The Defending Democracy Taskforce, which I chair as Security Minister, drives a whole of government approach to the threats we face to our democracy.

The Permanent Secretary of the Home Office has recently been appointed by the Cabinet Secretary as the lead for Defending Democracy. The Taskforce is supported by a dedicated Secretariat in the Home Office who help co-ordinate this work across government.

Although the Government has a policy of not commenting about groups or individuals, there are cases where it is in the public interest to do so. The Government has previously made the decision to not engage with organisations that have taken positions that contradict our fundamental values and have not explicitly retracted these positions. We keep this under constant review to ensure our position is based on the latest information available.

The Government is committed to engaging with a broad range of leaders and organisations across many different communities and civil society groups. Engagement with communities can strengthen our democracy, our policymaking and our society.

The Home Office carries out due diligence when choosing to engage with any organisation or individual and, if asked, we will advise and share information to help others inform their decisions.

The Government has set out commitments to tackle telephone fraud in the second Telecoms Fraud Charter and the Fraud Strategy 2026-2029. The Charter, signed by major UK mobile operators and business-to-business networks, includes measures to identify, prevent and disrupt telecoms fraud.

As set out in the Fraud Strategy, the Government launched a Call for Evidence in July to examine how criminals are accessing UK telephone numbers to facilitate scam calls in the UK and internationally. The findings will inform policy options to disrupt this activity.

Through the Crime and Policing Act 2026, the Government has also legislated to ban the supply and distribution of “SIM farms”, devices used by criminals to send scam texts at scale.

The Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS) strengthens the resilience of the UK's political system against covert foreign influence by increasing transparency around certain arrangements involving foreign powers.

Investment decisions associated with Local Government Pension Scheme funds are a matter for the administering authorities responsible for those schemes. Where activity is undertaken at the direction of the Russian or Iranian states to influence these decisions, this will need to be registered with FIRS.

The Government welcomed both parts of Jonathan Fisher KC’s Independent Review of Disclosure and Fraud Offences. Following receipt of Part Two in December 2025, the report's wide-ranging findings and recommendations were considered by relevant government departments and officials before publication of Part Two in July 2026.

At the Five Country Ministerial in Sydney, August 2026, Five Eyes partners agreed to the Home Office proposal to establish a Countering Violent Extremism Hub in London. This was agreed as a practical way to strengthen our existing cooperation on shared countering violent extremism challenges. The detailed design of the Hub is now being developed with Five Eyes partners, including its Terms of Reference.

The Home Office also announced the development of a new online interventions programme, beginning with a pilot to develop and test a rights-compliant, safeguarding-led approach to identifying and supporting individuals vulnerable to online radicalisation at an earlier stage. The detailed design of the programme remains under development. Decisions on matters such as consultation, publication of programme documentation and any longer-term delivery arrangements will be considered as that work progresses

At the Five Country Ministerial in Sydney, August 2026, Five Eyes partners agreed to the Home Office proposal to establish a Countering Violent Extremism Hub in London. This was agreed as a practical way to strengthen our existing cooperation on shared countering violent extremism challenges. The detailed design of the Hub is now being developed with Five Eyes partners, including its Terms of Reference.

The Home Office also announced the development of a new online interventions programme, beginning with a pilot to develop and test a rights-compliant, safeguarding-led approach to identifying and supporting individuals vulnerable to online radicalisation at an earlier stage. The detailed design of the programme remains under development. Decisions on matters such as consultation, publication of programme documentation and any longer-term delivery arrangements will be considered as that work progresses

At the Five Country Ministerial in Sydney, August 2026, Five Eyes partners agreed to the Home Office proposal to establish a Countering Violent Extremism Hub in London. This was agreed as a practical way to strengthen our existing cooperation on shared countering violent extremism challenges. The detailed design of the Hub is now being developed with Five Eyes partners, including its Terms of Reference.

The Home Office also announced the development of a new online interventions programme, beginning with a pilot to develop and test a rights-compliant, safeguarding-led approach to identifying and supporting individuals vulnerable to online radicalisation at an earlier stage. The detailed design of the programme remains under development. Decisions on matters such as consultation, publication of programme documentation and any longer-term delivery arrangements will be considered as that work progresses

At the Five Country Ministerial in Sydney, August 2026, Five Eyes partners agreed to the Home Office proposal to establish a Countering Violent Extremism Hub in London. This was agreed as a practical way to strengthen our existing cooperation on shared countering violent extremism challenges. The detailed design of the Hub is now being developed with Five Eyes partners, including its Terms of Reference.

The Home Office also announced the development of a new online interventions programme, beginning with a pilot to develop and test a rights-compliant, safeguarding-led approach to identifying and supporting individuals vulnerable to online radicalisation at an earlier stage. The detailed design of the programme remains under development. Decisions on matters such as consultation, publication of programme documentation and any longer-term delivery arrangements will be considered as that work progresses

The Home Office Permanent Secretary is the lead for defending democracy, having been appointed by the Cabinet Secretary following Recommendation 17 of the Rycroft Review. This is in support of my role as chair of the Defending Democracy Taskforce (DDTF).

