Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to assess the (1) efficiency, and (2) effectiveness, of the Home Office’s agent company TLScontact in relation to its work handling visa applications; and what reporting the Home Office requires from TLScontact for routine oversight of this work.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
We closely monitor and manage the contract with TLS and robustly review how they are performing to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in handling visa applications.
This includes holding Monthly Performance Calls with TLS to assess their performance in line with the Service Level Agreement (SLA) in the contract. We have a clear governance process in place to ensure any incidents, risks and issues and capacity is managed clearly with them.
As part of the monthly reporting cycle, we request TLS produce a monthly performance report focussing on the Critical Service Levels (CSLs) and Non Critical Service Levels (NCSLs) by region and Visa Application Centre (VAC). This enables us to manage any service level failures appropriately.
Alongside this, we maintain routine oversight of TLS work by requesting incident reports, risk and issue logs, demand and capacity information and regular updates on key activities.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Ukrainian refugees (1) have applied for visas, (2) have been granted visas; and (3) have entered each of the four nations of the UK, under (a) the family visa scheme, and (b) the sponsorship scheme, each day since each of those schemes was launched.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Home Office Migration Statistics do not capture the number of applications for Ukrainian refugees either granted, refused, or how many have entered the four nations of the UK. To capture these numbers and divide them into each day since the scheme was launched would require a manual trawl of data and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Information on the number of applications currently being processed under the newly launched Ukraine Family Scheme (UFS) can be found in our published data on the GOV.UK webpage: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukraine-family-scheme-application-data
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people qualified for asylum in the UK in each of the last three years; and how many of those people were known to be qualified doctors.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office does not record the number of those that have been granted asylum in the UK over the past three years that are known to be qualified
Doctors.
The Home Office publishes a range of data on asylum seekers and refugees in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. The number of asylum grants for the last three years is within the table below and can be found in table ASY_02a of the published Immigration statistics
www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-december-2019/list-of-tables#asylum-and-resettlement
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
Total grants | 6,779 | 6,931 | 10,804 |
Asylum | 5,957 | 5,557 | 9,404 |
Humanitarian Protection | 146 | 582 | 642 |
Discretionary Leave | 84 | 104 | 71 |
UASC Leave | 417 | 344 | 181 |
Other Grants | 175 | 344 | 506 |
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many applications were received from NHS doctors to bring their dependents to the UK; and how many of those were (1) granted, and (2) declined, in each year since 2012.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office does not collate this data in an accessible way or publish the information requested.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government who is responsible for ensuring that all those involved in the sale and purchase of guns are medically fit to hold a licence to be in control of firearms intended for sale; and how is the information about any concerns shared between different areas of jurisdiction.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The police are responsible for assessing the suitability of those who seek to be registered as a firearms dealer or to be issued with a firearm or shotgun certificate, including their medical suitability, to ensure the safety of the public. When applying to be registered as a firearms dealer, a person who is not already a firearm or shotgun certificate holder must provide details of their doctor and disclose any relevant physical or mental health conditions that they have been diagnosed with or treated for in the past for consideration by the police.
When seeking to be registered as a firearms dealer a person must apply to their local police force, who will consider the application and carry out the necessary checks to assess the applicant’s suitability.
A consultation on the introduction of statutory firearms guidance to the police, including in relation to the medical arrangements, closed on 17 September. The responses are being considered and the Government will publish a response in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will include abuse by coercive control in their proposed legislation on domestic abuse.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The previous Government created a ground-breaking new offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship which came into force in December 2015 to recognise the patterns of manipulation and control that characterise domestic abuse.
Since then we have seen 294 successful convictions and the number of prosecutions increased threefold in 2017.
As part of the Government’s domestic abuse consultation earlier this year, we asked whether further action should be taken to strengthen the offence. We will be publishing a response to the consultation, together with a draft Domestic Abuse Bill, later this Parliamentary session.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many overseas students attending (1) English, and (2) Welsh universities were delayed in starting their courses this autumn due to delays in visa processing.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office does not hold the data requested.
The most recent published data shows that 99.4% of straightforward Tier 4 applications were dealt with within service standards.
(Table Visa_02,
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-operations-transparency-data-august-2018 )
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when and by which ministerial department the decision was taken to cancel the transfer of police custody healthcare services to the NHS; when that decision was announced; and what were the reasons for that change of policy.
Answered by Lord Bates
My rt hon Friend the Home Secretary has decided that a reallocation from the overall police settlement in respect of custody healthcare costs would not be appropriate at this time. This decision was communicated to Police and Crime Commissioners on 17 December 2015 in correspondence on the provisional police funding settlement. Police and Crime Commissioners will therefore retain responsibility for commissioning such services, and have flexibility to prioritise resource towards police custody healthcare, based on local needs.
In most areas police forces and NHS Commissioners have already developed close effective partnerships in respect of custody healthcare provision and we expect that they will continue to build on these.