Written questions by Lowe.

What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of immigration-related litigation on the capacity of the (a) family and (b) criminal courts.

The Lord Chancellor regularly reviews the discharge of her statutory obligations to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the system to support the carrying on of business in both the criminal courts and the family courts. This includes ongoing assessments on the sufficiency of court capacity, including funded sitting days, to meet incoming demand.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of abolishing legal aid for people who entered the UK illegally.

Determinations of eligibility for legal aid are made in accordance with the provisions of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 and regulations made under that Act, passed under the previous government.Under the current regime, the UK has specific obligations under the UN Refugee Convention to provide access to justice for those seeking asylum. In addition, provision of legal aid for those seeking protection is important to maintain an effective asylum system, helping the Government to deliver commitments on reducing the asylum backlog and ending hotel use. In light of that, there are no current plans to abolish legal aid for those who may have entered the country illegally. In all cases, the application for legal aid would be subject to a means and, crucially, a merits test.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to the planning system in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill on chalk streams protection.

Cleaning up our waters, including chalk streams, is a government priority. Restoring them to better ecological health means fixing the systemic issues in the water system. Through the Water Environment Improvement Fund, the government is funding 45 projects this financial year (worth £2.5m of government investment) that improve chalk streams, each with the injection of private investment. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill establishes the Nature Restoration Fund which will create the opportunity for housing and infrastructure to do more to drive environmental recovery, including for chalk streams where these are covered by an Environmental Delivery Plan.

If her Department will provide sentencing data by (a) ethnicity and (b) nationality to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's private inquiry into grooming gangs.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of offenders sentenced, which can be filtered to specific offences and broken down by defendant ethnicity. This can be obtained in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, which can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.However, data held centrally does not include an offender’s nationality. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate cost.Data held centrally includes details of sexual grooming offences but does not identify if this was gang related. Gang related sexual grooming offences are not identifiable separately as there is no single offence code to specifically cover offences related to gangs.

Whether his Department provides guidance to (a) Ministers and (b) officials on engagement with non-statutory inquiries.

The Cabinet Office provides advice and guidance to Ministers and officials on statutory and non statutory public inquiries. In response to the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee’s Report on “Public Inquiries: Enhancing Public Trust”, the Government has committed to publishing the Cabinet Office Public Inquiries Practitioners Handbook. We will publish this in due course.

What steps she has taken to ensure whistleblowers in child protection cases are protected.

Our focus is to deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors of all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation, including grooming gangs. That means protecting more children, getting justice for victims, rooting out grooming gangs across the country, toughening up police action, and better understanding the current scale of offending.Today (08 April 2025) the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, MP made a statement to Parliament setting out a detailed update on Government action to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as a progress update on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse undertaken by Professor Alexis Jay.I refer the Hon Member to the answer he was given on 8 April to question 44194. We are already taking swift action to tackle grooming gangs, including through stronger national backing for local inquiries and Baroness Casey’s audit on existing evidence of grooming gangs; therefore, we do not believe a further national inquiry is necessary.However, we are supportive of independent local-led inquiries. Local authorities, which are responsible for delivering local services, are best placed to commission local inquiries. The best practice framework we are developing, along with the £5m fund for local authorities to undertake independent inquiries or related activity, will help deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors.We have also taken the decision to implement the fund in a flexible way, in order to support both local authorities who want to launch full independent local inquiries; and those who want to take on more bespoke work, including in areas where inquiries have already taken place, for example through the establishment of local victims’ panels or conducting locally-led audits into the handling of historic cases.Furthermore, the police are independent of Government, and it is the responsibility of forces to consider requests for disclosure of their records in accordance with respective records management policies; and it would be a matter for the National Police Chiefs’ Council to consider whether to appoint a liaison officer to this inquiry. Additionally, the Home Office does not collect data on police officers that were dismissed, transferred or reprimanded after raising grooming-related failures.

Whether (a) officials and (b) social workers who (i) raised concerns, (ii) resigned and (iii) whistle-blew will be (A) protected and (B) encouraged to testify to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's private inquiry into grooming gangs.

