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Tag: Alison Thewliss

  • Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-06-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans her Department has to allow EU citizens resident in the UK to be able to continue to live in the UK.

    James Brokenshire

    As the Prime Minister has said, there will be no immediate changes in the circumstances of European nationals currently residing in the UK.

    Under current arrangements EU nationals do not need to apply for a residence card or a permanent residence card in order to establish their free movement rights and responsibilities.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-09-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the service standard is for cases handled by the Complex Casework Directorate.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The Complex Casework Directorate has a published service standard for in country Administrative Reviews. The target is to decide 95% of all applications within 28 days.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-10-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department plans to (a) reprint and (b) revise the Start4Life leaflets covering breastfeeding, bottle feeding and early child nutrition.

    Nicola Blackwood

    Public Health England will continue to reprint Start4Life leaflets on breastfeeding (in a simpler format) and bottle feeding, and will be revising the early child nutrition leaflet to incorporate new guidance from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, when available.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Alison Thewliss – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent discussions he has had with the European Commission on the abolition of Value Added Tax on sanitary products.

    Mr David Gauke

    Following the recent Parliamentary debate on this issue, I have written to the European Commission and other Member States setting out the Government’s view that Member States should have full discretion over what rate of VAT they can apply to sanitary products, and that this should be considered in the context of the Commission’s ambition to produce an Action Plan on VAT initiatives in 2016.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-02-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to provide certified copies of identity documents to visa applicants to support their applications to undertake an approved English language test.

    James Brokenshire

    There is no intention to change the current policy with regards to identity checks for Secure English Language Testing (SELT). Photocopies, whether certified or not, are not accepted when a candidate sits a test. Only original and valid documents are acceptable. This will allow test centre staff to confirm that the document is genuine and relates to the individual who is sitting the test.

    The only acceptable forms of identification in the UK are:

    • a passport or travel document;

    • a EU Identity Card;

    • a Biometric Residence Permit.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-03-21.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to include non-prescription incontinence pads, maternity pads and breast pads used by breastfeeding mothers in the definition of sanitary products for the purposes of zero rating under VAT.

    Mr David Gauke

    The zero rate of VAT will apply to any sanitary protection product that is designed and marketed solely for the absorption of collection of menstrual flow or lochia, including:

    • Sanitary towels
    • Sanitary pads
    • Tampons
    • Keepers
    • Maternity pads

    Eligible incontinence products, for sale to disabled people, are already zero rated.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people from Yemen claimed asylum in the UK in 2014.

    James Brokenshire

    There were 66 and 111 asylum applications from Yemeni nationals in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

    The Home Office publishes figures on asylum applications by nationality in the quarterly Immigration Statistics release. A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics, October to December 2015, is available from:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2015.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-06-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what training her Department provides to immigration officers on handling asylum cases in which a claimant has been raped or sexually abused.

    James Brokenshire

    The Home Office is committed to treating all those who seek asylum with dignity and respect, including those whose fears may be based on sexual violence or gender related persecution.

    All general Immigration Officers receive training in Modern Slavery issues and those based at dedicated Asylum Intake Unit where claims may be first registered also receive training in sexual violence awareness. However, all asylum claims are dealt with by specially trained caseworkers rather than Immigration Officers.

    The current training and support available for asylum caseworkers includes a UNHCR endorsed Foundation Training Programme, which covers all aspects of the asylum interview and decision making process, including dealing sensitively with vulnerable claimants.

    Furthermore we have also worked closely with stakeholders, such as, the Refugee Council, to develop a dedicated referral process, so that women are formally referred to special counselling services where they disclose issues relating to sexual violence as part of their asylum claim.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-09-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time is for cases handled by the Complex Casework Directorate.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The information requested on average processing time for cases handled by Complex Casework is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

  • Alison Thewliss – 2022 Speech on Migration and Economic Development

    Alison Thewliss – 2022 Speech on Migration and Economic Development

    The speech made by Alison Thewliss, the SNP spokesperson on Home Affairs, in the House of Commons on 19 December 2022.

    This is a dark day indeed with this judgment, particularly when the Home Secretary comes to the House to imply that having morals is fanciful. Enver Solomon of the Refugee Council has called the policy

    “wrong in principle and unworkable in practice”,

    and I am certain that this will go to appeal as charities and those involved in the issue have stated. SNP Members will never get behind this policy—not in our name—and I remind Members that slavery, apartheid and marital rape were all lawful at one time, but none of them were right.

    The Court found that the Home Office had failed to consider properly the circumstances of the eight who challenged the policy. How exactly does the Home Secretary intend to approach such cases now, and what will happen to those eight individuals? What happens to those who have already been issued with notices of intent, and what confidence can they have in a system that previously did not properly consider the cases of eight people?

    The Home Secretary claims that this will be a deterrent. The Tories also claimed that the hostile environment would be a deterrent and that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 would be a deterrent. Now they claim the Rwanda policy will be a deterrent. None of them is working because they fail to recognise the desperate circumstances that drive people to come here in the first place. Safe and legal routes will work and prevent people from losing their lives in the channel.

    The Home Secretary talked about the trade in human cargo. We all want to tackle the people smugglers who exploit people in the most vulnerable of circumstances. However, what else is the Rwanda policy but state-sponsored people trafficking? How many people are actually going to be removed to Rwanda? It is going to be a tiny proportion, so any deterrent effect that the Government claim is not going to be proper. What is the total cost of this unworkable scheme? How much money has been spent on it already? How much has gone on the legal case? How much of it would have been better spent dealing with the catastrophic backlog of cases that the Tories have created?

    Suella Braverman

    I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s ideological zeal is blinding and preventing her from taking a rational approach. I am proud of the fact that we have welcomed 450,000 people through safe and legal routes to this country since 2015. I do not think that anyone can claim that we are not forward-leaning on all of this. She and her party need to be honest about their position with the British people: they stand for open borders and uncontrolled migration.