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  • Catherine West – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Catherine West – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine West on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) men, (b) women and (c) children have entered the UK under the refugee family reunion rules in each of the last three years.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The family reunion policy allows those granted refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK to sponsor their pre-flight family members, i.e. spouse or partner and children under the age of 18, who formed part of the family unit before the sponsor fled their country, to reunite with them in the UK.

    Information on how many men, women and children have entered the UK under refugee family reunion provisions in the Immigration Rules is not captured in our published data and would require a manual review. This information cannot therefore be provided without exceeding proportionate costs.

  • Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thangam Debbonaire on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment the Government has made of the effect of the ban on khat.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    Khat was controlled as a Class C drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 in 2014.

    The 2015/16 Crime Survey England and Wales found that 0.06% of adults aged 16 to 59 in the general population had used khat in the last year, equivalent to around 20,000 people. This is similar to 2014/15 (0.05%) but a statistically significant fall compared with 0.2% in the previous two survey years when khat was measured (2010/11 and 2011/12).

    We will continue to monitor the situation in relation to khat as appropriate, including through recommendations from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Our approach to drugs remains clear: we must prevent drug use in our communities and help dependent individuals to recover, while ensuring our drugs laws are enforced.

  • Angela Crawley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Angela Crawley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Crawley on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government takes to establish whether a woman is pregnant while in detention at an immigration removal centre.

    Nicola Blackwood

    NHS England advise that disclosure of pregnancy of women in held in immigration removal centres (IRCs) in England is at the behest of the individual concerned. The health assessment carried out at reception screening would ask if pregnancy was a possibility and a subsequent pregnancy test would confirm this, provided that consent was given.

    The Home Office is currently consulting on mandatory new guidelines for its operational staff, “Care and Management of Pregnant women in Detention”. This will apply to staff operating in IRCs and other parts of the detention estate in England and is expected to be published this year.

  • Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average length of time taken was to respond to email enquiries by the Security Industry Authority in each month since January 2016.

    Brandon Lewis

    The average time taken to respond to electronic (e-mail or online) enquiries is unavailable in the format requested prior to July 2016.

    From July 2016, the Security Industry Authority began using a new IT system, which has enabled it to produce a range of metrics. The average time taken to respond to electronic enquiries in July and August was 7 days against their service standard of 10 days.

  • Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Security Industry Authority has met its performance target of 80 per cent of applications being processed within 25 days in each month since January 2016.

    Brandon Lewis

    The Security Industry Authority (SIA) have an annual performance target to process 80% of applications (including renewals) within 25 working days. The SIA met this annual target in the 2015/16 financial year. Performance for 2016/17 to date is shown in the table below.

    Apr

    May

    June

    July

    Aug

    Percentage processed in 25 working days

    86%

    81%

    80%

    46%

    72%
  • Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken was to process applications and renewals by the Security Industry Authority in each month since January 2016.

    Brandon Lewis

    The average time taken to process 80% of applications (including renewals) within 25 working days is unavailable in the format requested.

    The Security Industry Authority’s (SIA’s) new IT system (introduced in July 2016) enables more detailed performance analysis. The system shows that the average number of days for processing applications (including renewals) was 38 days in July and 30 days in August.

    Once fully embedded, the SIA expect that the processing time for applications will be quicker than under the old system.

  • Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what provisions the Security Industry Authority (SIA) has in place to compensate individuals who have lost their job as a result of delays of problems in SIA licence applications or renewals.

    Brandon Lewis

    Applicants for Security Industry Authority licences who have been unable to work while waiting for their licence to be renewed, and who request reimbursement for loss of earnings, can contact the Security Industry Authority to provide evidence of the loss suffered. Payment of compensation will then be considered, based on the evidence provided and a review of all the circumstances of the application.

  • Stuart C. McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Stuart C. McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has conducted surveys with asylum seekers accommodated under her Compass contracts on what they felt about their (a) housing and (b) treatment by staff.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The overarching purpose of the COMPASS Inspection Regime is to ensure that the accommodation provided is safe, habitable, fit for purpose; that the overall service described in the COMPASS contracts is being delivered and to ensure that Service Users feel safe, secure and know how to raise concerns should they occur.

    Following on from the audit into asylum seeker accommodation in Middlesbrough, UKVI have trialled various methods of gathering, recording and responding to service users’ feedback relating to service delivery as part of improving their inspection regime.

    Following analysis from the trials conducted UKVI intends to agree a formal process which is to be rolled out across all provider Regions.

  • Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Yazidi refugees have been supported into the UK from (a) Syria and (b) Iraq through the (i) Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme, (ii) Gateway Protection Programme and (iii) Mandate Refugee Scheme.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    We continue to work closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to identify appropriate cases that they deem in need of resettlement for the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, the Gateway Protection Programme and the Mandate Refugee Scheme.

    Statistics on arrivals under each of these schemes are published in the regular quarterly Immigration Statistics in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The next set of statistics will be in the quarterly release on 1 December 2016 and will cover the period July – September 2016. We do not publish a breakdown of these statistics by religion or ethnicity.

  • Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has (a) made any arrangements and (b) had any discussions with the governments of each country in the Middle East on the application of Temporary Exclusion Orders in those countries.

    Mr Ben Wallace

    The Government has engaged with a number of international partners on the implementation of the Temporary Exclusion Order power. The Government made clear throughout the passage of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill that the operation of the TEO power would depend on the circumstances of each case and on the country from which an individual is seeking to travel to the UK. We will not comment on individual cases.