Our focus is to deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors of all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation, including grooming gangs. That means protecting more children, getting justice for victims, rooting out grooming gangs across the country, toughening up police action, and better understanding the current scale of offending.Today (08 April 2025) the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, MP made a statement to Parliament setting out a detailed update on Government action to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as a progress update on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse undertaken by Professor Alexis Jay.I refer the Hon Member to the answer he was given on 8 April to question 44194. We are already taking swift action to tackle grooming gangs, including through stronger national backing for local inquiries and Baroness Casey’s audit on existing evidence of grooming gangs; therefore, we do not believe a further national inquiry is necessary.However, we are supportive of independent local-led inquiries. Local authorities, which are responsible for delivering local services, are best placed to commission local inquiries. The best practice framework we are developing, along with the £5m fund for local authorities to undertake independent inquiries or related activity, will help deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors.We have also taken the decision to implement the fund in a flexible way, in order to support both local authorities who want to launch full independent local inquiries; and those who want to take on more bespoke work, including in areas where inquiries have already taken place, for example through the establishment of local victims’ panels or conducting locally-led audits into the handling of historic cases.Furthermore, the police are independent of Government, and it is the responsibility of forces to consider requests for disclosure of their records in accordance with respective records management policies; and it would be a matter for the National Police Chiefs’ Council to consider whether to appoint a liaison officer to this inquiry. Additionally, the Home Office does not collect data on police officers that were dismissed, transferred or reprimanded after raising grooming-related failures.

If she will instruct police forces to release redacted records to the hon. member for Great Yarmouth's inquiry upon request.

Our focus is to deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors of all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation, including grooming gangs. That means protecting more children, getting justice for victims, rooting out grooming gangs across the country, toughening up police action, and better understanding the current scale of offending.Today (08 April 2025) the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, MP made a statement to Parliament setting out a detailed update on Government action to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as a progress update on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse undertaken by Professor Alexis Jay.I refer the Hon Member to the answer he was given on 8 April to question 44194. We are already taking swift action to tackle grooming gangs, including through stronger national backing for local inquiries and Baroness Casey’s audit on existing evidence of grooming gangs; therefore, we do not believe a further national inquiry is necessary.However, we are supportive of independent local-led inquiries. Local authorities, which are responsible for delivering local services, are best placed to commission local inquiries. The best practice framework we are developing, along with the £5m fund for local authorities to undertake independent inquiries or related activity, will help deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors.We have also taken the decision to implement the fund in a flexible way, in order to support both local authorities who want to launch full independent local inquiries; and those who want to take on more bespoke work, including in areas where inquiries have already taken place, for example through the establishment of local victims’ panels or conducting locally-led audits into the handling of historic cases.Furthermore, the police are independent of Government, and it is the responsibility of forces to consider requests for disclosure of their records in accordance with respective records management policies; and it would be a matter for the National Police Chiefs’ Council to consider whether to appoint a liaison officer to this inquiry. Additionally, the Home Office does not collect data on police officers that were dismissed, transferred or reprimanded after raising grooming-related failures.

How many police officers were (a) removed, (b) reprimanded and (c) transferred after raising grooming-related failures between 1980 and 2010.

