The UK is working closely with France to reduce illegal small boat crossings over the channel. Over the past year, those efforts have produced results. Today, I was in Paris with my French counterpart, Gérald Darmanin, to agree a more integrated and strengthened approach aimed at making that lethally dangerous route unviable, with world-class law enforcement teams from both countries working even more closely together. That is a positive step forward.
For the first time, UK officers will join French law enforcement teams as embedded observers, sharing real-time information on the ground and in command HQ. We will provide investment of up to £62 million this year, supporting cutting-edge surveillance technology, the expansion of the UK-France joint intelligence cell, and more French officers patrolling the French coast. This is an international problem; it requires an international solution.
May I raise a question about the Afghanistan citizens resettlement scheme on behalf of a constituent whose father has played a prominent role in women’s education, achieving recognition and awards from the United Nations? The ACRS is a clearly structured scheme, but may I request a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to discuss the very special circumstances of my constituent’s father?
The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which commenced on 6 January 2022, will see up to 20,000 at-risk people resettled to the United Kingdom. If my hon. Friend sends me the details, I will ask the relevant teams to look at that case.
On Friday, a commission established by Refugees for Justice and led by Helena Kennedy KC concluded that the 2020 stabbings and shooting at asylum accommodation in Glasgow’s Park Inn could have been avoided, and recommended important asylum reforms. Will the Home Secretary or the Minister for Immigration agree to meet Baroness Kennedy—with whom I spoke this morning—and Refugees for Justice to discuss that important report?
I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and the Baroness to discuss her report. We take safety at immigration removal centres extremely seriously. If I may, I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the immigration enforcement officers and others who responded to the recent disturbance at Harmondsworth in London. Their hard work in difficult circumstances was much appreciated by all of us.
T5. I welcome the agreement that the Home Secretary has signed with the French Government. It is a contribution to dealing with the asylum crisis and therefore allowing hundreds of hotels, including some in my constituency, to go back to doing their proper job. Does she recognise that we also need an asylum system that can process applications quickly? If the figures remain at 1.5 decisions per week per decision maker, as they are now, or at four a week, as in the Government’s latest pilot, we will never see an end to the backlogs and delays, so may I urge the Government to be more ambitious?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question and his advice on this matter. We want to increase the productivity of our Home Office staff so that cases are not being decided to the tune of one per person per week, but at four, five or six per person per week, as they were a few years ago. We have had a positive pilot in our Leeds office, and we now intend to roll that out at pace across the country.
T3. We have 8,000 fewer PCSOs, 6,000 fewer neighbourhood police officers, and people can see for themselves that there are fewer uniformed officers on our streets. No doubt the Home Secretary will deny yet again that the Government have cut police. In the vain hope that the public might be reassured by something that this Government say, I will ask again: will she commit to matching Labour’s plan to recruit 13,000 more neighbourhood police officers? No more smoke and mirrors: yes or no?
There is no need for smoke and mirrors when the police budget this year is £1.1 billion higher than last year, and there is no need for smoke and mirrors when on completion of the police uplift programme in just a few months’ time, there will be more uniformed police officers on our streets than at any time in this country’s history.
T7. What steps are the Government taking to increase charging rates for offences of rape, serious sexual offending and harassment against women and girls?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)
I thank my hon. Friend for his serious question, and I know he works hard in Bury North to talk about the issue. The Government are committed to tackling violence against women and girls. We are taking action through the rape review and the tackling violence against women and girls strategy and tackling domestic abuse to improve the police’s response to these crimes. Charge volumes for rapes are up 8%. It is not enough, and there is a lot more to do, and we are working hard with schemes such as Operation Soteria in the hope that these good practices will progress throughout the country.
T6. We have cases marked urgent not responded to within two months and weekly phone calls with MPs’ offices being cancelled at short notice. When will Ministers get a grip of officials and make sure that Members of this House are treated with respect, so that we can represent our constituents?
The hon. Gentleman and I have already spoken about this matter, and it is absolutely right that officials at the Home Office treat Members of Parliament and their staff with the respect they deserve and that we ensure they get the relevant meetings and decisions. Anything I can do to facilitate that—for him or any other colleague—of course I will do.
T9. Having completed the course, I thank Sergeant Richard Neeves and West Yorkshire police for organising my participation in the parliamentary police and fire service scheme. Does the Minister agree that Members from across the House should be encouraged to take part in the scheme if they want to gain a greater understanding of the pressures and challenges our police officers face day-to-day?
I join my hon. Friend in thanking Sergeant Richard Neeves for the work he did in encouraging and helping my hon. Friend to participate in the parliamentary police and fire service scheme. Yes, I do agree: Members from right across the House should engage in that scheme.
T8. When 172 men, women and children who were asylum applicants in Acton were bussed suddenly to Ashford in Kent, 80 miles away from their schools, NHS networks and faith communities, it made the TV news. It happened because the private provider of hotel accommodation wanted it back. Will the Home Secretary look into that case, because there is a human cost to uprooting families at the drop of a hat, as well as the waste of taxpayer money in shifting people from hotel to hotel when they could be contributing and paying in if they were processed faster?