Written questions by Rosindell.

Whether she plans to phase out the use of crustaceans in scientific experimentation.

The Government is committed to non-animal alternatives in science and has published a strategy which sets out our long-term vision for a world where the use of animals in science is eliminated in all but exceptional circumstances. The strategy is available at:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/replacing-animals-in-science-strategy/replacing-animals-in-science-a-strategy-to-support-the-development-validation-and-uptake-of-alternative-methodsThe strategy does not preclude the development of alternatives to the use of animal species not currently covered by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) protections, including decapod crustaceans.The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 recognised decapod crustaceans as sentient beings. The Government remains committed to an evidence-based and proportionate approach to setting welfare standards for decapod crustaceans, both for those caught for human consumption and those used in scientific research.The Home Office is carefully considering next steps, in collaboration with other relevant departments, on whether decapod crustaceans should be brought within the scope of ASPA.

What steps she has taken with police forces to tackle a) physical and b) verbal abuse against retail workers.

Charges for shop theft rose by 25% (up to 107,090 charges) in the year ending June 2025. As this was a higher rate of increase than the rise in shop thefts recorded (13%), this led to an increase in the charge rate from 17.7% to 19.1%.This Government is committed to restoring visible, responsive neighbourhood policing with 3,000 additional officers in neighbourhood policing roles by spring this year.In the Crime and Policing Bill, we are bringing a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores and we are removing the legislation which makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence, sending a clear message that any level of shop theft is illegal and will be taken seriously.The Home Office has regular discussions with the police and other partners on protecting retail workers and tackling shop theft.We are also providing over £7 million over the next three years to support the police and retailers tackle retail crime, including continuing to fund a specialist policing team – in partnership with the retail sector - to better understand the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identify more offenders.

What steps she has taken with police forces to tackle shoplifting in a) England and b) Romford constituency.

Charges for shop theft rose by 25% (up to 107,090 charges) in the year ending June 2025. As this was a higher rate of increase than the rise in shop thefts recorded (13%), this led to an increase in the charge rate from 17.7% to 19.1%.This Government is committed to restoring visible, responsive neighbourhood policing with 3,000 additional officers in neighbourhood policing roles by spring this year.In the Crime and Policing Bill, we are bringing a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores and we are removing the legislation which makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence, sending a clear message that any level of shop theft is illegal and will be taken seriously.The Home Office has regular discussions with the police and other partners on protecting retail workers and tackling shop theft.We are also providing over £7 million over the next three years to support the police and retailers tackle retail crime, including continuing to fund a specialist policing team – in partnership with the retail sector - to better understand the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identify more offenders.

With regard to the Animals in Science Regulation Unit Annual Report 2024, published in December 2025, what action her Department took against the provider that re-used mice in a second experiment without project licence approval; and what steps her Department is taking to prevent animals from being used in unlicensed experiments.

Regarding the case of non-compliance in question, Inspector advice was issued to the licensee. The licensee was notified on what provision was breached and what is expected in future to prevent recurrence. All cases of non-compliance and actions taken are published and available here: www.gov.uk/government/collections/animals-in-science-regulation-unit-annual-reports.All licensed establishments must fully uphold the required standards for animal welfare as set out in the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) and the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Bred, Supplied or Used for Scientific Purposes. The Animals in Science Regulation Unit (ASRU) conducts audits to assure establishments’ compliance and takes matters of non-compliance very seriously.ASRU has published its compliance framework (www.gov.uk/guidance/animal-testing-and-research-compliance-with-aspa) which explains how it identifies and investigates potential incidents of non-compliance and decides on appropriate and proportionate measures and remedies where non-compliance has been found to occur.

What steps she has taken to help reduce violations of the Firearms Act 1968.

The Government’s priority is public safety, and we look to ensure our controls on firearms are as strong as possible and keep the legislation under active consideration. It is imperative that we do everything we can to stop firearms getting into hands of criminals and those who would misuse them with devastating consequences.The Firearms Act 1968 provides the framework for action to be taken by police forces, and we have seen the number of firearms offences fall to 5,053 from 5,991 over the past 12 months - for the year ending June 2025. We work in partnership with the National Police Chiefs Council, police forces and the National Crime Agency to respond to emerging firearms risks, and for example, we have recently taken action against some types of blank firing firearms which have found to be readily convertible into lethal weapons so they can be removed from circulation.We are also ensuring licensing of firearms, as set out in the Firearms Act 1968, is as effective and robust as possible. Recent measures to support this include the revised Statutory Guidance to Chief Officers issued in August this year, the rollout of new national training to firearms licensing police personnel, and the increase in licensing fees to support full cost recovery.

