Written questions by Lowe.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a programme to increase awareness of the signs of rape gang abuse for teachers in primary and secondary schools.

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. Schools and colleges have a critical role to play in protecting children and keeping them safe. The department has an established robust safeguarding framework in place in the form of ‘Keeping children safe in education’, which is the statutory safeguarding guidance that all schools and colleges must have regard to. Part 1 of this guidance, which should be read by all staff who work directly with children, not only sets out the different types of abuse and harm but also makes clear that all staff should receive safeguarding training, know how to recognise abuse and know what to do if they have any concerns about a child. The department keeps the guidance under regular review to see where it needs strengthening and to ensure it is reflective of emerging risks and issues in safeguarding. Pupils are taught about rape, exploitation and abuse as part of compulsory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE). The RSHE statutory guidance is also clear that schools should provide pupils with the knowledge they need to recognise and report abuse, including emotional, physical and sexual abuse. The department is currently reviewing the statutory RSHE curriculum to ensure it covers all relevant content relating to sexual violence.

Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to commission a study into the potential impact of Halal meat on animal welfare.

Legislation requires that animals must be stunned prior to slaughter so that they are unconscious and insensible to pain. The only exception to the requirement to stun is where animals are slaughtered in accordance with religious rites. The Government would prefer animals to be stunned before slaughter but respects the rights of Jews and Muslims to eat meat prepared in accordance with their beliefs. Legislation sets out the main requirements to protect the welfare of animals when being slaughtered and there are additional rules that apply when animals are slaughtered by either the Jewish or Muslim method to ensure that animals are spared avoidable pain, suffering, or distress during the slaughter process. Many animals that are slaughtered for halal meat are stunned before slaughter. The Government’s Farm Animal Welfare Committee published a report in 2003 which considered the welfare detriment involved in slaughter without prior stunning. The European Food Standard’s Authority also published advice on the topic in a 2004 report. The Department will continue to review any new scientific research and evidence which emerges.

What the average time is for grooming-gang offences to proceed through the judicial system from initial report to final decision.

Information on timeliness through the criminal justice system is published as part of the quarterly Accredited Official Statistics series “Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly” which is available at the link provided: Criminal court statistics.Information on whether defendants dealt with are part of ‘grooming gangs’ is not centrally identified in the criminal courts data systems relevant to this question. Therefore, it is not possible to provide the specific information requested.The Government’s priority is to take action on delivering the recommendations of the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The Home Secretary announced that we will be bringing in mandatory reporting, making grooming an aggravating factor in CSA cases, and introducing a new performance framework for policing.

Pursuant to the Answer of 16 December 2024 to Question 18440 on Visas: Families, whether her Department collects data on the immigration status of sponsors for family visa applications.

There are a number of different family application routes including partner, parent, child and adult dependent relative and the immigration status requirements vary depending on the route. We routinely check the immigration status of those who sponsor family applications for permission to enter or stay in the UK when deciding an application, but there is no centrally maintained record of that data.A range of processing and decision data, which includes data on family visa applications, can be found at: Immigration system statistics data tables – https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables and Migration transparency data: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data.

What proportion of known irregular migrants the Department has lost track of in each of the last five years.

Robust procedures are in place to ensure that individuals with no right to be in the UK are removed, either voluntarily or through enforcement action.When an individual fails to engage with the Home Office or attend a reporting event, we automatically seek to contact them, and if those efforts fail, they are treated as an absconder and the Home Office works with the police, other government agencies and commercial companies to trace those individuals and take appropriate action to remove them.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing legislation to lower the threshold at which the Department has a legal duty to deport foreign national offenders.

Under the UK Borders Act 2007, the Home Secretary has a duty to deport a foreign criminal convicted in the UK and sentenced to a period of imprisonment of 12 months or more unless an exception applies. Where the automatic deportation threshold is not met, a foreign national can already be considered for deportation where it is considered conducive to the public good under the Immigration Act 1971.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of conducting a review of the number of irregular migrants resident in the UK.

Robust procedures are in place to ensure that individuals with no right to be in the UK are removed, either voluntarily or through enforcement action.When an individual fails to engage with the Home Office or attend a reporting event, we automatically seek to contact them, and if those efforts fail, they are treated as an absconder and the Home Office works with the police, other government agencies and commercial companies to trace those individuals and take appropriate action to remove them.

How many chartered flights for the deportation of illegal migrants there were in each of the last five years; and how many such migrants there were on each such flight.

