Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Sharpe of Epsom on 24 October (HL2526), why they do not routinely publish any data on numbers of individuals that have overstayed their visa expiry in the UK; and whether they will publish the numbers for India in each of the past five years.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Home Office publishes statistics relating to exit checks, which can be found on gov.uk, which provide statistics on the number/proportion of visas for which:
a) The individual was recorded as departing in time (before their leave expired)
b) The individual was recorded as departing late
c) The individual has no matched departure record
The statistics do not provide information on the number of overstayer due to known limitations in the data. For example, an individual travelling to or from the UK via the Common Travel Area will be included in the ‘no matched departure record’ category. Further information is provided in the published report and accompanying user guide on gov.uk.
The latest statistics are published in the Fifth report on statistics relating to exit checks and future plans for these statistics outlined in the recent publication on Developments in Exit Checks, also found on gov.uk.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the increase in GDP per head resulting from a 50,000 increase in the number of work permits if, on average, 90 per cent of applicants continue to be accompanied by one dependant.
Answered by Baroness Penn - Minister on Leave (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility provides forecasts of the overall impact on economic growth of government policy, including those resulting from immigration policy. The next forecast will be provided on the 17th of November alongside the Autumn Statement.
It is not appropriate to provide commentary on specific scenarios, but the government does consider relevant impacts in assessing potential changes to immigration policy.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the impact on the trend rate of economic growth of a 50,000 increase in the number of work permits issued per year.
Answered by Baroness Penn - Minister on Leave (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility provides forecasts of the overall impact on economic growth of government policy, including those resulting from immigration policy. The next forecast will be provided on the 17th of November alongside the Autumn Statement.
It is not appropriate to provide commentary on specific scenarios, but the government does consider relevant impacts in assessing potential changes to immigration policy.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have a target for increasing the trend rate of economic growth; and if so, what it is.
Answered by Baroness Penn - Minister on Leave (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)
The Government is committed to sustainable economic growth within a stable macro-economic environment. The Government will set out the approach to growth policy at the Autumn Statement on the 17th November.Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many entry clearance visas grants they provided to main applicants under the (1) Skilled Worker, and (2) Skilled Worker - Health & Care, routes for each quarter of the year up to June; and for each route, how many were issued for jobs at (a) RQF Level 6, (b) RQF Levels 3 to 5, and (c) RQF Level 3.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
Applications granted to main applicants of the ‘Skilled Worker’ visa
Quarter | Grants |
2020 Q4 | 429 |
2021 Q1 | 4,553 |
2021 Q2 | 6,682 |
2021 Q3 | 11,762 |
2021 Q4 | 12,602 |
2022 Q1 | 12,701 |
2022 Q2 | 14,844 |
Total | 63,573 |
Applications granted to main applications of the ‘Skilled Worker – Health & Care’ visa
Quarter | Grants |
2020 Q4 | 689 |
2021 Q1 | 6,771 |
2021 Q2 | 5,815 |
2021 Q3 | 8,684 |
2021 Q4 | 10,530 |
2022 Q1 | 12,411 |
2022 Q2 | 15,646 |
Total | 60,546 |
There is no published data that links the entry clearance visas granted in these categories to the respective RQF classifications.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many work permits have been issued to Indian nationals in each of the past five years; and how many Indian nationals have overstayed their visas in each of the past five years.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office is committed to publishing data as part of the immigration statistics quarterly release. The transparency data provides outstanding applications by specific route and can be found featured in the ‘Migration Transparency Data’ on the GOV.UK website.
The immigration statistics Data Tables for Work can be found at Migration Statistics – Immigration Statistics, year ending June 2022, using the link ‘Why do people come to the UK? Work’ section 3 ‘Data Tables’. This table, at ‘Vis_03a’ tab, provides the numbers of work entry clearance visa cases applied for, issued, and refused for the year ending June 2022. There have been 117,446 applications for entry clearance for work purposes by Indian nationals from June 2021-June 2022, with 110,816 visas granted. Further details can be found on GOV.UK, including archived statistics.
The statistics relating to in-country work visa applications (extensions) is available on GOV.UK per annum, covering each year since the transparency data reporting began in 2010: however it is not broken down by nationality.
We do not routinely publish any data on numbers of individuals that have overstayed their visa expiry in the UK.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to section 16 of the Memorandum of Understanding between the UK and the government of Rwanda for the provision of an asylum partnership arrangement, how many refugees from Rwanda will be resettled in the UK; and over what time period they will be resettled.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
A small number of the most vulnerable refugees in Rwanda will be resettled in the UK as part of the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.
More details on the resettlement of vulnerable refugees will be set out in due course. The partnership between the UK and Rwanda is now underway and is expected to last for at least five years.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with P&O Ferries about the (1) immigration status, and (2) right to work in the UK, of the replacement workers they are reportedly hiring; what assessment they have made of the right to work in the UK of these workers; and, of the workers of foreign nationality hired by P&O Ferries, what were the immigration routes by which they have been admitted to the UK.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
There are ongoing discussions between P&O Ferries and HM Government.
It is the Government’s policy that all migrants coming to work in UK territorial waters (i.e., 12 nautical miles), or on the UK landmass, need permission to work unless exemptions apply. Conversely, if they are working outside of UK territorial waters then permission to work is not required.
Seafarers who earn a living by working on a ship such as seamen or crew members do not need permission to work if they are in transit (under contract) to join a ship or are in transit as part of a crew, subject to entry requirements.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Stedman-Scott on 11 February (HL5761), what is (1) the underlying data issue affecting the calculation of the scale of National Insurance numbers issued to adult overseas arrivals from June 2021 onwards, (2) the scale of the uncertainty about the numbers involved, (3) the degree and manner in which this has affected and is likely to affect the future development of the Administrative-Based Migration Estimates, and (4) the period over which net migration estimates are likely to be affected.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The decision was made to delay the November 2021 release of the National Statistics publication of National Insurance numbers allocated to adult overseas nationals following an investigation involving HMRC where a technical issue was identified which work is now underway to rectify. Once the work is complete and the data has been validated, we will notify users of our plans to publish the statistical back series in line with the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for migration estimates and they announced in November 2021 their plan to include data from the DWP Registration And Population Interactions Dataset (RAPID) in their Administrative-Based Migration Estimates. The current RAPID data is not affected by this issue as it only covers the period to end March 2021.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why the statistics on National Insurance numbers issued to overseas nationals were delayed two days before the due publication date of 25 November 2021; why they have now been suspended; and when they expect them to be published.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
All statistics produced by the Department for Work and Pensions are subject to routine quality assurance procedures before publication. During one of these procedures an underlying data issue was discovered in the quarterly National Statistics for ‘National Insurance number allocations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK’, which was due to be published on 25 November 2021. An assessment was made to understand the cause and identify if a solution could be swiftly implemented before the publication date. However, as it was not possible to do this, a decision was made to notify users both of the delay to the November release and that an update would be provided in January 2022.
The investigation is taking longer than first anticipated and will therefore impact the production of the next quarterly release of the statistics, so the update provided on 26 January 2022 informed users of the decision to suspend the release of the statistics. The statistical series will be reinstated as soon as possible after a solution is implemented, in line with the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics and a further progress update will be provided in early April 2022.