Every parliamentary written question tabled by Richard Tice this session, with the full answer and department. Back to the MP page.
Showing 1–20 of 34 · Home Office
How many immigration cases have been delayed due to legal challenges under the Human Rights Act in the past five years.
The information requested is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
How many migrants who arrived in the UK illegally are housed in hotels; and what the daily cost is to the public purse of those hotels.
Data is published quarterly on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation, including accommodation type, and can be found within the Asy_D11 tab of our most recent statistics release at Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.Costs are subject to change depending on numbers being accommodated within the asylum system. Accommodation costs are commercially confidential therefore, the Home Office does not publish this information. However, total expenditure on asylum is published in the Home Office annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK.
Whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of Regulation C9 of the Police Pensions Regulations 1987 that removes survivor benefits on (a) widows and (b) widowers who (i) remarry and (ii) cohabit.
From 1 April 2015, the 1987 police pension scheme was amended to allow widows, widowers and civil partners of police officers who have died as a result of an injury on duty to receive their survivor benefits for life regardless of remarriage, civil partnership or cohabitation.
What steps her Department is taking with police forces to (a) help prevent antisemitic marches and (b) ensure that public order legislation is effectively enforced where protests involve (i) incitement, (ii) intimidation and (iii) groups that are known to have previously perpetrated hate crimes; and if her Department will issue national guidance to police forces on the protection of Jewish communities from (A) harassment and (B) abuse during protests.
The Government is committed to tackling antisemitism and other forms of hate crimes and supports the police in taking robust action where protests cross the line into criminality. Where protest activity does involve criminality, the police have a broad range of powers to respond. The use of these powers and the management of demonstrations are operational matters for individual forces, and Government ministers are unable to intervene in these decisions.On the issue of antisemitism, I would also refer the Hon Member to the Speech given by the Home Secretary at the annual dinner of the Community Security Trust on 26 March, which can be found here:https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretary-speech-at-the-community-security-trust
What steps her Department is taking to strengthen (a) counter-extremism measures and (b) public order enforcement following the recent attack on the Israeli Embassy in London; and how the Department plans to ensure the continued safety of diplomatic (i) premises and (ii) staff from politically motivated violence.
The Government takes the protective security of diplomatic missions extremely seriously. The UK Government's protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. It is our longstanding policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals' and sites' security.
How many Iranian nationals have been detected arriving in the United Kingdom via small boat crossings in (a) 2023, (b) 2024 and (c) 2025 to date.
The Home Office publishes statistics on detected small boat arrivals to the UK in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on small boat arrivals by nationality and year is published in table Irr_02b of the ‘Irregular migration to the UK summary tables’, with the latest data up to the end of December 2024. Data up to the end of March 2025 will be published on 22 May 2025.
What information her Department holds on the number of people (a) arrested and (b) charged following the trans rights demonstration on 19 April 2025; and what were the offences recorded.
The Home Office does not hold the information requested.This is an operational matter for the Metropolitan Police.
Whether a review has been undertaken of the Metropolitan Police’s involvement in the case of Ali Kololo.
The Home Office has not undertaken a review of the Metropolitan Police’s involvement in the case of Ali Kololo.
How many staff are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests related to police forces in England and Wales; and if she will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work.
The Home Office does not centrally hold this information.Each police force is a separate public authority for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act and is responsible for processing and responding to requests they receive.However, we agree with the Hon Member that the burden of responding to FOI requests is not one that we wish to see increasing unnecessarily on police forces at a time we are seeking to maximise the resources devoted to neighbourhood policing.
How many staff in her Department are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests; and if she will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work.
The Home Office has a central team consisting of 13.7 FTEs managing FOI requests and related appeals work. The annual salaries paid to this group of staff were approximately £663K in the year ending September 2024.To determine precisely how many staff are responsible for processing and responding to FOI requests across the entire department and to provide an estimate of the resulting costs, is not feasible for the purposes of answering this question, in particular because the majority of these staff will carry out such work as part of their overall responsibilities.However, if we consider that the Home Office dealt with 6115 resolvable FOI requests in the year ending September 2024 (the most recent data available) and that each resolvable request cost a maximum of £600 to process (the current FOI cost limit), then we can conclude that the cost of processing FOI requests over that twelve month period was a maximum of £3,669,000.
