Tag: Lord Hylton

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2015-12-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Resolution of the House of Commons of 10 September calling on them to implement the recommendations of the report of the Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom, by the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Refugees and Migration.

Lord Bates

Detention plays a vital role in maintaining effective immigration control and there are safeguards in place to prevent unnecessary or arbitrary detention.

Turning to the principal recommendations of the APPG report, though a common misconception, we cannot detain indefinitely under immigration powers. There are significant, long standing and highly effective protections for individuals against indefinite detention in the current system. A statutory limit is therefore not necessary.

An arbitrary time limit would potentially allow criminals and non-compliant individuals to play the system knowing that if they refuse to cooperate with removal for long enough they will be released.

The Home Office is conducting detailed analysis of the use of immigration detention including looking at the checks and balances in the systems to ensure that there is a more efficient and more effective process so that people are removed more swiftly.

The Home Secretary commissioned an independent review of the policies and operating procedures that have an impact on detainee welfare earlier this year. Stephen Shaw CBE, former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for England and Wales, undertook the review and has recently submitted his report. The report will be published by laying it before Parliament, alongside the Government’s response to its recommendations, before the Lords Committee stage for the Immigration Bill.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-01-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the effectiveness of EU aid to developing countries.

Baroness Verma

The UK continues to work hard to ensure EU development aid focuses on the poorest and most fragile countries and that the EU becomes more open and transparent about the challenges it faces in implementing aid projects. The EU has taken important steps to improve gender equality; to communicate better what its aid programmes are achieving; and for its aid to be more closely linked to countries’ own development priorities and more in line with other EU policies including trade, investment and the environment.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-02-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many persons or family groups have received exceptional leave to enter or remain in the UK, outside the normal rules, for purposes of family re-union, in each year since 2011; and in each of those years, how many of those individuals given leave were related in ways other than as spouses or children under 18.

Lord Bates

The specific information is not available in the format requested.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-02-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when and where they will establish application procedures for the new funds they are providing to assist the education of the children of refugees and displaced people from Iraq and Syria.

Baroness Verma

At the Supporting Syria and the Region conference, the UK committed to more than double our total pledge to the Syria crisis to over £2.3 billion. Within this allocation, we committed to double education funding for Lebanon to £40 million per year and increase funding in Jordan to £20 million a year to support the conference goal of getting all refugee children from Syria and vulnerable children in host communities in quality education by the end of the 2016/17 school year. We also committed to increasing access to learning for the 2.1 million children out of school in Syria itself.

Implementation plans to deliver the Conference goals on education are currently being discussed with partner governments, UN agencies, NGOs and donors. New UK funding will be aligned with these plans, and will be implemented through partners who can deliver increases in access to quality education, quickly, efficiently and at scale. Implementing partners will be identified selected in accordance with normal DFID procedures.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-03-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the reply by Lord Bates on 2 March (HL Deb, col 824), what qualifications they consider to be adequate for persons conducting the substantive interviews of asylum applicants, with authority to recommend acceptance or rejection of their claims; and what assessment they have made of whether gap-year and undergraduate students, after five weeks of training, have sufficient maturity and empathy to take such decisions.

Lord Bates

Decision makers working on asylum casework are graded at Executive Officer level except in the suspended Detained Fast Track operation where the predominate grade is Higher Executive Officer due to the requirement on some decision makers to also present appeals. The general entry requirement for direct recruitment to either grade is a minimum of 2 GCE A Level passes A-C and 5 GCSE passes including Mathematics and English. We have also employed staff on temporary contracts but have required them to have a minimum 2:2 Degree, preferably in law.

We recruit high performing students from various universities as asylum decision makers on fixed term appointments and since 2009 have employed 11 law undergraduates of whom 2 are still employed. Applicants send in their CVs, and these are used to inform an initial sift of applications. Successful candidates are then invited to a competency based interview with Home Office staff which tests their maturity and suitability to carry out the role.