If she has considered the merits of making it mandatory for DBS checks to be (a) single use and (b) job specific.

The Home Office does not place requirements on how DBS checks are used. It is for individual sectors to decide what, if anything, they want to mandate for their sectors

How many people have been deported from the USA to the UK in each year since 2016.

The UK and US have a bilateral arrangement to proactively share information about criminals being deported from the UK to US and the US to UK. This came into effect on 29 July 2020. International partners are not obliged to notify each other about the deportation or removal of individuals to another country. Notifications from the US to UK are received and processed by the ACRO Criminal Records Office (ACRO).ACRO has recorded receipt of the following number of notifications from the US since 29 July 2020:2020 (after 29 July)3020215120226420239920241162025211 The Home Office does not produce official statistics on this topic.

What steps she has taken to tackle illegal firearm possession.

The Government works closely with the police and the National Crime Agency (NCA) to ensure that we have the right laws, intelligence, detection and enforcement capabilities to tackle the threat posed by the unlawful possession and use of firearms. While incidents of gun crime, including where illegally held guns are involved, are relatively rare in this country, we recognise the significant and long-lasting impact of such incidents on victims and local communities when they do occur.Our work with the police and the NCA includes recent and ongoing multi-agency action to target the importation and supply of imitation firearms that can be readily converted by criminals to fire live ammunition, which has seen significant numbers of these guns removed from circulation, helping to ensure the safety of our communities.We have also included measures in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, currently before Parliament, to make it an offence to possess or supply templates for the 3D printing of firearms. This is part of a broader multi-agency response to the threat posed by the illegal possession of firearms manufactured unlawfully in part, or fully, using 3D printing technology.There are significant penalties for those convicted of the unlawful possession of firearms, including the maximum penalty of life imprisonment for possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life or injure property.

What assessment the Government has made of the potential risk of hybrid threats, including migration pressures, at the EU–Belarus border and their potential impact on UK security.

National security is the first priority of any government and a foundation of our Plan for Change. We take any malicious activity that might pose a significant threat to our security and public safety extremely seriously and are committed to strengthening our defences against state threats. This includes continuing to implement measures contained in the National Security Act 2023, which make the UK a harder target for those states which seek to conduct hostile acts.The Home Office and its partner agencies continue to work closely with their international counterparts, including those working at the EU external border, to understand the drivers behind migration patterns, assess risks, and develop our responses accordingly.

How many instances of violent crime have been committed by (a) foreign-born and (b) British-born perpetrators in every year since 2010.

The Home Office collects information on the number of notifiable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, including violence and fraud.However, this does not include information on the birthplace of offenders since this is not pertinent to the initial investigation of such crimes and is unlikely to be known by the victim reporting that crime.

How many instances of fraud have been committed by (a) foreign-born and (b) British-born perpetrators in every year since 2010.

The Home Office collects information on the number of notifiable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, including violence and fraud.However, this does not include information on the birthplace of offenders since this is not pertinent to the initial investigation of such crimes and is unlikely to be known by the victim reporting that crime.

What steps her Department is taking to prevent people who overstay their visas from working illegally for companies within the UK.

Under UK legislation, access to work is reserved to those who are eligible and have lawful immigration status in the UK. All employers are required to undertake right to work checks on any prospective employee to confirm their legal status. Sanctions exist where these requirements are not complied with.The Government is leading a UK-wide crackdown on illegal working as part of a whole system approach to tackle illegal migration and to ensure fairness, order and control within the immigration and asylum system. This includes measures in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to ensure companies which contract workers to provide services under their company name, such as agency workers or workers in the gig economy, check a person’s right to work, intensified Home Office Immigration Enforcement teams operational activity across the UK as well as the recently announced introduction of digital ID by the end of this Parliament.

