Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the (1) shortest, and (2) longest, time taken to process applications for asylum.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Home Office is unable to state what the shortest and longest processing time is for asylum applications as this information is not published and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost because it would require a manual search through individual records.
However, the Home Office does publish data on the number asylum applications awaiting an initial decision by duration, for main applicants only. This data can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics: List of tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The Home Office also publish data on the percentage of asylum applications processed within 6 months of the date of claim. Data showing the number of asylum claims received from 2014 – 2022 that were processed within 6 months can be found at Asy_01 of the Asylum Transparency Data: Immigration and protection data: Q3 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in their work to help UK musicians to tour EU countries after the UK's departure from the EU.
Answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
His Majesty’s Government is committed to supporting the UK’s world-class creative industries to adapt to new arrangements following our departure from the European Union.
We have worked extensively with the sector and directly with EU Member States, and have clarified arrangements on the movement of people, goods, and haulage. We have taken steps to support specialist concert hauliers, and have worked across Government and with the sector to develop guidance including ‘landing pages’ on GOV.UK specifically for touring musicians and other professionals from the creative sectors.
Through this work, we have confirmed that:
nearly all EU Member States offer visa- and work-permit-free routes for musicians and creative performers. This includes – following extensive engagement by the Government and the creative sector – Spain and, most recently, Greece, which announced a visa- and work-permit-free route in June 2022;
portable musical instruments, carried or in a vehicle, can be transported cost-free and should not require ATA Carnets; and
small ‘splitter vans’ are not subject to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement limits on ‘haulage for the creative sectors’ and ‘cross trade’. In addition, the Government has introduced dual registration to support specialist hauliers, meaning they can benefit from more generous market access arrangements in Great Britain and the EU.
We continue to work closely with the sector to support musicians and other creative professionals to tour internationally, both in the European Union and more widely.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in ensuring that analogue telecare devices continue to work safely after the digital switchover in 2025.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following a Ministerial meeting on 7 September on the telecommunications industry led digital switchover, on 24 November we wrote to telecare service providers and telecare device manufacturers to request the results of tests undertaken and recent alarm call data history, to understand the reliability of analogue telecare devices on digital telephone lines. This was supported by the Tech Enabled Care Services Association, the Local Government Association, the Housing Learning and Improvement Network, TEC Cymru, the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government and Digital Health and Care Northern Ireland. Initial data will be analysed and will be available by early February 2023. We have also agreed a Telecare Stakeholder Action Plan to encourage further testing of analogue devices, which will be published shortly.