Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many offers of honours have been refused by intended recipients over the last three years, and what were the reasons given for any refusals to accept an honour.
Answered by Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
Since the New Year 2014 honours list, 122 nominees have refused the offer of an honour. This is around 2% of nominees per list. Nominees reasons for declining an award are given in confidence and the Government does not comment on the reasons given.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential need for Mrs Asia Bibi and her family to apply for asylum should she be released from detention in Pakistan.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
We remain concerned about the situation of all religious minorities in Pakistan. We urge Pakistan to uphold the rule of law and ensure the rights of all citizens are respected regardless of gender, ethnicity or religious belief.
Our obligations under the Refugee Convention do not extend to considering claims from people overseas who may want to seek asylum here. There is no provision in the Immigration Rules for someone to be given permission to travel to the UK to seek asylum.
The UK and European Union approach is that an individual should apply for protection from the authorities in the first available safe country or through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of Pakistan about the application of the death penalty for blasphemy.
Answered by Baroness Anelay of St Johns
I remain concerned about Ms Asia Bibi, following the postponement of her Supreme Court appeal hearing on 13 October. The British High Commission in Islamabad continues to monitor developments in her case closely. We raise regularly our concerns about misuse of the blasphemy laws with the Pakistani Government, and continue to urge Pakistan to adhere to its international obligations and uphold the rule of law. During his visit to Pakistan in March, the former Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), made clear our concerns about minority communities and misuse of the blasphemy laws.
The UK supported the EU statement of October 2014 following the decision of the Lahore High Court to uphold the conviction of Ms Bibi. We will continue to work with our EU and other international partners to ensure our views are made clear to the Pakistani authorities.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they last made representations to the government of Pakistan concerning the trial of Asia Bibi for blasphemy; what was the nature of those representations; and what was the response by the government of Pakistan to those representations.
Answered by Baroness Anelay of St Johns
I remain concerned about Ms Asia Bibi, following the postponement of her Supreme Court appeal hearing on 13 October. The British High Commission in Islamabad continues to monitor developments in her case closely. We raise regularly our concerns about misuse of the blasphemy laws with the Pakistani Government, and continue to urge Pakistan to adhere to its international obligations and uphold the rule of law. During his visit to Pakistan in March, the former Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), made clear our concerns about minority communities and misuse of the blasphemy laws.
The UK supported the EU statement of October 2014 following the decision of the Lahore High Court to uphold the conviction of Ms Bibi. We will continue to work with our EU and other international partners to ensure our views are made clear to the Pakistani authorities.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many refugees from Iraq have been (1) granted asylum under the UN mandate or gateway scheme, and (2) granted asylum whilst resident in the UK.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The Home Office publishes figures on asylum and resettlement by nationality in the quarterly Immigration Statistics release.
The numbers of Iraqis resettled under the Mandate and Gateway schemes, from 2013 to 2015, are given in Table A. The numbers of grants of asylum or other forms of protection, at initial decision, to Iraqi nationals, from 2011 to 2015 are provided in Table B.
