum accommodation site in the UK as part of the government’s pledge to reduce the use of expensive hotels.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 11 July 2023.

The Security Minister convened a meeting of the Joint Fraud Taskforce to discuss measures to tackle fraud including an online fraud charter.

Representatives from across the private sector met at 10 Downing Street to update government on progress made to tackle fraud and protect the public from scams.

The Security Minister, Tom Tugendhat, convened a meeting of the Joint Fraud Taskforce (JFT) to drive forward delivery of the commitments made in the Fraud Strategy, published earlier this year. With several actions already implemented, members of the group agreed to use the forum to continue to monitor progress.

Representatives discussed the development of an online fraud charter with the tech sector to respond to the growing volume of fraud originating on social media platforms. The charter will ensure that tech firms take action to block scams, make it easier to report frauds and ensure that fraudulent content is removed swiftly. The Security Minister has also called on tech firms to implement stronger measures to tackle fraud on their platforms ahead of the introduction of the Online Safety Bill.

Anti-Fraud Champion Anthony Browne said:

Collaboration with industry is key to blocking fraud at source.

Since stepping into my role, I’ve worked at pace with industry to ensure we are delivering on our commitment to cut off the channels fraudsters use to target us and protect people’s hard earned money.

I will continue this conversation with tech sector bosses to ensure they are doing everything in their power to disrupt the callous fraudsters operating online and better protect their users.

Previous Joint Fraud Taskforce meetings have overseen the development and agreement of charters covering sectors such as retail banking and telecoms. The telecommunications charter has already resulted in massive action by the operators, with over 600 million scam texts blocked and vast numbers of scam calls filtered out before they can reach the public.

Representatives also discussed the development of a cross-government anti-fraud public awareness campaign to streamline and simplify messaging to the public. The Security Minister encouraged partners to collaborate with government on the preparation and delivery of the campaign.

Today’s meeting is the first since the publication of the government’s Fraud Strategy which set out a whole system response to tackling these crimes in the light of how they have evolved through modern technology.

This included the creation of a new National Fraud Squad to overhaul how these crimes are investigated by taking a proactive, intelligence-led approach, backed by 400 new specialist investigators, working with local forces, international partners and the UK intelligence community to shut down fraud cells.

Other measures in the strategy include:

• banning cold calls on all financial products such as types of insurance or sham crypto currency schemes
• working with Ofcom to use new technology to further clamp down on number ‘spoofing’, so fraudsters cannot impersonate legitimate UK phone numbers
• banning the use of so-called ‘SIM farms’ commonly harnessed by scammers to reach thousands of people at once
• reviewing the use of mass texting services
• rolling out tailored support to victims at a local level across the whole of England and Wales through the National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit
• launching an independent review of the challenges in investigating and prosecuting fraud to speed up the justice process, punishing more scammers and ensuring sentences match the severity of the impact on victims
• deploying the UK intelligence community to identify and disrupt more fraudsters overseas
• publishing regular data on the volume of fraudulent content hosted on different websites and platforms to incentivise companies to root these out and better protect users.

Organisations in attendance at the JFT included:

• HM Treasury
• National Cyber Security Centre
• National Economic Crime Centre (NECC)
• City of London Police
• National Trading Standards
• UK Finance
• Cifas
• OFCOM
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
• Victim Support
• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
• Law Society of England and Wales
• Association of British Insurers (ABI)
• TechUK
• Google
• Communications Crime Strategy Group (CCSG)
• Serious Fraud Office
• Welsh Government
• Department of Justice Northern Ireland

The press release issued by the Home Office on 11 July 2023.

On 11 July, the National Security Bill became law after being passed by both Houses of Parliament and securing Royal Assent.

This new act brings together vital new measures to protect the British public, modernise counter-espionage laws and address the evolving threat to our national security.

With this new legislation, the UK is now a harder target for those states who seek to conduct hostile acts against the UK, which include espionage, foreign interference (including in our political system), sabotage, and acts that endanger life, such as assassination.

The new powers will help ensure that the UK remains the hardest operating environment for malign activity undertaken by foreign actors.

Russia remains the most acute threat to the UK’s security, though we have seen interference from China including to communities here in the UK, and Iran has made concerted efforts to kill or kidnap British or UK-based individuals.

Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said:

We are facing growing threats from foreign states. Over the past years we’ve seen attempts to harm our people, damage our economy and undermine our democracy.

Iran’s recent attempts to kidnap or kill people living in the UK are beyond contempt, and a fundamental violation of our sovereignty.