Our focus is to deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors of all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation, including grooming gangs. That means protecting more children, getting justice for victims, rooting out grooming gangs across the country, toughening up police action, and better understanding the current scale of offending.Today (08 April 2025) the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, MP made a statement to Parliament setting out a detailed update on Government action to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as a progress update on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse undertaken by Professor Alexis Jay.I refer the Hon Member to the answer he was given on 8 April to question 44194. We are already taking swift action to tackle grooming gangs, including through stronger national backing for local inquiries and Baroness Casey’s audit on existing evidence of grooming gangs; therefore, we do not believe a further national inquiry is necessary.However, we are supportive of independent local-led inquiries. Local authorities, which are responsible for delivering local services, are best placed to commission local inquiries. The best practice framework we are developing, along with the £5m fund for local authorities to undertake independent inquiries or related activity, will help deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors.We have also taken the decision to implement the fund in a flexible way, in order to support both local authorities who want to launch full independent local inquiries; and those who want to take on more bespoke work, including in areas where inquiries have already taken place, for example through the establishment of local victims’ panels or conducting locally-led audits into the handling of historic cases.Furthermore, the police are independent of Government, and it is the responsibility of forces to consider requests for disclosure of their records in accordance with respective records management policies; and it would be a matter for the National Police Chiefs’ Council to consider whether to appoint a liaison officer to this inquiry. Additionally, the Home Office does not collect data on police officers that were dismissed, transferred or reprimanded after raising grooming-related failures.

Whether her Department provides (a) training and (b) guidance to police on handling politically sensitive grooming gang cases.

Our focus is to deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors of all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation, including grooming gangs. That means protecting more children, getting justice for victims, rooting out grooming gangs across the country, toughening up police action, and better understanding the current scale of offending.Today (08 April 2025) the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, MP made a statement to Parliament setting out a detailed update on Government action to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as a progress update on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse undertaken by Professor Alexis Jay.I refer the Hon Member to the answer he was given on 8 April to question 44194. We are already taking swift action to tackle grooming gangs, including through stronger national backing for local inquiries and Baroness Casey’s audit on existing evidence of grooming gangs; therefore, we do not believe a further national inquiry is necessary.However, we are supportive of independent local-led inquiries. Local authorities, which are responsible for delivering local services, are best placed to commission local inquiries. The best practice framework we are developing, along with the £5m fund for local authorities to undertake independent inquiries or related activity, will help deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors.We have also taken the decision to implement the fund in a flexible way, in order to support both local authorities who want to launch full independent local inquiries; and those who want to take on more bespoke work, including in areas where inquiries have already taken place, for example through the establishment of local victims’ panels or conducting locally-led audits into the handling of historic cases.Furthermore, the police are independent of Government, and it is the responsibility of forces to consider requests for disclosure of their records in accordance with respective records management policies; and it would be a matter for the National Police Chiefs’ Council to consider whether to appoint a liaison officer to this inquiry. Additionally, the Home Office does not collect data on police officers that were dismissed, transferred or reprimanded after raising grooming-related failures.

If she will recommend the police appoint a liaison to support the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's inquiry into rape gangs.

Our focus is to deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors of all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation, including grooming gangs. That means protecting more children, getting justice for victims, rooting out grooming gangs across the country, toughening up police action, and better understanding the current scale of offending.Today (08 April 2025) the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, MP made a statement to Parliament setting out a detailed update on Government action to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as a progress update on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse undertaken by Professor Alexis Jay.I refer the Hon Member to the answer he was given on 8 April to question 44194. We are already taking swift action to tackle grooming gangs, including through stronger national backing for local inquiries and Baroness Casey’s audit on existing evidence of grooming gangs; therefore, we do not believe a further national inquiry is necessary.However, we are supportive of independent local-led inquiries. Local authorities, which are responsible for delivering local services, are best placed to commission local inquiries. The best practice framework we are developing, along with the £5m fund for local authorities to undertake independent inquiries or related activity, will help deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors.We have also taken the decision to implement the fund in a flexible way, in order to support both local authorities who want to launch full independent local inquiries; and those who want to take on more bespoke work, including in areas where inquiries have already taken place, for example through the establishment of local victims’ panels or conducting locally-led audits into the handling of historic cases.Furthermore, the police are independent of Government, and it is the responsibility of forces to consider requests for disclosure of their records in accordance with respective records management policies; and it would be a matter for the National Police Chiefs’ Council to consider whether to appoint a liaison officer to this inquiry. Additionally, the Home Office does not collect data on police officers that were dismissed, transferred or reprimanded after raising grooming-related failures.

Whether the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's inquiry into grooming gangs will be given access to documentation relating to those gangs.