If she will increase police funding in Boston and Skegness constituency.
In December 2024 the Government published the 2025-26 provisional police funding settlement, which proposed funding of up to £19.5 billion for the policing system in England and Wales. This is an overall increase of up to £1 billion when compared to 2024-25 and equates to a 3% real terms increase in funding.In 2025-26, Lincolnshire Police will receive up to £173.2 million, an increase of up to £9.0 million compared to 2024-25.
What steps her Department is taking to ensure asylum seekers are no longer housed in hotels in Boston and Skegness constituency.
This government inherited an asylum system under exceptional strain, with tens of thousands of people stuck in limbo without any prospect of having their claims processed. At their peak use under the previous government, in the autumn of 2023, more than 400 asylum hotels were being leased by the Home Office, at a cost of almost £9 million a day.We took immediate action to resolve that chaos by restarting asylum processing, establishing the new Border Security Command to tackle the people-smuggling gangs, cracking down on illegal working across the country, and increasing the return and removal of people with no right to be here.Inevitably, due to the size of the backlog we inherited, the Home Office has been forced to continue with the use of hotels for the time being. But this is not a permanent solution, and the small increase in the number in use at the end of last year was just a temporary but necessary step to manage pressures in the system, which is now in the process of being reversed.It remains our absolute commitment to end the use of hotels over time, as part of our reduction in overall asylum accommodation costs. In the interim, we are also continuing to increase our operational activity against smuggling gangs and illegal working, and we have increased returns to their highest level since 2018, with 16,400 people removed in the first six months this government was in charge.Data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation, including hotels, and by local authority can be found within the Asy_D11 tab for our most recent statistics release: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.
What steps her Department is taking to help tackle crimes committed by individuals who have entered the country illegally.
The police deal with all criminals without fear or favour, irrespective of their nationality or immigration status.Foreign nationals who commit serious crimes in our country should also be in no doubt that where practical and lawful, we will pursue their deportation.
What estimate she has made of the annual cost to the public purse of providing public services including (a) healthcare, (b) education and (c) housing of migrants that have arrived via small boat crossings in each of the last five years.
The Home Office publishes all available information on asylum expenditure in the Home Office Annual Report and accounts at Home Office annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK.
If she will make it her policy to deport people with dual citizenship who are charged with child grooming offences.
I refer the Honourable Member to the Answer given on 15 January to Question 22427.
How many first-cousin marriages were recorded in each of the last three years, broken down by the nationalities of the parties involved.
This information is not collected or held.
How many people have been deported (a) in total and (b) by nationality in each month since July 2024.
The Home Office routinely publishes data on returns in the “Immigration Systems Statistics” quarterly release. Data on quarterly returns of individuals since July 2024 can be found in table Ret_D01 of the “returns detailed datasets”. The latest data is for September 2024, with data up to December 2024 to be published on 27 February.
How much Lincolnshire Police spent on (a) translation and (b) interpretation services in each of the last three years.
The Home Office does not hold information relating to the proportion of budgets spent on translation and interpretation services for police forces.Decisions on how to use funding and resources are an operational matter for Chief Constables. Police and Crime Commissioners are best placed to make resourcing decisions within their communities based on their local knowledge and experience.
How many non-crime hate incidents were recorded in Lincolnshire in each of the last three years.
The Home Office does not currently centrally hold or collate information on the number of non-crime hate incidents recorded by individual police forces.
How many police officers have surrendered firearms licences in the last 12 months; and what data her Department holds on the reasons recorded for those surrenders.
The Home Office collects and publishes information annually on the number of armed police officers in the Police use of firearms statistics. The latest available data is for the year ending 31 March 2024 and can be accessed at the following link:Police use of firearms statistics: Police use of firearms statistics, April 2023 to March 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)The number of armed police officers and, of those, the number that were operationally deployable can be found in data table 2.