The table below shows the number of flights chartered in each of the last five years, and the total number of individuals who were returned or removed on these flights.YearFlightsIndividuals2020478832021641,2982022621,5662023602,6222024663,533

How many people on bail for immigration cases have public authorities lost track of in each of the last five years.

The information requested is not readily available and could only be collated for the purposes of answering this question at disproportionate cost.

How many removals of illegal migrants were (a) voluntary and (b) enforced since 2018.

The Home Office publishes statistics on returns from the UK in the ‘Immigration System Statistics quarterly release’.Data on enforced and voluntary returns from the UK, including the breakdown by nationality can be found in Ret_D01 of the ‘Returns detailed datasets’. This data covers the period 2004 to September 2024.Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.

How many travel warrants have been issued to irregular migrants in each of the last five years; and what the total cost to the public purse of these were.

Obtaining the information requested would involve checking multiple databases across multiple systems owned by multiple teams across the Home Office and, therefore, could only be collated at disproportionate cost.

What the nationalities were of illegal migrants removed since 2018.

The Home Office publishes statistics on returns from the UK in the ‘Immigration System Statistics quarterly release’.Data on enforced and voluntary returns from the UK, including the breakdown by nationality can be found in Ret_D01 of the ‘Returns detailed datasets’. This data covers the period 2004 to September 2024.Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.

What the average award to each individual was under the Voluntary Returns Scheme; and what the total cost was to the public purse of the Voluntary Returns Scheme in each of the last five years.

The specific information requested is not readily available from published statistics and could only be obtained for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.There are long standing arrangements to encourage individuals to return to their home countries through the Voluntary Returns Service (VRS), which offers financial and practical assistance to help people leave the UK peacefully and voluntarily, in order to avoid the considerable costs involved in detaining, accommodating and forcibly removing the same individual under the Enforced Returns process.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of a comparative review of grooming-gang offences with other countries to learn best practice.

The Government continues to invest in a range of work to strengthen law enforcement capacity and capability to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, including group-based offending. We support the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce, which has a continuous professional development offer for police forces, aiming to upskill forces and improve the investigative response to child sexual exploitation, including group-based offending. We also invest in the Prevention Programme, delivered by The Children’s Society, which works to raise awareness of child exploitation, including child sexual exploitation, through upskilling safeguarding staff at all levels and improving local system responses to child exploitation. This includes working closely with local policing partners.The Government also remains committed to continuing close collaboration with international partners to establish common global standards, share best practice and insights, and build international capacity to combat these horrific crimes.To preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lord Chief Justice (LCJ), the Senior President of Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner have statutory responsibility for judicial training, under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and Coroners and Justice Act 2009 respectively. These responsibilities are exercised through the Judicial College.Further to my previous response, the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce has brought together the best police data that is currently available on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse, in its publication of November 2024.I refer the Rt Hon Member to The Home Secretary’s statement on 16 January, which set out the actions the Government is taking forward to improve our response to and understand of child sexual exploitation and abuse that is committed by Pakistani heritage grooming gangs. This includes improving the data available on the perpetration of these crimes, as part of which the Home Secretary has asked the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce to expand the ethnicity data it collects and publishes – in particular by gathering data from the end of the investigation when a fuller picture is available.The Home Secretary is also appointing Baroness Louise Casey to lead a rapid three-month audit to improve our understanding of the scale, nature and drivers of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse at a national and local level, including what is known about the demographics of perpetrators and victims, and to make recommendations on what additional action is needed to improve our response.

Whether her Department (a) collects and (b) analyses the (i) demographic, (ii) ethnic and (iii) religious backgrounds of people convicted of grooming gang offences.

