Tag: Stuart C. McDonald

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-01-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many refused asylum seekers with dependants have been supported under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 for (a) up to two years, (b) more than two years and (c) more than four years.

James Brokenshire

The table below shows the number of failed asylum seekers that have been supported under section 95 for the requested periods. This data defines refused asylum seekers as those who have been found to not require international protection and have received a final decision on their application.

Time On Support Count

Under 2 Years 1903

Under 4 Years 1283

Over 4 Years 249

Total = 3435

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-02-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many care leavers in part or full-time training or employment aged between 19 and 21 in (a) 2014 and (b) 2015 were former unaccompanied asylum-seeking children looked after by the local authority.

Edward Timpson

The information requested is shown in the table below. This information is for England only.

Care leaver activity [2]	Number of former unaccompanied asylum seeking children [1]
2014	2015
Higher education	20	40
Education other than higher education	100	260
Training or employment	40	130

Source: SSDA903

Information on the activity of all care leavers in England has been published in tables F1 of the Statistical First Release on looked after children[3].

[1] This includes young people who were unaccompanied asylum seeking children in their final period of care.

[2] Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10.

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2014-to-2015

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will estimate the number of people affected by the decision of 23 March 2016 of the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) in the case Qadir v Secretary of State; and what steps she plans to take to (a) notify those people affected and (b) support appeals of previous immigration decisions by those people affected.

Mike Penning

We are disappointed by the decision in Qadir and SM and, once we have the full determination, we will consider challenging it. Until we have the full determination, we cannot make an assessment of the number of persons affected.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Compass asylum accommodation contract with Clearsprings Ready Home Limited for the region of London and South East England, how many faults were reported or identified from Compass inspections for each contractual pay period in 2014-15 and 2015-16; and how many such faults were not resolved within the agreed contractual timescales.

James Brokenshire

Providers are contractually required to provide safe, habitable, fit for purpose and correctly equipped accommodation to comply with the Housing Act 2004 and the Decent Homes Standard. Providers are monitored closely to ensure accommodation meets these standards and the contracts include measures to ensure any issues are quickly addressed. These performance standards are defined in the contract and are managed using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) including those which measure whether an individual property is compliant with contractual obligations following an inspection and also the number of service users effected if a fault is not repaired within the contract timescales.

The Home Office does not centrally record the number of individual faults reported or identified during accommodation inspections, or the number of individual faults not resolved within the agreed timescales. The requested information could therefore only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children have been reunited with their families in the UK in (a) the last five years and (b) the last year under (i) the EU Dublin III Regulation; (ii) part 11 of the UK immigration rules, (iii) any other parts of the UK immigration rules and (iv) under exceptional circumstances.

James Brokenshire

There are several routes for children to be reunited safely with their families in the UK. Applications for family reunion for individuals under the age of 18 years of age can be received both in country and out of country and are processed by a number of casework units within the Home Office including International Operations, Settlement, Complex Casework and Asylum Operations. Unfortunately the way these applications are processed and the method used to store the data on the main immigration database means that not all of the data is recorded in a format that can be reported on automatically and would therefore require a manual investigation of thousands of case records. As a result this data could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Since 2010 we have granted more than 21,000 family reunion visas and 175 visas for exceptional circumstances though we are not able to distinguish from the data how many of these applicants were under the age of 18. Internal Management information concerning applications from people under 18 processed by International Operations and Complex Casework are listed in the table below:

Year	Complex Casework
2010	14
2011	14
2012	8
2013	7
2014	24
2015	10
Grand Total	77

Year	International Operations
2011	2950
2012	2406
2013	2624
2014	2882
2015	3088
Grand Total	13950

This is provisional management information that is subject to change. It has not been assured to the standard of Official Statistics.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-07-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches children and families in besieged towns in Syria.

Rory Stewart

The UK is at the forefront of the humanitarian response to the Syria crisis. We have pledged over £2.3 billion, our largest ever response to a humanitarian crisis.

The UN estimates that, of 13.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria, 4.6 million are living in areas where humanitarian access is extremely restricted, including 592,700 people living under siege. It is unacceptable and illegal to use starvation as a weapon of war.

We are doing all we can to open up humanitarian access. We have supported the UN and international NGOs since the start of the conflict to deliver aid to UN-designated hard-to-reach and besieged areas. UK co-sponsored UN Security Council Resolutions have enabled over 300 convoys of aid to reach vulnerable people in hard-to-reach areas without the consent of the Syrian regime. We will continue to use our position in the UN Security Council and International Syria Support Group to push for unrestricted and unfettered humanitarian access, whilst maintaining the pressure for a political settlement to bring the suffering of the Syrian people to an end.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-01-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many refused asylum seekers with dependants have been supported in Scotland under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 for (a) up to two years, (b) more than two years and (c) more than four years.

James Brokenshire

The table below shows the number of failed asylum seekers that have been supported under section 95 for the requested periods. This data defines refused asylum seekers as those who have been found to not require international protection and have received a final decision on their application.

Time on Support Count

Under 2 Years 251

Under 4 Years 120

Over 4 Years 13

Total = 384

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-02-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many care leavers in part or full-time education other than higher education aged between 19 and 21 in (a) 2014 and (b) 2015 were former unaccompanied asylum-seeking children looked after by the local authority.

Edward Timpson

The information requested is shown in the table below. This information is for England only.

Care leaver activity [2]	Number of former unaccompanied asylum seeking children [1]
2014	2015
Higher education	20	40
Education other than higher education	100	260
Training or employment	40	130

Source: SSDA903

Information on the activity of all care leavers in England has been published in tables F1 of the Statistical First Release on looked after children[3].

[1] This includes young people who were unaccompanied asylum seeking children in their final period of care.

[2] Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10.

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2014-to-2015

“

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish all correspondence between her Department and ETS relating to allegations of English language text fraud.

James Brokenshire

There are on-going criminal investigations and prosecutions into matters connected with cheating in ETS tests and it would be inappropriate to release any information or details of correspondence in the circumstances.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Compass asylum accommodation contract with Serco for the region of Scotland and Northern Ireland, how many faults were reported or identified from Compass inspections for each contractual pay period in the years 2014-15 and 2015-16; and how many such were not resolved within the agreed contractual timescales.

James Brokenshire

Providers are contractually required to provide safe, habitable, fit for purpose and correctly equipped accommodation to comply with the Housing Act 2004 and the Decent Homes Standard. Providers are monitored closely to ensure accommodation meets these standards and the contracts include measures to ensure any issues are quickly addressed. These performance standards are defined in the contract and are managed using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) including those which measure whether an individual property is compliant with contractual obligations following an inspection and also the number of service users effected if a fault is not repaired within the contract timescales.

The Home Office does not centrally record the number of individual faults reported or identified during accommodation inspections, or the number of individual faults not resolved within the agreed timescales. The requested information could therefore only be provided at disproportionate cost.