What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the National Police Chiefs Council guidance on releasing to the press the ethnicity and nationality of suspects for serious offences.

On Wednesday 5 November the College of Policing launched their public consultation of the Media and Communications Authorised Professional Practice (APP), formerly the Media Relations APP.This guidance advises police forces on the information that they provide to the media and the public, particularly with regards to high profile cases.Earlier this year the College published interim guidance for police forces on the disclosure of suspects’ ethnicity and nationality in serious cases. This interim guidance is included in the new draft guidance for consultation. The public are invited to share their views on this updated guidance as part of this consultation.

What (a) training and (b) support her Department provides to police to investigate (i) coercive control and (ii) other non-violent domestic offences.

In our manifesto, we committed to strengthening training on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) for policing to ensure that all officers have the right skills to investigate all VAWG offences, including coercive or controlling behaviour (CCB) and other non-violent domestic offences. The Home Office has already invested £13.1 million this year into the new National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection (NCVPP). This funding includes an uplift of nearly £2 million to deliver a robust package of training improvements across public protection, including on domestic abuse and CCB.Through the NCVPP, we are working closely with the College of Policing to develop strengthened, specialist training for officers across all operational levels - frontline, specialist, and leadership. Grounded in academic research and behaviour change science, new training programmes will ensure that all officers are well equipped to investigate these crimes and provide support to victims.CCB is also covered extensively in the Domestic Abuse Matters training for police which has now been delivered to over 80% of police forces in England and Wales. This specialist domestic abuse training was created by the College of Policing in partnership with domestic abuse charities, SafeLives, Welsh Women’s Aid and Women’s Aid.

If she will implement safeguards to tackle crimes being reported online to open-source AI services.

The Government has already taken steps to tackle crimes linked to the misuse of artificial intelligence, including open-source models, through the illegal content duties in the Online Safety Act (2023) and criminal measures to target the creation of sexually explicit deepfake images in the Data (Use and Access) Act (2025).The Home Department has also tabled an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to introduce a statutory defence for AI testers working to ensure that AI models do not create child sexual abuse material, non-consensual intimate imagery or extreme pornography when prompted. This defence will help the AI industry to test their models robustly and implement safeguards to ensure that their models cannot be used to create this appalling material.Presently, there is no national online capability for online crime reporting to open-source AI models. Details of a crime submitted to an open-source AI model would not be submitted to the police. Members of the public who wish to report a crime online must access their local force website and submit details into an online form contained within. Some local forces use AI chatbots as an initial contact channel for the public, however, should details of a crime be submitted, the user will be directed to the local online crime reporting page.

What recent steps she has taken to tackle the illegal (a) sale, (b) possession and (c) use of cannabis.

As part of our Plan for Change and mission to make our streets safer we will continue to work across health, policing and wider public services to drive down drug use and stop those who profit from its supply.Cannabis is controlled as a Class B drug on the basis of clear medical and scientific evidence of its harms. The maximum penalty for possession of a Class B drug is up to 5 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both; and the maximum penalty for supply and production of a Class B drug is up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both.This year, we are investing more than £43m in the County Lines Programme to target exploitative drug dealing gangs, whilst breaking the organised crime groups behind this trade. Between July 2024 and June 2025, the Programme has resulted in more than 2,300 deal lines closed and 6,200 arrests, including the arrest and subsequent charge of over 1,100 deal line holders.We are taking an end-to-end approach, including working with law enforcement partners upstream and at the UK border to tackle the gangs responsible for drug trafficking. UK Law Enforcement delivers a significant amount of operational activity overseas and at the UK border to detect and seize illicit drugs being sold and trafficked to the UK. In 2023/24 police forces and Border Force seized the largest quantity of herbal cannabis since the time series began in 1973. This was a 53% increase from the previous year (55.59 to 85.01 tonnes).We have also committed to driving down drug related harms through prevention and treatment, including by creating local drug partnerships with police forces and public health services.We will continue to draw on the advice of experts, including our independent advisers in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and follow the evidence for what works in drug prevention and in building the resilience of people to avoid being drawn into drug use.

What recent steps she has taken to reduce instances of murder.

