Tag: Gavin Newlands

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 staff are employed by her Department’s landlords’ checking service.

James Brokenshire

The Government is tightening up access to public and other services to protect them from abuse by people who are in the UK illegally. It is right for people only to be able to access private accommodation if they are here legally. This is only fair to people who play by the rules, not least, those who come here legally.

This service enables a landlord to verify a person’s immigration status, with regards to the Right to Rent, with the Home Office in cases where a person has an ongoing application outstanding or where a person’s identification documents are with the Home Office. Resource of this service is kept under review to ensure capacity meets demand. At present the service is staffed by 2 full-time equivalent members of UK Visas and Immigration staff. A further 20 members of the call-handling team are also trained to respond to enquiries if additional recource is required. We have plans in place to scale-up the resource in line with the demand requirements of the national roll-out.

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 staff are employed by her Department’s landlord helpline service.

James Brokenshire

This service is for general queries and is provided by a commercial partner. Re-sources are constantly reviewed and deployed according to demand. Currently 2 full time equivalent members of staff handle incoming calls with a further 20 members of the call handling team trained in this area if additional resource is required.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the Government will take to provide support to small organisations which are not able to pay their staff the national living wage.

Nick Boles

The National Living Wage is part of this Government’s aim to move from a low-wage, high-tax and high-benefits economy to a high-wage, low-tax and low-benefits economy; it ensures that work pays, and reduces reliance on the State topping up wages through the benefits system. As part of this, the Government is cutting taxes and employer NICs in total by over £3bn a year through the Employment Allowance and Corporation Tax.

The Government believes that the new National Living Wage is affordable given the strength of the UK economy and labour market.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-09-17.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of how many people will lose their working tax credits as a result of being paid the national living wage.

Damian Hinds

The information requested is not available.

The government’s target is for the National Living Wage to reach over £9 by 2020, which means that a full-time worker currently on the National Minimum Wage will be earning over £5,200 more per year.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of how many people will benefit directly from the implementation of the national living wage.

Nick Boles

The Office for Budget Responsibility estimate that the National Living Wage will benefit 2.7 million low wage workers by 2020 – http://cdn.budgetresponsibility.independent.gov.uk/July-2015-EFO-234224.pdf

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been deported from each of the UK’s refugee detention centres in each of the last five years.

Mr John Hayes

Theattachedtable provides the total number of people leaving detention and subsequently removed from the UK, in each year from 2010 to 2014. Deportations are a specific subset of removals which are enforced either following a criminal conviction or when it is judged that a person’s removal from the UK is conducive to the public good. The deportation order prohibits the person returning to the UK until such time as it may be revoked. It is not possible to identify deportations separately from total removals. The Home Office publishes quarterly and annual statistics on the number of people leaving detention and subsequently removed within the Immigration Statistics release. Data on people leaving detention by reason are available in the latest release, Immigration Statistics April – June 2015 tables dt_08 from GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/series/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many refused asylum seekers have been forcibly removed from the country over the last five years.

Mr John Hayes

The attached tableshows the number of enforced removals from the United Kingdom for the last five years of people who had claimed asylum at some point.

The Home Office publishes quarterly and annual statistics on the number of enforced removals from the United Kingdom, within the Immigration Statistics release. Data relating to enforced removals are available in tables rv_01 and rv_01_q in Immigration Statistics: April – June 2015 on the GOV.UK website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/series/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the contribution of refugees to the UK economy.

Richard Harrington

There are no current plans to undertake an assessment of the contribution of refugees to the UK economy. In September 2014, the Home Office published a report on the labour market characteristics of UK residents born abroad, which highlighted that the employment rate at that time was lowest among those who came originally as a refugee (47% for non-EEA).

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of why those asylum seekers detained at the Dungavel facility had their applications refused in the last year; and what reasons were given in each case for that refusal.

Mr John Hayes

There were 222 asylum claimants who received a refusal decision on their asylum claim whilst held in detention at Dungavel Removal Centre over the past 12 months. Each asylum claim is considered on its individual merits and where an individual is found to be in genuine need of our protection, asylum is granted.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much the Government has spent on deportations in each of the last five years.

Mr John Hayes

This information is not recorded on an annual basis, so cannot be provided except at disproportionate cost