The National Security Act provides the tools to expose this type of activity and hold those responsible to account.

The National Security Act overhauls our outdated espionage laws and will provide our law enforcement and intelligence agencies with new and updated tools to deter, detect and disrupt modern-day state threats. For the first time there is an offence of foreign interference, meaning it will now be illegal to engage in conduct that interferes with fundamental rights, such as voting and freedom of speech, that are essential to the UK’s democracy.

These powers will apply to an individual acting on behalf of any state, which means the UK will be better equipped to tackle the full spectrum of malign activity, whether in the form of disinformation, cyber-attacks, electoral interference or even physical attacks, including the barbaric use of chemical weapons.

Director General of MI5, Ken McCallum said:

We face state adversaries who operate at scale and who are not squeamish about the tactics they deploy to target people and businesses in the UK.

The National Security Act is a game changing update to our powers.  We now have a modern set of laws to tackle today’s threats.

The act also introduces a new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS), which criminalises those acting covertly for states which pose the greatest threat to our national security and strengthens the resilience of UK democracy by bringing transparency to foreign political influence.

The scheme has been created to tackle covert influence in the UK, it is split into two parts: the political tier of FIRS makes any political influence activity undertaken at the direction of a foreign power registerable; and the enhanced tier – which is designed to target those countries that pose a risk to the safety or interests of the UK – will require registration of arrangements that are entered into with a specified foreign power, or entity controlled by a foreign power. Failure to register when required will be a criminal offence.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 7 July 2023.

UK law enforcement authorities will be able to freely transfer personal data to their counterparts in Guernsey under legislation laid in Parliament today.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 6 July 2023.

The Home Secretary, alongside the Culture Secretary, held a roundtable as Just Stop Oil disrupted matches at the Wimbledon Tennis Championship.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 6 July 2023.

Communities across England and Wales will see more police patrolling antisocial behaviour hotspots and perpetrators will face tougher, swifter consequences.

This marks the next steps in delivering the Prime Minister’s action plan to crack down on antisocial behaviour and build stronger communities.

From this week onwards, 16 police force areas, including Cleveland, Derbyshire and Northumbria, will be launching either ‘hotspot’ policing initiatives or ‘immediate justice’ schemes. These will see offenders of antisocial behaviour made to wear high-vis vests and repair damage they’ve caused to the community – for example washing police cars, cleaning up graffiti and local parks, or litter picking.

‘Immediate justice’ programmes are already underway in Sussex and Derbyshire, and aim for offenders to start work as little as 48 hours after they’ve committed a crime, so that victims know antisocial behaviour is treated seriously. The reparative activity will be up to each force or local council to decide but should be visible to the public, with the community and victims getting a say in the kind of clean-up or repairs undertaken. This will help to restore public confidence that people will be held accountable for their crimes, in turn helping to strengthen communities and build a better future.

The hotspot policing schemes will see an increase in the number of police patrols in areas with the highest rates of antisocial behaviour, with resource focused on locations where incidents are more frequent such as public transport or parks – helping to step up enforcement action and deter crimes from being committed in the first place so that people feel safer in their communities.

While these trial areas are being funded as part of the government’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan announced in March, the initiatives are due to be rolled out in all areas of England and Wales from 2024.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said:

Everyone should have the right to feel safe on their streets, confident that perpetrators will pay the price of their crimes.

That’s why tackling antisocial behaviour is a core part of my pledge to build a better future for people all across this country.

My plan to stamp it out will make sure those responsible for damaging their communities will be swiftly and visibly held to account – so that people know this issue will be treated with the urgency it deserves.

On top of this the Home Secretary is today announcing an additional £60 million – £1.4 million for every police force area in the country – to invest in crime prevention measures such as better CCTV or street lighting, or local community projects with a particular focus on driving down antisocial behaviour, preventing more burglaries and making streets safer for women and girls – in turn helping to build stronger communities. This is on top of the £120 million we have already invested in 270 projects through the fund since 2020.

The funding is the biggest pot to date from the government’s Safer Streets Fund and will be directly awarded to police and crime commissioners. There will be no need to bid competitively for the money, freeing them up to focus on listening to local concerns and delivering the projects – for example, working with civil society organisations on training to stop street sexual harassment.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said:

People up and down the country are sick of feeling intimidated by yobs in their communities and want to be able to feel safe walking down the street.

Antisocial behaviour is not ‘low-level’ crime and that’s why I am determined to bring it to a stop by giving police the powers and the funding to stamp it out.

