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  • Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that companies with which the Government contracts to provide housing or other services for asylum seekers (a) treat such people with care and respect and (b) avoid measures which may make asylum seekers a target for hate crime.

    James Brokenshire

    The general principles section of the statement of requirements within the COMPASS contract is clear: asylum seekers need to be managed with sensitivity, treated in a polite and courteous manner and their safety and security is of absolute importance and must not be jeopardised.

    I have asked for, and received assurances from, all accommodation providers that there are no further policies or practices that allow asylum seekers to be identified as such by the public.

  • David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many alerts were issued by the National Border Targeting Centre to the regional offices of Border Force relating to flights of potential interest in each of the last five years.

    James Brokenshire

    The National Border Targeting Centre issue alerts to both police and Border Force officials at the UK border. The figures provided record those alerts raised for Immigration or Customs reasons at the Border, and do not include any police alerts.

    In 2013 Border Force implemented a quality assurance procedure of Border Force alerts which were being disseminated to the frontline. You will see that in 2012, alerts steadily dropped. Alert ratios reduced due to a more stringent alert framework being adopted by the agency. Alerts were of a higher quality and specifically directed to manage the threat to the Border depending on the priorities of the Border Control Strategy and threat assessment.

    Year Alert count

    2011 16,694

    2012 15,864

    2013 11,076

    2014 10,516

    2015 10,167

  • Philip Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Philip Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff in her Department and non-departmental public bodies receive (a) home to work travel allowance, (b) a car allowance and (c) subsidised health insurance.

    Karen Bradley

    The Home Office does not pay a home to office travel allowance for staff to travel to their normal place of work. There is one employee of an Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) who is paid an allowance for home to work travel.

    Neither the Home Office nor its NDPBs pays any of its staff a car allowance.

    Neither the Home Office nor its NDPBs provides subsidised health insurance to any of its staff.

  • Liam Byrne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Liam Byrne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Liam Byrne on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information she holds on the progress made by South Yorkshire Police in its review of its handling of allegations made against Sir Cliff Richard in August 2014; and what discussions her Department has had with South Yorkshire Police on that review.

    Mr John Hayes

    Any investigation, or subsequent review of any investigation, is an operational matter for the relevant Chief Officer. The Department does not routinely discuss, or seek information, from the force concerned and is not aware of the review into the force’s handling of allegations made against Sir Cliff Richard referred to by the Rt. Hon. Member.

  • David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of general aviation flights that arrived in the UK (a) had correctly completed general aviation reports, (b) had incorrectly completed general aviation reports and (c) failed to complete a general aviation report in each of the last five years.

    Karen Bradley

    This information is not recorded in a reportable field on Home Office databases. Obtaining such information would therefore require a manual search of records and could only be achieved at a disproportionate cost.

  • Louise Haigh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Louise Haigh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the correction of 9 February 2016 to Question 13206, (a) for what reasons the data initially published was incorrect, and (b) what steps her Department has taken to ensure accurate collection and publication of such information in future.

    James Brokenshire

    The mistake given in the original response to Question 13206 resulted from two errors in the query for extracting information from the relevant database. One error involved the use of an incorrect definition which excluded former unaccompanied asylum seeking children who now had linked dependants. The other was an error in the computer code which extracted the data. In this instance, the code for the query was mistyped and so the data returned was incorrect. These errors have now been resolved and a correction issued. Such mistakes are rare and when they occur they are taken very seriously.

    It is regrettable that human error caused the original response to this Parliamentary Question to be incorrect and improvements have been put in place. The appropriate definition has been reviewed and confirmed. This definition, and the correct approach on careful coding, have been made clear to the officials involved. We are reviewing other Parliamentary Answers about unaccompanied asylum seeking children to see if these were affected by similar issues. While these respond to different specific questions, we wish to review the methodology used thoroughly. We are also reviewing whether additional processes are needed for Parliamentary Questions that require complex data queries.

  • Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the number of occasions on which universities have withdrawn offers from international students who have stayed in the country for up to 28 days under the visa grace period.

    James Brokenshire

    We do not hold information related to general offers by universities to individual international students. The offer is only formalised for Tier 4 purposes when a university generates a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS). The number of CAS withdrawn from students who have overstayed by less than 28 days is not recorded by the department.

    All students wishing to extend their leave in the UK must submit a valid application for further leave to remain before their visa expires. Although the Immigration Rules allow students up to 28 days after the expiry of their leave to make an application, there is no grace period within which a student can lawfully overstay. All applications for further leave to remain will fall for refusal if a student has overstayed for more than 28 days, unless there were exceptional circumstances which prevented them from applying within the 28 day period.

    The number of CAS which universities have assigned to international students and then subsequently withdrawn before a decision is made by the Home Office, from 5 October 2009 to 30 September 2015, is 103,753.

    This figure includes applications made overseas and in the UK and includes withdrawals for a variety of reasons. We are unable to breakdown the numbers into specific reasons without exceeding proportionate costs.

  • Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect on universities of their financial liability for international students overstaying their visas.

    James Brokenshire

    There has been no assessment made as the Home Office currently places no direct financial penalties on sponsors whose students overstay their visa.

    Our system of sponsorship is based on two basic principles; those who benefit most directly from migration (including universities that bring in migrants) help to prevent the system being abused; and those applying to come to the UK to study are eligible to do so and a reputable education provider genuinely wishes to take them on. The ability to recruit international students is not an automatic right, but a privilege. It is right, therefore, that sponsors check that a student is genuine and that they intend to leave the UK, or switch into work route, once their visa has expired before offering them a place. Making sure that, at the end of their visa, students leave the UK at the end of their visa or remain here legally is just as important a part of running a fair and efficient immigration system as controlling who comes here in the first place.

    The Government has made clear our intention to use the introduction of exit checks to place more responsibility on sponsors for migrants who overstay. We are currently considering how to best deliver this commitment.

  • David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many vessels which displayed the yellow Q flag (a) docked at UK ports and (b) were checked by Border Force officials in each of the last five years.

    Karen Bradley

    No information is held on the number of vessels which fly the ‘Q’ flag. Border Force utilise an intelligence led approach in deciding which vessels to intercept.

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to increase the number of missing people who are found.

    Karen Bradley

    The Government’s Missing Children and Adults Strategy for England and Wales provides a core framework for local areas to do more to prevent and protect children and vulnerable adults who go missing. We are currently undertaking a refresh of the strategy, to be published later this year. This will include an implementation plan to improve the overall response to missing people, including better use of the Child Rescue Alert (CRA) system, prevention (reducing the numbers who go missing) and improving the response to finding people who have gone missing or are at risk of doing so.