At the end of the 5 week training, that all decision makers receive, there is a six month period of mentoring, continued assessment and quality analysis of newly qualified decision maker’s work that identifies whether an individual is performing the role to the required quality standards. Before any individual is signed off their initial probationary period and confirmed in role they must be considered to be performing the role to the previously referenced quality standards.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-04-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are making representations to the government of Turkey about the treatment of Syrian refugees in that country.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Turkey is generously hosting over 2.7 million Syrian refugees and has provided Syrians in Turkey with access to healthcare, education and legal employment. We raise any concerns concerning the treatment of Syrian refugees with the Government of Turkey.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-04-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will discuss with Amnesty International the evidence that it has collected that the government of Turkey has in Hatay Province been expelling groups of Syrians almost daily since mid-January.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

We are in regular contact with Amnesty International in Turkey and would be happy to discuss evidence of specific cases.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-05-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what response they have made to the British Red Cross campaign Torn Apart; and in particular whether they now plan to widen family reunion rules to include children over 18 years of age who previously lived with their parents.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

There are no plans to extend the family reunion criteria. The current policy meets our international obligations and strikes the right balance. Where family members cannot meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules, such as in the case of an 18 year old applying to join their refugee parents in the UK, we consider whether there are exceptional circumstances or compassionate reasons to justify granting entry clearance outside the Rules.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-06-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to speed up family reunions for refugees and migrants now in Europe, particularly in Greece, Italy and France; and whether special provision has been made for the 1,400 unaccompanied children in Greece, and households headed by women.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The Goverment continues to work with key EU Member States to ensure the Dublin Regulation family reunification process works effectively.

Under the UK-France Joint Declaration of 20 August 2015, the UK and France have committed to ensuring that provisions of the Dublin III Regulation are used efficiently and effectively. To assist the handling of such cases, the two Governments have established a permanent official contact group, agree single points of contact within respective Dublin Units and a UK asylum expert was seconded to the French administration to faciliate the improvement of all stages of the process. The UK and France are running regular joint communication campaigns in northern France which inform unaccompanied children and others of their right to claim asylum in France and the family reunion process.

We are also providing support to the Dublin units in Greece and Italy, both bilaterally and through European Asylum Support Office (EASO).

On the 4 May the Prime Minister announced the Goverment will work with local authorities on plans to resettle unaccompanied refugee children from Europe. We are looking to transfer children who are already present in Europe before the EU-Turkey deal came into force on 20 March.

Ministers and senior officials are engaged in ongoing discussions with Greece, Italy, and France to identify and transfer to the UK unaccompanied refugee children where it is in their best interests. We are also consulting local authorities, non-governmental organsitations, UNICEF and UNHCR.

The UK is the largest bilateral contributor to the humanitarian response to the crisis in Europe and the Balkans with a total contribution of £65 million. This includes nearly £46 million to provide life saving aid to migrants and refugees including food, water, hygiene kits and infant packs, and protection for the most vunerable, as well as support to organisations helping goverments build their capacity to manage arrivals in Greece and the Balkans. The efforts of the partners we fund are targeted to reach the most vulnerable including children.

It also includes the £10 million Refugee Children Fund the Department for International Development (DFID) has created the needs to vulnerable refugee and migrant children specifically in Europe. The fund will support three specialist and mandated organisations the UNHCR, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee to work with host authorities to care for and assist unaccompanied or separated children in Europe and the Balkans.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-07-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they propose to take to strengthen the capacity of the Commonwealth to prevent and resolve conflicts between or within its members; and whether they will seek to provide the Secretary-General with greater resources for that purpose.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

We are committed to strengthening the capacity of the Commonwealth towards preventing and resolving conflicts between member states, including through the Secretariat and the Good Offices of the Secretary-General. We welcome the work already done by the Secretary-General in this area, most recently her appointment of a Special Envoy to strengthen multi-party democracy towards inclusive presidential elections in the Maldives in 2018.

We will work closely with Patricia Scotland and partners as we build towards the UK hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Spring 2018. We believe she is the right person to drive through reform, strengthen the Commonwealth’s voice and unite members behind the values enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter.

A key strand of strengthening the Commonwealth’s focus on democracy, the promotion of the rule of law and preventing conflict is the Commonwealth Secretariat’s work in promoting democratic values, including through election observation missions. We welcome these missions and will work with the Secretary-General to take forward this important programme.