The Government continues to invest in a range of work to strengthen law enforcement capacity and capability to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, including group-based offending. We support the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce, which has a continuous professional development offer for police forces, aiming to upskill forces and improve the investigative response to child sexual exploitation, including group-based offending. We also invest in the Prevention Programme, delivered by The Children’s Society, which works to raise awareness of child exploitation, including child sexual exploitation, through upskilling safeguarding staff at all levels and improving local system responses to child exploitation. This includes working closely with local policing partners.The Government also remains committed to continuing close collaboration with international partners to establish common global standards, share best practice and insights, and build international capacity to combat these horrific crimes.To preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lord Chief Justice (LCJ), the Senior President of Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner have statutory responsibility for judicial training, under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and Coroners and Justice Act 2009 respectively. These responsibilities are exercised through the Judicial College.Further to my previous response, the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce has brought together the best police data that is currently available on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse, in its publication of November 2024.I refer the Rt Hon Member to The Home Secretary’s statement on 16 January, which set out the actions the Government is taking forward to improve our response to and understand of child sexual exploitation and abuse that is committed by Pakistani heritage grooming gangs. This includes improving the data available on the perpetration of these crimes, as part of which the Home Secretary has asked the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce to expand the ethnicity data it collects and publishes – in particular by gathering data from the end of the investigation when a fuller picture is available.The Home Secretary is also appointing Baroness Louise Casey to lead a rapid three-month audit to improve our understanding of the scale, nature and drivers of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse at a national and local level, including what is known about the demographics of perpetrators and victims, and to make recommendations on what additional action is needed to improve our response.

What training programmes there are for (a) law enforcement and (b) judicial officers to (i) identify and (ii) tackle grooming gang activities.

The Government continues to invest in a range of work to strengthen law enforcement capacity and capability to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, including group-based offending. We support the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce, which has a continuous professional development offer for police forces, aiming to upskill forces and improve the investigative response to child sexual exploitation, including group-based offending. We also invest in the Prevention Programme, delivered by The Children’s Society, which works to raise awareness of child exploitation, including child sexual exploitation, through upskilling safeguarding staff at all levels and improving local system responses to child exploitation. This includes working closely with local policing partners.The Government also remains committed to continuing close collaboration with international partners to establish common global standards, share best practice and insights, and build international capacity to combat these horrific crimes.To preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lord Chief Justice (LCJ), the Senior President of Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner have statutory responsibility for judicial training, under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and Coroners and Justice Act 2009 respectively. These responsibilities are exercised through the Judicial College.Further to my previous response, the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce has brought together the best police data that is currently available on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse, in its publication of November 2024.I refer the Rt Hon Member to The Home Secretary’s statement on 16 January, which set out the actions the Government is taking forward to improve our response to and understand of child sexual exploitation and abuse that is committed by Pakistani heritage grooming gangs. This includes improving the data available on the perpetration of these crimes, as part of which the Home Secretary has asked the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce to expand the ethnicity data it collects and publishes – in particular by gathering data from the end of the investigation when a fuller picture is available.The Home Secretary is also appointing Baroness Louise Casey to lead a rapid three-month audit to improve our understanding of the scale, nature and drivers of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse at a national and local level, including what is known about the demographics of perpetrators and victims, and to make recommendations on what additional action is needed to improve our response.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of a review of sentencing guidelines for people convicted of grooming-gang offences.

Child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most horrific of crimes and the Government is determined to act to strengthen the law in this area. We have committed to legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, to ensure that this behaviour is reflected in the sentencing of perpetrators. We will also make it a mandatory duty for those working with children to report child sexual abuse – a key recommendation of Professor Alexis Jay’s report – and this will go into the Crime and Policing Bill due to be introduced to Parliament this spring.Sentencing guidelines are developed by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales, in fulfilment of its statutory duty to do so. The guidelines produced provide the Court with guidance on factors that should be considered, which may affect the sentence given. They set out different levels of sentence based on the harm caused and how culpable the offender is.Sentencing guidelines for child sex offences, including for the offence of meeting a child following sexual grooming, were first published by the Council in 2013. Following consultation, revised guidelines for some child sex offences were published in May 2022. As an independent body, the Council decides its own work plan and priorities.

How many and what proportion of people scheduled for deportation have absconded in each of the last five years.

Obtaining the specific information requested would involve collating and verifying information from multiple systems owned by multiple teams across the Home Office and, therefore, could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. The Home Office does not hold any central record of the requested information.

How many people have been returned to their country of origin by the Third Country Unit in the last five years.

The Home Office publishes data on returns in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. The Third Country Unit is responsible for inadmissible asylum cases, which may be removed to a safe third country. Data on inadmissibility related removals is published in table Asy_09a of the ‘Asylum and resettlement summary tables’. These returns are to a safe third country, not to an individual’s country of origin.

How many and what proportion of illegal migrants have been deported following an immigration raid in each of the last five years.

Obtaining the specific information requested would involve collating and verifying information from multiple systems owned by multiple teams across the Home Office and, therefore, could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. The Home Office does not hold any central record of the requested information.