Halving knife crime remains a top priority for this Government. Since we have been in office knife homicides have fallen by 18% (to YE June 2025) and all knife crime down 5%. Knife assault has dropped by 6% and hospital admissions for assault with a sharp object among under 25s fell by 8%, and by 11% among over 25s.Under this Government, nearly 60,000 knives have been removed from the streets of England and Wales through weapons surrender schemes, knives seized by Border Force and those recovered through County Lines Programme operations.We have also introduced tougher knife control measures by banning zombie-style knives and machetes in September 2024 and ninja swords in August 2025. Ronan's Law tightens online knife sales with stricter age checks and penalties and we are introducing new powers to strengthen policing’s ability to seize, retain and destroy dangerous knives.We know there is much more to do. Our approach to halving knife-crime is centred around smart enforcement, tough laws to remove dangerous weapons from our streets, and working to tackle the root causes of knife-crime through prevention through Violence Reduction Units and the new Young Futures Programme supporting those most at risk.

What recent steps she has taken to tackle the illegal (a) sale, (b) possession and (c) use of cocaine.

As part of our Plan for Change and mission to make our streets safer we will continue to work across health, policing and wider public services to drive down drug use and stop those who profit from its supply.Cocaine is an extremely harmful drug which is controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 as a Class A drug, with a penalty for possession of up to seven years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both. The maximum sentence for the supply of cocaine is life in prison, an unlimited fine, or both.This year, we are investing more than £43m in the County Lines Programme to target exploitative drug dealing gangs, whilst breaking the organised crime groups behind this trade. Between July 2024 and June 2025, the Programme has resulted in more than 2,300 deal lines closed and 6,200 arrests, including the arrest and subsequent charge of over 1,100 deal line holders.We are taking an end-to-end approach, including working with law enforcement partners upstream and at the UK border to tackle the gangs responsible for drug trafficking. UK Law Enforcement delivers a significant amount of operational activity overseas and at the UK border to detect and seize illicit drugs being sold and trafficked to the UK. In 2023/24 28.3 tonnes of powder cocaine was seized by police and Border Force in England and Wales. This was an increase from 18.6 tonnes the previous year and the largest recorded quantity of cocaine seized since the time series began in 1973.We have also committed to driving down drug related harms through prevention and treatment, including by creating local drug partnerships with police forces and public health services.We will also continue to draw on the advice of experts, including our independent advisers in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). The ACMD has committed to reviewing the drivers of powder cocaine use. In June my predecessor wrote to the Chair of the ACMD, noting that the Government wishes to receive actionable insights from this review as soon as possible.

What recent steps she has taken to work with relevant authorities to reduce instances of criminal child abuse.

Tackling child criminal exploitation is an important strand of our mission to halve knife crime by reducing the risk of children being drawn into criminality and violence.Through the County Lines Programme, we are targeting exploitative drug dealing gangs to break the organised crime groups behind the trade. Between July 2024 and June 2025, law enforcement activity through the County Lines Programme taskforces has resulted in more than 2,300 deal lines closed, 6,200 arrests (including the arrest and subsequent charge of over 1,100 deal line holders), 3,200 safeguarding referrals Aof children and vulnerable people, and 600 knives seized.In addition, we are introducing a new offence of criminal exploitation of children in the Crime and Policing Bill to go after the gangs who are luring young people into violence and crime. As part of this legislation, we are also delivering new civil preventative orders to disrupt and prevent child criminal exploitation from occurring or re-occurring.We are also going further to confront the wider criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults by introducing a new offence of ‘cuckooing’ and an offence to tackle coerced internal concealment. These three new offences will all work to tackle the interconnected and exploitative practices often used by criminal gangs, especially in county lines.Moreover, we are also working to ensure that multiagency safeguarding partners are able to identify and respond appropriately to cases and concerns of all forms of child exploitation and abuse. This includes funding the Prevention Programme, delivered by The Children’s Society, to respond to all forms of child exploitation.

With reference to her Department's report entitled Scientific procedures on living animals, Great Britain: 2024, published on 23 October 2025, what assessment she has made of (a) the number of animals used in experiments in British laboratories for (i) basic and (ii) applied research in 2024 and (b) trends in the number of animals used in experiments in British laboratories for (A) basic and (B) applied research.

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.