There will be quick and visible consequences for individuals carrying out this behaviour before they start down the path to more serious criminality.

I want to see the new funding we’re announcing today invested into more CCTV, better street lighting or gating, to make our streets safer for all.

The government has also delivered on its manifesto commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers, with more across England and Wales than ever before, which means more resource to crack down on antisocial behaviour, solve more burglaries and prevent violent crime.

The Home Secretary visited Derbyshire Police on Tuesday, who are consulting with the community throughout this week – which also marks Anti-Social Behaviour Awareness Week – on what kind of reparation they would like to see in their area. The Minister for Policing, Crime and Fire also visited Lancashire Police to see the launch of their hotspot policing pilot.

Rebecca Bryant OBE, Chief Exec Resolve, said:

We must do better when it comes to supporting victims of antisocial behaviour. As our new research shows, it is a prevalent, widespread problem causing serious harm to its victims and communities.

We are calling for a greater focus on early intervention and prevention, and more communication around how to report antisocial behaviour and what to expect after making a report. We are working closely with government to raise awareness of this issue.

The launch of the schemes this week are the next step in the government’s ongoing work to clamp down on antisocial behaviour, as set out in the Prime Minister’s action plan to build stronger communities and a better future for people across the country.

This includes relaunching the anti-social behaviour case review, formerly known as the community trigger, which gives victims of persistent antisocial behaviour a right to request a review of how their case has been handled, where a local threshold is met, as well as the start of a new pilot to rapidly deploy teams of offenders serving Community Payback sentences to carry out local clean-ups where particularly serious incidents of fly tipping, vandalism and littering have taken place.

Today also marks the latest round of funding opening under the Chewing Gum Task Force. More than 50 councils across the UK will receive grants totalling more than £1.65 million to remove discarded chewing gum from our streets and prevent it from being littered again.

Earlier this week, the government also opened the first round of the Million Hours Fund, to make an initial £3 million of grants available for youth organisations to provide more out of school activities and support more young people in areas of high need this summer – ensuring young people are helped away from bad life choices and are given access to greater support.

These measures form part of the Prime Minister’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan which sets out the government’s approach to making sure these issues are treated with the urgency they deserve by establishing a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of antisocial behaviour, and giving the police and local authorities the tools they need to tackle the problem.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 6 July 2023.

An additional £2.5 million in grant funding will go to 17 organisations across the UK that support vulnerable people in applying to the EU Settlement Scheme.

The latest grant funding will continue through to spring 2025 and will bring the total amount of support for the grant funded network of organisations to £32 million since 2019.

This funding will help to ensure that support reaches a range of vulnerable groups, including those with disabilities, the elderly and isolated, children and victims of domestic violence or abuse, to help them apply to the EUSS, including to switch from pre-settled to settled status.

Home Office grant funding has already supported more than 490,000 vulnerable people in applying to the EUSS, ensuring that they secure their rights in the UK following our departure from the EU.

The network of grant funded organisations and their delivery partners are part of the wider support available to applicants through charities, community groups and local authorities across the UK. This includes the Assisted Digital service, helping those without appropriate digital access or skills to apply online.

Barbara Drozdowicz, Chief Executive Officer of the East European Resource Centre, said:

Thanks to generous support from the Home Office, here at the East European Resource Centre we have been supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable Eastern Europeans since 2019. Over four years we have supported thousands of people with information, advice and casework, reached those in isolation, assisted people with complex life situations.

Continued support from the Home Office allows us to sustain and seamlessly continue this essential service as welfare and wellbeing, life choices and quality rely now on holding correct immigration status that can be difficult to obtain by more vulnerable sections of our community.

Louise Humphries, Chief Executive Officer of GYROS said:

GYROS are delighted to be awarded this funding from the Home Office and we look forward to supporting vulnerable EU nationals with their settled status over the next 2 years.

Rhys Evans, Project Lead and Service and Development Manager at Settled (Wales) said:

Settled are delighted to have been granted Home Office funding for EUSS advice work in Wales, in conjunction with our new partners on this project, TGP Cymru. With both organisations already well established in Wales, the new grant will enable us to expand our much needed free, accredited, multilingual advice work to EU / EEA citizens living in Cymru; and especially to particularly vulnerable groups including Roma communities, people who are homeless or have suffered domestic abuse, individuals with physical or mental health conditions, and people with language, literacy, or digital exclusion barriers.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 20 June 2023.

Police leaders must make sure their officers are confident to use stop and search powers wherever necessary, to seize dangerous weapons and prevent knife crime.