Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support asylum seekers who have received questionnaires under streamlined asylum processing and are unable to access legal advice or translation services.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
For those who are unable to return the questionnaire within 20 working days, a reminder will be sent to the claimant allowing a further 10-working days to complete and return it to the Home Office. A further extension can be requested where the timeframe cannot be met, for example because the claimant has serious medical conditions which is impacting their ability to respond to the questionnaire.
The asylum claim questionnaires are in English as is generally the case for immigration paperwork across the Department. If necessary, claimants can utilise legal representatives, Non-Government Organisations and other support networks to help them respond to the questionnaire.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to provide more detailed guidance on when individuals can expect a decision on (a) immigration or (b) asylum applications where the Department has been unable to provide a full decision within the initial timeframe.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
UK Visas and Immigration are currently operating within their global customer service standards across all of the main legal migration routes for customers who make an entry clearance application from overseas and for applications made inside the UK.
Details of current performance against these customer service standards are updated regularly and can be found at:
Visa decision waiting times: applications outside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)(opens in a new tab).
Visa decision waiting times: applications inside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Prioritisation guidance is currently being developed and will be published in due course. This will include an explanation of the circumstances in which a case may be expedited.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure (a) housing association, (b) council and (c) private rented properties in (i) Camberwell and Peckham constituency, (ii) Southwark and (ii) London are free from damp and mould.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
I refer the Rt. Hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 181418 on 24 April 2023.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate he has made of how many (a) housing association, (b) council and (c) private rental properties had damp and mould in (i) Camberwell and Peckham constituency, (ii) Southwark and (iii) London in financial year 2022-2023.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
I refer the Rt. Hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 181418 on 24 April 2023.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of asylum seekers housed in contingency hotels who have been waiting over a year for an outcome on their asylum application.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The information requested could not be obtained without disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce NHS dentist waiting lists in (a) the London Borough of Southwark and (b) London.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Continuous registration with a dental practice is not required. Patients are only registered with a dental practice for the course of their treatment, therefore patients do not routinely join dental waiting lists and no data exists on the average length of time it takes for a patient to get access to a course of treatment.
National Health Service dentists are required to update their NHS.UK profiles regularly to ensure patients have access to up-to-date information on where they can access care.
In circumstances where patients are unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through an NHS dental practice, they are advised to contact NHS 111 for assistance.
In September 2022, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in London. These will increase access to NHS dentistry for patients of all ages, whilst making the NHS dental contract more attractive to dental practices. We have taken action to implement these changes, including through regulations that came into effect on 25 November 2022.
NHS England is holding further discussions with the British Dental Association and other stakeholders for additional reforms of the NHS Dental System coming shortly this year.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of applications for a visa application fee waiver from inside the UK were accepted in 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Data on what proportion of the people who qualified for visa fee waivers applied from inside the UK is not routinely available.
Data is published on the GOV.UK website that lists the overall number of fee waiver applications that have been processed, resolved or remain pending a decision. The latest data can be found at www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-and-protection-data-q4-2022, on tab FW_01.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her department has taken to reduce the waiting time for people awaiting (a) a substantive interview and (b) an initial decision on their asylum claim.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
To further accelerate decision making we are driving productivity improvements by streamlining interviews, simplifying processes, and dealing with cases more swiftly where they are certified as clearly unfounded.
We have already doubled our decision makers over the last 2 years, and we are continuing to recruit more. This will take our expected number of decision makers to 1,800 by summer and 2,500 by September 2023.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish the refund eligibility criteria for individuals who purchased the UKVCAS Super Priority Service but did not receive a decision on their visa application within 24 hours.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office’s published immigration and nationality refunds policy sets out the circumstances in which priority service fees will be refunded Immigration and nationality refunds policy (publishing.service.gov.uk).
The circumstances in which a refund of the fee paid to expedite an application through the Super Priority service will be made include where the applicant has taken necessary steps to complete their application, but the application has not been processed within the published timescales. A partial refund of the difference between the Super Priority and Priority fee can be considered if an application goes on to be processed under the published timescales for the Priority service.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure the adequate provision for patients of Hormone Replacement Therapy.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We have accepted and are taking forward the recommendations of the HRT Supply Taskforce, which was temporarily established to explore what could be done to address hormone replacement therapy (HRT) supply issues in the short and long-term. A key recommendation was to continue the dialogue with industry and we are doing that through regular meetings with individual suppliers as well as holding quarterly roundtables with manufacturers, wholesalers and community pharmacist representatives to monitor progress and agree what more needs to be done to boost production.
Access to high-demand products improved since actions have been taken by industry with our support as well as the issuance of Serious Shortage Protocols (SSPs) for some HRT products facing supply issues to limit dispensing to three months’ supply to even out distribution and allow specified alternative products to be supplied, as necessary.
21 SSPs for HRT products have been issued since April 2022. The majority of these have been withdrawn as supply issues have been resolved and only five SSPs remain in place.