Responsibility for elections policy sits with the Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith.

The Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit (a joint Cabinet Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government Unit) leads on election security and preparedness, and is a member of the DDTF.

The Cabinet Office are leading on assembling a new cross-Government task and finish team, which will be in conjunction with the work already delivered by the DDTF. The Taskforce operates across government to tackle the full range of national security threats to our democracy.

Officials continue to work closely with both the Ministry of Defence and National Shipbuilding Office on the requirements for the new vessels. The new vessels will contribute to our national maritime security by providing support to other government departments and organisations, particularly the MOD and Royal Navy, in a range of operational scenarios.

This Government is unequivocal in its commitment to protecting children from online sexual abuse. The previous Prime Minister announced on 8 June 2026 that the UK would become the first country in the world where it is impossible for children to take, share or view nude images on their devices. Government has engaged collaboratively with tech companies over the past three months, to explore how they can expand implement technical solutions on smartphones and tablets to detect and block nude images for children.

The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport today (8 September) reiterated this commitment in an oral statement to the House. Since June, officials from the Home Office and DCMS have overseen an unprecedented work programme with Apple and Google, working with senior leaders and engineers to explore new ways of preventing child sexual abuse and strengthening protections for children online.

These proposals are a step in the right direction, but do not meet the scale of this government’s ambition. This government is therefore now preparing primary legislation to require companies to build in device operating system-level protections for children. In the meantime, we are also pursing secondary legislation to require any apps that children use to prevent them from accessing or sharing nudity.

This work will prevent predators from being able to exploit and abuse victims through their devices, as well as stopping children from being able to access pornography. Adults will still be able to take, share or view nude content through an age verification process. This will deliver on the commitment we made in the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy – Freedom from violence and abuse: a cross-government strategy - GOV.UK.

The Government welcomes innovative technical solutions, which aim to keep children safer online and using smartphones and tablets. The Government’s policy is to focus on operating-system level detection of all nudity for child users, rather than attempting to identify and block only child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

This information is not published and could only be collected and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.

All asylum claims are considered on their individual merits, and decision makers assess the credibility and reliability of evidence submitted in support of a claim in accordance with published asylum guidance.

The Home Office is committed to ensuring that the asylum system is not open to abuse. It is the responsibility of everyone claiming asylum in the UK to co-operate with the Home Office and tell us the truth. It is a crime to make an asylum application that involves trying to deceive the Home Office. If anyone does this and is found guilty of it in a court, they may receive a custodial sentence after which they may be deported.

There is no formal procedure for the UK to respond when a foreign government designates or sanctions a person residing in the UK. The precise consequences for affected individuals will depend on the nature of the acting country’s designation / sanctions regime and the particulars of the measures imposed. A decision by a foreign government to designate or sanction individuals is a matter for that government and such decisions are taken independently of the UK Government.

The UK takes designation, sanction, and proscription decisions independently in accordance with its own legal frameworks, evidential thresholds and national security assessments.

We continually review and strengthen our counter-terrorism capabilities whilst working closely with domestic and international partners to tackle terrorist threats. This Government will always take the strongest possible action to protect our national security, and our priority remains maintaining the safety and security of our citizens.

The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’ and in the ‘Migration transparency data’.

Data on asylum claims awaiting an initial decision at the end of each quarter is published in table Asy_D03 of the ‘Asylum claims and initial decisions datasets’.

Data on the number of asylum caseworking staff per month from 2020 onwards is published in table ASY_05(M) of the ‘Immigration and Protection data’.

Since 2021, the Home Office has carried out two financial audits into its existing Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts (AASC).

The Home Office has a rigorous regime of oversight of its asylum contracts, including delivery performance, finance performance and of value for money. This includes continued negotiation of rates paid for services at contracted hotels, with ongoing work to end the use of hotels across the UK. This work has delivered significant cost reductions to date across the asylum portfolio.

All procurements carried out by the Home Office follow Cabinet Office guidance on protecting Value for Money for the taxpayer.

We have worked, and continue to work, with colleagues at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), including through ongoing cross-government discussions, to understand rough sleeping and homelessness pressures within local authorities in England. We are also working closely with MHCLG on the government’s National Plan to End Homelessness strategy and as part of this work we have committed to ensuring councils receive information from asylum accommodation providers for 100% of newly granted refugees at risk of homelessness within two days of an asylum discontinuation of support notification.

Following a time-limited pilot, the Home Office has introduced a 42-day end-of-support policy for newly granted refugees, providing additional time to support a successful move from asylum accommodation. Newly granted refugees can access Positive Move On advice from Migrant Help on accommodation, finances, benefits and employment. In selected areas, Asylum Move On Liaison Officers provide additional support to help support newly granted asylum seekers to successfully move on from asylum accommodation and access relevant services.