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  • Gavin Newlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Gavin Newlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment has been carried out of the performance of the right to rent pilot in Birmingham, Walsall, Sandwell, Dudley and Wolverhampton.

    James Brokenshire

    The Government has carried out an evaluation of phase one of the Right to Rent scheme in Birmingham, Walsall, Sandwell, Dudley and Wolverhampton. This includes assessment of the implementation of the Landlords Checking Service. The findings of the evaluation were published on 20 October and will inform the extension of the scheme. The evaluation can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evaluation-of-the-right-to-rent-scheme

  • Gavin Newlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Gavin Newlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) large and (b) small businesses have been found to have employed illegal migrants between 2010 and 2015.

    James Brokenshire

    The Home Office does not hold information on the size of businesses found to have employed illegal migrant workers. I can inform you that between the financial years 2010-11 and 2014-15 a total of 8,632 civil penalties were issued to employers who employed illegal migrants. The same employer may have received more than one penalty during this period.

  • Gavin Newlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Gavin Newlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will estimate the number of illegal migrants working in late-night takeaways and off-licences.

    James Brokenshire

    It is not currently possible to quantify accurately the number of immigration offenders in the UK as, by their very nature, those that deliberately evade immigration control to enter and stay in the country illegally are not officially recorded until they come to light and are arrested. The current Immigration Bill includes measures to prevent illegal workers from obtaining and holding licences permitting the sale of alcohol or late night refreshments, as part of a range of provisions continuing the Government’s reforms to tackle illegal working.

  • Gavin Newlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Gavin Newlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average amount of time taken to deport a person living illegally in the UK was in 2014-15.

    James Brokenshire

    Data on the average amount of time taken to deport a foreign national offender from UK in 2014-15 is contained in figures published quarterly by the Home Office link below: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data

  • Ian C. Lucas – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Ian C. Lucas – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian C. Lucas on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what criteria she will use to determine where in the UK refugees from Syria will be placed.

    Richard Harrington

    The UK has been operating resettlement schemes for many years and we already have established and effective networks to accommodate and support resettled people.

    Our existing dispersal policy, which has been in place since 1999, is aimed at ensuring an equitable distribution of refugees across the country so that no individual local authority bears a disproportionate share of the burden.

    That is why we will be talking to local authorities and other partners to ensure that capacity can be identified and the impact on those taking new cases can be managed in a fair and controlled way.

  • Ian C. Lucas – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Ian C. Lucas – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian C. Lucas on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what resources the Government will make available to local authorities to assist the housing of refugees from Syria.

    Richard Harrington

    The UK has established networks to accommodate and support resettled people. An increase in numbers will require an expansion of current networks. We are working with a wide range of partners including local authorities to ensure people are integrated sensitively into local communities. We are working closely with the Local Government Association on how the funding for this will operate.

    The first 12 months of each refugee’s resettlement costs will be met from the UK’s growing overseas aid budget. After year one we will also provide additional funding to assist with costs incurred in future years.

  • Dr Tania Mathias – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Dr Tania Mathias – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dr Tania Mathias on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the projected number of refugees eligible to travel to the UK under EU freedom of movement rules if they become naturalised citizens of other EU member states.

    James Brokenshire

    While the Home Office regularly monitors and analyses overall migration data to help inform policy decisions, it has not prepared forecasts of likely inflows from nationals who have been granted refugee status and may subsequently be naturalised in another EU Member State.

  • Andrew Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Andrew Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the current average time taken is to process asylum applications from the point of initial screening interview to substantive asylum interview.

    James Brokenshire

    The current average time to process an asylum claim is 80 days, from the date of the screening interview to the date the substantive asylum interview has been concluded. This is down from a peak of 142 days in 2008.

  • Patrick Grady – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Patrick Grady – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Patrick Grady on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications for visitor visas have been (a) granted and (b) refused to citizens of Eritrea in each year since 2010.

    James Brokenshire

    The information requested is given in the attached table.

    The latest quarterly Home Office immigration statistics on entry clearance visas are published in ‘Immigration Statistics, April-June 2015’, available from the Library of the House and from the Home Office website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-statistics

  • Kate Osamor – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Kate Osamor – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Osamor on 2015-10-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the performance of (a) the police and (b) her Department in responding to human trafficking; and what steps she is taking to improve the way reports of human trafficking are dealt with.

    Karen Bradley

    The Government has set out its plan for responding to human trafficking in the Modern Slavery Strategy. The Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group (IDMG) on Modern Slavery oversees implementation of the strategy, supported by a quarterly Strategy Board, a monthly stakeholder meeting, and a Modern Slavery Threat Group that is chaired by Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer, the National Policing Lead for Modern Slavery. The IDMG’s 2015 report will be published shortly and will provide a detailed assessment of the scale and nature of the threat, what the Government has done to respond and our priorities for future work. In addition, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will each year publish a report on his work and on progress being made on tackling modern slavery. As part of our wider strategy, the Government is committed to strengthening the way in which we identify and refer potential victims of trafficking into the National Referral Mechanism. As part of this, the Home Office is piloting reforms to the National Referral Mechanism in West Yorkshire and the South West.