Tag: Sarah Teather

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Teather on 2014-03-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied migrant children have been forcibly removed to another country in each of the last five years.

James Brokenshire

No unaccompanied child under the age of 18 can be forcibly removed from the UK
unless adequate care and reception arrangements are in place in their country
of origin. The difficulty of setting up suitable reception arrangements has
meant that, with the exception of transfers to other European Union countries
under the *Dublin Regulations, the Home Office does not routinely enforce the
return of unaccompanied children to any country. The majority of unaccompanied
children whose asylum claims are rejected are granted temporary leave which is
reviewed when they reach 17½ years of age. We believe that the vast majority of
enforced returns of unaccompanied children undertaken between 2006 and 2010
were transfers under the Dublin Regulations.

Table 1: Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children removals 2009 to 2013

Date of Removal	Total
2009	31
2010	12
2011	2
2012	6
2013	2
Grand Total	53

‘Migrant children’ have been interpreted as unaccompanied asylum seeking
children (UASC) in answering this question.

* The Dublin Regulation EC No. 343/2003 is a binding measure of European
Community law to determine which State should be responsible for examining an
application for asylum made within the EU territory.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Teather on 2014-03-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applicants receiving support under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 have been receiving support for more than (a) two years, (b) four years and (c) six years; and if she will make a statement.

James Brokenshire

Data specific to your request can be found in the table below.

Band Cases

Up to two years 2008

More than two years 822

More than four years 473

More than six years 212

Total 3515

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Teather on 2014-03-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she will announce the asylum support rates for 2014-15.

James Brokenshire

There are no immediate plans to change the support rates provided to destitute asylum seekers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Teather on 2014-03-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his plans are for HMP The Verne.

Jeremy Wright

HM Prison The Verne started taking immigration detainees as scheduled from 24 March 2014. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) will retain The Verne as a prison in the short term but its population will comprise immigration detainees as planned with the Home Office.

NOMS intends to review the designation of The Verne later this year, with the intention of completing the re-designation to an immigration removal centre by the end of September 2014.

All foreign national offenders (FNOs) sentenced to custody are referred to the Home Office for them to consider deportation at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are committed to working together to expedite the removal of foreign criminals. NOMS will always supply sufficient prison places for those committed by the courts.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Teather on 2014-04-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reasons she will no longer fund the detention element of the Choices service from 1 April 2014; whether an alternative assisted voluntary returns programme will be made available to immigration detainees; and what assessment she has made of the potential effects of this decision on the number of (a) assisted voluntary returns and (b) enforced removals.

James Brokenshire

An assessment of the impact of this change is in train and the range of
possible alternatives is complex. A full written response on the issue will be
provided to the Member in due course, and the letter placed in the House
Library.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Teather on 2014-04-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many immigration detainees left the UK through the assisted voluntary returns programmes in each of the last five years.

James Brokenshire

For the last five years, the numbers of detainees who have left the UK annually
through AVR programmes are as follows:

Year	Detainees departing through AVR
2009	585
2010	824
2011	848
2012	1150
2013	2081

The figures provided are sourced from a Home Office management information
system which is not quality assured under National Statistics protocols and is
subject to change due to internal data quality checking. Figures provided from
this source do not constitute part of National Statistics and should be treated
as provisional.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Teather on 2014-04-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which prisons are holding individuals solely under immigration powers.

James Brokenshire

The prisons detailed below are currently holding individuals in England and Wales solely under immigration powers:

Ashfield	Glen Parva	Parc
Bedford	Guys Marsh	Pentonville
Belmarsh	Haverigg	Peterborough
Birmingham	Hewell	Ranby
Brinsford	High Down	Risley
Bristol	Highpoint	Rye Hall
Brixton	Holloway	Stafford
Bronzefield	Holme House	Stoke Heath
Bullingdon	Huntercombe	Styal
Bullwood Hall	Isis	Swansea
Bure	Leeds	Swinfen Hall
Cardiff	Lewes	Thameside
Chelmsford	Lincoln	Usk
Dartmoor	Littlehey	Wakefield
Doncastor	Liverpool	Wandsworth
Durham	Maidstone	Wayland
Elmley	Manchester	Whatton
Erlestoke	Moorland	Woodhill
Exeter	Mount	Wormwood Scrubs
Featherstone	New Hall	Wymott
Feltham	Norwich	Verne
Forest Bank	Nottingham
Garth	Oakwood

The prisons detailed below are currently holding individuals in Scotland under immigration powers:

Barlinnie, Edinburgh, Cornton Vale, Dumfries

1. All details quoted have been derived from management information and are therefore provisional and subject to change.

2. The details have been extracted from NOMS and Home Office reports which are taken from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording
system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

3. Data generated on 31 March 2014.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Teather on 2014-04-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of how much each local authority returned to his Department in unused discretionary housing payment funding in 2013-14.

Steve Webb

Local authorities are required to submit their claims for funding for Discretionary Housing Payments by 30 April following the end of the financial year.

Until the returns have been received from each authority, we are not in a position to say how much of this funding has been unused.

At the end of the 2012/13 year, of the £67,906,916 made available by central Government towards Discretionary Housing Payments, £12,453,471 (18.34%) was unspent.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Teather on 2014-03-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department has spent on legal fees in immigration cases when she has been (a) the defendant and (b) the appellant, in each of the last five years for which records are available.

James Brokenshire

The Home Office cannot report separately on expenditure on legal fees in
immigration cases where the Secretary of State has been either defendant or
appellant because it does not record data in the format required for such an
analysis. The only way to answer this question would be to review all payments
of litigation expenditure manually which would incur disproportionate cost.