Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to combat the abuse of ketamine.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is extremely concerned by the rising use of ketamine in the UK and its dangerous impact on people's health, which may be significantly underestimated by those who use the drug. That is why I have written to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), setting out those concerns and seeking their advice on reclassifying ketamine as a Class A substance. We will carefully consider the ACMD’s recommendations before making any decision on how to proceed.
The Office for Health Improvements and Disparities (OHID) has briefed local authorities and treatment systems on data on ketamine use and harm, and guidance on prevention, harm reduction and treatment interventions. In addition, OHID has been supporting local authorities in increasing access to and retention in drug treatment through the public health grant and the significant increases in treatment funding. As a result, and in response to increased prevalence, the treatment system is responding and the number of adults entering treatment for ketamine use is 11 times higher than a decade ago (Dec 2013 - Nov 24) and proportion of children and young people under the age of 18 young people accessing help in relation to ketamine has increased from under 1% in 2015-16 to 9% in November 2024.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what categories of information, such as name, address, date of birth, they routinely capture about foreign national offenders, and how they store and access this information.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
Biodata to establish nationality and identity is obtained and stored on the digital case-working system Atlas. Atlas provides caseworkers access to all the data that they need to manage and progress foreign national offender cases.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 21 October 2024 (HL1252), whether they have established a returns and enforcement unit, and how many of the additional 1,000 staff allocated to the unit have been recruited.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Noble Lord to the answer I gave him on 21 October 2024 in response to Question HL1252.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many additional asylum decision makers they (1) have recruited since July 2024, and (2) plan to recruit in 2025.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
As of September 2024, there were 2,172 FTE decision makers. This information is routinely published online: Immigration and protection data: Q3 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many staff making decisions on asylum cases are employed by the Home Office; and how many additional staff they plan to recruit by the end of 2025.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
According to the regularly published data available online at Immigration and protection data: Q2 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), there were 2,464 FTE decision makers in place as of June 2024.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many investigators, intelligence officers and police officers have been recruited into the Border Security Command to date.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Border Security Command (BSC) has been launched within the Home Office, led by the Commander, Martin Hewitt. The BSC will be appropriately resourced to ensure we can disrupt organised criminal gangs and respond to a range of threats across the border security system.
The Command will collaborate with a wide range of agencies, recruiting hundreds of new specialist staff across these organisations, including investigators, to smash the criminal gangs and strengthen our borders. Wider recruitment is ongoing and any external opportunities for the BSC will be advertised on Civil Service Jobs; initial roles within the BSC have been filled through internal processes.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many Home Office caseworker employees there were in each month since July.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office employs teams of caseworkers in a variety of different functions to deliver the department’s key missions, including processing visa applications, strengthening border security, clearing the backlogs and increasing removals of those with no right to stay.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in setting up a new returns and enforcement unit to fast-track removals to safe countries for people who do not have the right to stay in the UK, and in particular how many of the additional 1,000 staff allocated to the unit have been recruited.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
We need to be able to progress swiftly those with no right to remain in the country towards a return, reversing the decline in returns since 2010.
That’s why we have already begun delivering a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity to remove people with no right to be in the UK and ensure the rules are respected and enforced, redeploying significant numbers of staff to a returns and enforcement programme enhancing the Home Office’s ability to accelerate removals to safe countries for individuals without the right to remain here.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to repeal the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 and, if so, when.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Secretary set out the government’s position in respect of the Illegal Migration Act in her statement to the house on 22nd July 2024. Any legislative plans flowing from the statement will be set out in the normal way in due course.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have fully terminated the UK–Rwanda migration and economic development partnership agreement; and, if not, when they plan to do so.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Migration and Economic Development Partnership has finished. We are currently carrying out a legislative review which includes consideration of the repeal of the Safety of Rwanda Act. More details will be set out in due course.