Our focus is to deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors of all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation, including grooming gangs. That means protecting more children, getting justice for victims, rooting out grooming gangs across the country, toughening up police action, and better understanding the current scale of offending.Today (08 April 2025) the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, MP made a statement to Parliament setting out a detailed update on Government action to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as a progress update on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse undertaken by Professor Alexis Jay.I refer the Hon Member to the answer he was given on 8 April to question 44194. We are already taking swift action to tackle grooming gangs, including through stronger national backing for local inquiries and Baroness Casey’s audit on existing evidence of grooming gangs; therefore, we do not believe a further national inquiry is necessary.However, we are supportive of independent local-led inquiries. Local authorities, which are responsible for delivering local services, are best placed to commission local inquiries. The best practice framework we are developing, along with the £5m fund for local authorities to undertake independent inquiries or related activity, will help deliver meaningful change for victims and survivors.We have also taken the decision to implement the fund in a flexible way, in order to support both local authorities who want to launch full independent local inquiries; and those who want to take on more bespoke work, including in areas where inquiries have already taken place, for example through the establishment of local victims’ panels or conducting locally-led audits into the handling of historic cases.Furthermore, the police are independent of Government, and it is the responsibility of forces to consider requests for disclosure of their records in accordance with respective records management policies; and it would be a matter for the National Police Chiefs’ Council to consider whether to appoint a liaison officer to this inquiry. Additionally, the Home Office does not collect data on police officers that were dismissed, transferred or reprimanded after raising grooming-related failures.

If her Department will provide (a) evidence and (b) testimony on educational resources in schools on (i) exploitation, (ii) grooming and (iii) community sensitivity to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's private inquiry into grooming gangs.

Through relationships, sex and health education (RSHE), pupils are taught the concepts of, and laws relating to, sexual consent, sexual exploitation, abuse, grooming, coercion, harassment, rape, domestic abuse, forced marriage, honour-based violence and female genital mutilation.Schools are responsible for ensuring lessons, materials and speakers are suitable, appropriate to the age and maturity of their pupils and sensitive to their needs. The department does not advise schools on which resources or external speakers and organisations to use and we do not endorse or promote third-party resources to schools other than those produced by government departments.​Schools are required to share information concerning their curriculum with parents, including for RSHE.Schools are also required to consult parents in advance on their relationships and sex education policies. The statutory guidance is clear that this should include sharing examples of the materials they plan to use.The department is currently reviewing the statutory RSHE curriculum for primary and secondary pupils, and is analysing consultation responses, talking to stakeholders and considering relevant evidence before setting out next steps.

Whether Ministers will (a) give evidence to and (b) participate in the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's private inquiry into grooming gangs.

I refer the Hon Member to the answer he was given on the 8 April 2025 to Question 44194.

If she will instruct relevant Departmental officials to engage with the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's inquiry into grooming gangs.

I refer the Hon Member to the various statements to the House made on these issues by Home Office ministers in recent months. Most recently on 8 April.

If she will instruct relevant Departmental officials to engage with the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's inquiry into grooming gangs.

I refer the Hon Member to the answer he was given on the 8 April 2025 to Question 44194.

If she will offer (a) safeguarding and (b) witness protection support to (i) victims and (ii) whistleblowers that give evidence to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's private inquiry into grooming gangs.

I refer the Hon Member to the various statements to the House made on these issues by Home Office ministers in recent months. Most recently on 8 April.

If she will meet with the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth to discuss his private inquiry into grooming gangs.

I refer the Hon Member to the various statements to the House made on these issues by Home Office ministers in recent months. Most recently on 8 April.

What (a) mental health and (b) trauma support services are available to survivors of grooming gangs who participate in non-statutory inquiries.

I refer the Hon Member to the various statements to the House made on these issues by Home Office ministers in recent months. Most recently on 8 April.

If she will instruct relevant Departmental officials to engage with the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth's inquiry into grooming gangs.

I refer the Hon Member to the various statements to the House made on these issues by Home Office ministers in recent months. Most recently on 8 April.