Table A: Iraqi refugees (and others) resettled, including dependants, 2013 to 2015 | |||||
Year | Gateway Protection Programme | Mandate Scheme | |||
2013 | 121 | 11 | |||
2014 | 107 | 6 | |||
2015 | 102 | 4 | |||
Source: table as_019_q, Immigration Statistics October to December 2015, Home Office | |||||
Table B: Grants of asylum or other forms of protection to Iraqi nationals, main applicants only, 2011 to 2015 | ||||||
Year | Total grants | |||||
2011 | 80 | |||||
2012 | 54 | |||||
2013 | 69 | |||||
2014 | 116 | |||||
2015 | 216 | |||||
Table Notes: | ||||||
Source: Table as_01_q, Immigration Statistics October to December 2015, Home Office | ||||||
(1) Initial decisions do not necessarily relate to applications made in the same period and exclude the outcome of appeals or other subsequent decisions. | ||||||
(2) Figures for 'Total grants' include: grants of asylum, humanitarian protection, discretionary leave, grants under family and private life rules, Leave Outside the Rules and UASC leave | ||||||
(3) 2015 data are provisional and subject to update. | ||||||
A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics, October to December 2015, is available from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2015.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to respond to anti-Ahmadiyya hate literature in the UK in the light of recent reports that leaflets endorsing the execution of Ahmadi Muslims were found in Stockwell Green mosque on 10 April.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Religiously motivated hate crime and hate speech has absolutely no place in British society. This Government is clear that everybody should be free to live their lives free from fear of attack simply because of what their beliefs are, and that tragic events such as the recent murder of Asad Shah in Glasgow will not be tolerated. We have a strong legal framework in place against discrimination on the basis of religion, and criminal penalties for offences such as racially or religiously aggravated assault and criminal damage. Those who perpetrate hate crimes of any kind will be punished with the full force of the law. This Government has done more than any other to tackle anti-Muslim hatred. As of 1 April 2016, police forces in England and Wales are disaggregating religious hate crime data to reveal the true scale and nature of the problem. The Government also plans to publish its new Hate Crime Action Plan in the summer, which will set out our approach to tacking all forms of hate crime, including Islamophobia. This will build on the success of ‘Challenge It, Report It, Stop It’, which was published in 2012 and updated subsequently in 2014.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many Yazidis have been given asylum in the UK under (1) the Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Scheme, (2) the Gateway Protection Programme, and (3) the Mandate Refugee Scheme, in the last six months.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
We continue to work closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to identify appropriate cases that they deem in need of resettlement for the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, the Gateway Protection Programme and the Mandate Refugee Scheme.
Statistics on arrivals under each of these schemes are published in the regular quarterly Immigration Statistics in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
The next set of statistics will be in the quarterly release on 26 May 2016 and will cover the period January – March 2016. We do not publish a breakdown of these statistics by religion or ethnicity.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 21 April (HL Deb, col 762–4) on religiously motivated crime, whether they will provide details of which community groups the Home Secretary is engaging with in the "community round tables", and how many times each of those round tables have met in the past year.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
In his speech on countering extremism in July 2015, the Prime Minister said that he wanted to hear directly from those in our society who are challenging extremism. The Community Engagement Forum is one of the ways we are doing this. The Forums provide a platform for a wide range of partners to share their experiences and learn from each other. Attendance at the Forums is fluid to ensure Ministers can hear from a wide range of partners from a variety of backgrounds.
To date, the Community Engagement Forum has met on 13 October 2015, 19 November 2015 and 14 January 2016. A list of those that have attended is available in response to written parliamentary questions HL6419 and HC20784. Further community forums are planned for later this year. In addition, I myself have chaired round tables with different faith communities and leaders.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the murder of Asad Shah in Glasgow, what action they are taking to restrict access to websites that espouse extremism in Pakistan.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The tragic murder of Asad Shah demonstrated the powerful influence of extremist online content. In the UK, the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) is responsible for the referral of terrorist-related content to online communication service providers (CSPs) for removal. Upon receipt of a referral, CSPs remove material on a voluntary basis where it breaches their terms and conditions.
Referrals made to CSPs by CTIRU have led to over 160,000 pieces of terrorist-related content being removed to date world-wide, including websites, user accounts and videos. Overall, removals at the request of CTIRU have increased from around 60 items a month in 2010, when CTIRU was first established, to over 4,000 a month in 2016.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of the ongoing problems faced by the Yazidi community and children affected by the conflict in Iraq and Syria, they will reassess the criteria for eligibility for the Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Programme and other UK resettlement schemes.
Answered by Lord Bates
Under the current scheme, only UNHCR registered Syrian refugees are eligible under the Syrian Resettlement Scheme, which has been expanded to resettle up to 20,000 during this Parliament. We work closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to identify cases that they deem in need of resettlement according to seven agreed vulnerability criteria for the Syrian Resettlement Scheme.
The Syrian Resettlement Scheme is operated in addition to our global resettlement schemes: Gateway and Mandate, which are not nationality specific.