Asked by: Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many legacy asylum applications are awaiting an initial decision.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Statistics relating to Illegal Migration’. Provisional data on the legacy applications awaiting an initial decision is published in table IMB_02 of the Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Act: data tables to December 2023. The latest data relates to 28 December 2023.
Finalised data for 31 December 2023 is due to be published on 29 February 2024 in table Asy_10a of the Asylum and resettlement summary tables, as part of the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what UK expenditure within Rwanda has been authorised in respect of (1) building the capacity of their asylum system, and (2) amending the UK–Rwanda agreement to mitigate against the risk of refoulement.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
As I said to the House at Committee Stage for the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill on 19 February, Noble Lords will be aware that we have provided Rwanda with £220 million as part of the economic transformation fund and £20 million as an advance credit to pay for operational costs in advance of flights commencing. The spend on the MEDP with Rwanda so far is £240 million.
We anticipate providing another £50 million in the next financial year. This is not new but follows the same arrangement from 2022.
Rwanda did not ask for money to sign the treaty, nor did we offer it. However, it is right and proper that there is funding to reflect the additional costs in the future. The Government are already committed to disclosing further payments made as part of the economic transformation fund and the per-person relocation costs as part of the department’s annual accounts in the normal way.
During the debate, I committed to write to the Noble Lord Purvis on this matter, and the letter will be published in the House library in due course.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of serving Metropolitan Police Service officers have served for more than five years, and what assessment they have made of the strength of institutional memory within the Metropolitan Police Service.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes data annually on the length of service of police officers employed within the police service in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales.
Information on the length of service of police officers employed in each of the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales can be found in Table JL5 in the data tables accompanying each publication.
As at 31 March 2023, 67% of police officers employed within the Metropolitan Police Service had 5 years or more service.
The retention of experienced police officers is a priority for the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). Voluntary resignation rates, at around 3%, are low compared to other sectors.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to (1) the remarks by Lord Murray of Blidworth on 10 May (HL Deb col 1922), and (2) the Supreme Court's decision on the government's Rwanda policy, what methodology they used in designating Rwanda as a safe country for the offshore processing of asylum claims.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We undertook an analysis of a wide range of publicly available evidence from a variety of reliable sources about Rwanda’s asylum system and human rights situation. The information was carefully selected in accordance with internationally established country-of-origin information research methods.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the comprehensiveness of their current data in estimating total national fraud, and (2) the feasibility of reintroducing a government-led Annual Fraud Indicator.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office and the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) publish datasets reflecting their respective responsibilities for fraud against individuals and businesses, and fraud against the public sector.
These include the Crime Survey of England and Wales (supplemented by data from Action Fraud and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau), the Economic Crime Survey of 2020 estimating fraud against businesses across seven sectors (due to be refreshed in 2024), and the PSFA’s annual report on the scale of fraud. There are also plans for a new Fraud and Cyber Crime Reporting Service in 2024.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many times the cross-Government director-level governance board referred to in the UK Biological Security Strategy met between July 2018 and July 2019.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The UK Biological Security Strategy Governance Board met in December 2018 and July 2019 during this period. The Governance Board is supported and informed by the Biological Security Strategy Working Group which has met twelve times, the most recent meeting was in March 2020.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingencies sub-committee of the National Security Council has met to consider a report from the cross-Government director-level governance board referred to in the UK Biological Security Strategy; and if so, when.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The focus since publication has been on developing and normalising the governance structure, building a biological security community, and mapping current departmental biological security related workstreams and a first cross-government report is in its final drafting stages. The THRC was a former sub-Committee of the National Security Council up until July 2019 and no longer sits anymore. We do not comment on specific National Security Council Agenda items.