Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support female Welsh prisoners held in English prisons, both during and after their imprisonment, to reintegrate into the community.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
All women’s prisons have an embedded pre-release provision delivered by the Probation Service. The pre-release team liaise with the Community Probation Practitioner as allocated and support pre-release planning activity throughout the sentence. The teams will progress referrals that have been made to Commissioned Rehabilitative Service suppliers, including fast tracking services for women serving short sentences. This provision is provided for Welsh women in English prisons as part of the Women’s Pathfinder Whole System Approach (WSA), with a WSA Service Caseworker based in HMP Eastwood Park and Women's Partnership Integration Coordinators aligned to each Probation Delivery Unit area in Wales, helping to support inter-agency connection and coordination across women's services.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many women have been assisted by the Women’s Pathfinder Whole System Approach since its establishment in 2013.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
There was not a full Women’s Pathfinder Whole System Approach (WSA) service in place prior to 2019. Therefore, data does not exist for the number of women who have been assisted since 2013.
The commissioned Women’s Pathfinder WSA service in South Wales and Gwent went live in October 2019 and has assisted 4,117 women through referrals to the service from January 2020 to September 2023.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government who will be representing the UK at the Global Refugee Forum.
Answered by Lord Benyon
Minister Mitchell represented the UK delegation at the Global Refugee Forum on 13th December.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent the homelessness to prison cycle.
Answered by Baroness Penn
The Government’s Rough Sleeping Strategy published in September 2022 and published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ending-rough-sleeping-for-good), sets out, in section 4.1, how we are delivering our aim that no one should leave prison homeless or to sleep rough.
Since publication of the strategy we have published further allocations for the Accommodation for ex-Offenders scheme up to March 2025, which are available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accommodation-for-ex-offenders-scheme-local-authority-funding-allocations-between-july-2021-and-march-2025
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to mobilise funding to support the education of refugees in low and middle income host countries.
Answered by Lord Benyon
As set out in the recent Development White Paper, the UK continues to support education for refugee children through our work in emergencies and protracted crises, with our support through Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education. This includes support for the implementation of the UNHCR-UNICEF Blueprint for Joint Action for Refugee Children. Working with a number of partners, we will also be announcing further support for inclusive refugee education at the Global Refugee Forum.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether refugee support organisations, in addition to Migrant Help, currently operate within Napier Barracks.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Migrant Help act as a main point of contact for all Non-Government Organisation (NGO) activity and outreach work in the wider community, and a number of organisations are currently engaged with asylum seekers accommodated at Napier Barracks.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by the Prime Minister on 13 December 2022 when he stated that "we expect to abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of next year" (HC Deb col 887), what progress they have made in reaching that target.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We remain on track to clear the legacy backlog by the end of 2023. The asylum backlog of legacy cases fell by over 35,000 cases between the end of November 2022 and the end of August 2023 when, according to provisional data, it stood at 55,477 outstanding claims.
23,702 asylum claims were decided in the year ending June 2023, an increase of 61% on the previous year, in part due to an increase in the number of asylum decision-makers employed by the Home Office.
We met our commitment to increase the number of asylum decision-makers to 2,500, and at the end of August 2023, provisional data shows there were 2,510 in post.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have expanded the capacity of the Department of Work and Pensions to provide local support to refugees who, as a consequence of the backlog of applications being cleared, have recently been given asylum.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie
Work Coaches have access to information on a range of services and support available in their local area for vulnerable claimants, including refugees. We also have access to a range of translation services to assist, should a claimant need support to overcome any language barriers.
Work Coaches receive training to help them build supportive relationships with claimants, including refugees, encouraging them to openly discuss any barriers, concerns, or problems as they emerge.
Work Coaches will provide tailored employment support to meet their customer’s needs. They utilise a wide range of tools to ensure that we are providing intensive employment support to these customers. This includes the use of Flexible Support Fund, Sector based work academy programme, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), Jobs Fairs, collaboration with local partners and Group Information Sessions.
Claimants can also give permission to share their UC account journal with support workers. The opportunity to combine face to face contact with on-line support has helped alleviate some of the communication barriers within legacy benefits which were traditionally more reliant on telephone and written forms of communications. Work Coaches can also use the on-line account to remind claimants of any information needed in order to ensure that their claim is processed smoothly.
More generally, we are increasing capacity in our Decision Making teams, during both this and the next quarter, to help meet demand for benefit decisions.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have expanded the capacity of the Department of Work and Pensions to provide local support to refugees who have been given asylum recently as a result of the backlog of applications being cleared.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie
Work Coaches have access to information on a range of services and support available in their local area for vulnerable claimants, including refugees. We also have access to a range of translation services to assist, should a claimant need support to overcome any language barriers.
Work Coaches receive training to help them build supportive relationships with claimants, including refugees, encouraging them to openly discuss any barriers, concerns, or problems as they emerge.
Work Coaches will provide tailored employment support to meet their customer’s needs. They utilise a wide range of tools to ensure that we are providing intensive employment support to these customers. This includes the use of Flexible Support Fund, Sector based work academy programme, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), Jobs Fairs, collaboration with local partners and Group Information Sessions.
Claimants can also give permission to share their UC account journal with support workers. The opportunity to combine face to face contact with on-line support has helped alleviate some of the communication barriers within legacy benefits which were traditionally more reliant on telephone and written forms of communications. Work Coaches can also use the on-line account to remind claimants of any information needed in order to ensure that their claim is processed smoothly.
More generally, we are increasing capacity in our Decision Making teams, during both this and the next quarter, to help meet demand for benefit decisions.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Murray of Blidworth on 26 September (HL10146), whether additional resources have been provided to Migrant Help to support refugees who, as a consequence of the backlog of applications being cleared, have recently been given asylum.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Home Office continues to work with Migrant Help to ensure that they can meet their contractual requirements. Migrant Help have increased their headcount to respond to the significant increase in demand for their services.