Tag: Stuart C. McDonald

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he plans to take to support access for independent monitors to (a) places of detention in Syria and (b) Saydnaya prison.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

I condemn the Asad regime’s arbitrary arrest, illegal detention and mistreatment of tens of thousands of Syrians and call for the release of all those arbitrarily detained, especially women and children, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 2254 and 2268.

I fully support calls for access for independent monitors to all places of detention in Syria, including the regime’s notorious Saydnaya prison. The Government has sought to keep international focus on this issue, particularly via the UN. We have ensured that detention and mistreatment has featured in successive Syria resolutions of the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council, and will continue to do so. We also regularly raise detainee issues at the Task Forces of the International Syria Support Group in Geneva.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what plans the Government has to attempt to remove or deport refugees and asylum seekers at the the UK Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus to third countries.

Penny Mordaunt

Under Sovereign Base Areas legislation, people whose asylum claims fail are liable for deportation. Some applications for asylum in Cyprus are still being processed.

We will seek to deport those who have not claimed asylum or have had their application rejected.

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 full or part-time 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 commission an independent inquiry into the role of (a) her Department and (b) ETS related to allegations of English Language Test fraud.

James Brokenshire

The investigation into the abuse of English language testing in 2014 revealed extremely serious, large scale, organised fraud and it is right that the Home Office took decisive action in respect of those against whom there was evidence of cheating. We are disappointed by the decision of the Upper Tribunal and, once we have the full determination, we will consider our next steps carefully, including an appeal of this decision.

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 North West 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 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people of each nationality detained for over (a) six and (b) 12 months between 2005 and 2015 for the purpose of removal were successfully removed.

James Brokenshire

The table attached shows the number of people removed on leaving detention, by nationality who were held for over six and over twelve months.

Published statistics relating to immigration detention are only available from 2010 onwards. It is not possible to provide pre-2010 figures and this information could be provided only by examining individual case records, which would result in disproportionate cost.

The Home Office publishes quarterly and annual statistics on the number of people detained in the United Kingdom for immigration purposes, within the Immigration Statistics release 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 Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-09-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications were made by (a) EEA nationals for registration certificates and (b) EEA family members and extended family members for residence cards in each month since January 2016.

Mr Robert Goodwill

Data on the total number of EEA related applications made by people in the UK is published on a quarterly basis as part of the Migration Transparency Data release. The latest published figures (Q2 2016) can be found in the table ‘Temporary and permanent migration data’. See tab InC-01a. This data can be accessed via the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/temporary-and-permanent-migration-data-august-2016

With regards to the online processing of EEA applications, UK Visas & Immigration is undertaking a programme of transformation of which digitisation is a core part. UKVI is working towards digitising all application routes from existing methods of applying by paper for applicants from within and outside of the UK. The intention is to enable customers to apply online across the services and immigration routes in a straight-forward and customer-focused way.

The online application service Access UK first launched for visit visa customers in China in June 2014, and has subsequently been rolled out to 180 countries globally for overseas visit routes in more than 15 languages. For those already in the UK, Access UK has launched for customers applying for tier 2 (work) and tier 4 (study) extensions and is preparing for further services to go online. UKVI is currently trialling the online service for some EEA applicants. As the programme matures we expect benefits to security, customer service and efficiencies to be identified and realised.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many refused asylum seekers were granted, continued on, or were reinstated onto support under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 in Scotland after lodging an appeal with the First-tier Tribunal (Asylum Support) in (a) 2012-13, (b) 2013-14 and (c) 2014-15.

James Brokenshire

This information is not recorded centrally and is not readily available. It could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-02-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what profit has been made by the three contractors and sub-contractors under the provision of contracts for asylum accommodation since the contract with Compass began in 2012-13.

James Brokenshire

The Home Office is unable to release details of the profit / loss made against specific contracts as this information is commercially sensitive.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what independent scrutiny her Department commissioned of reports of invalid and questionable results in English Language tests conducted by ETS.

James Brokenshire

We are disappointed by the decision of the recent Upper Tribunal. Once we have the full determination we will carefully consider next steps, including appealing the decision.