Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage businesses to use digital technology in complying with modern slavery legislation.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
This government is committed to tackling modern slavery, ensuring that victims are provided with the support they need to begin rebuilding their lives and that those responsible are prosecuted. We recognise the valuable role that digital tools can play in supporting businesses to assess and manage this risk.
We encourage industry-led innovation to identify and manage modern slavery risks and comply with the reporting requirements under S54 of the Modern Slavery Act. The Tech Against Trafficking workstream under the Global Business Coalition Against Human Trafficking is an excellent example of this, where businesses have put competition aside to work together on digital tools to help eradicate modern slavery.
Under Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, commercial businesses who operate in the UK and have a turnover of £36m or more must report annually on the steps they have taken to prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. The Home Office published statutory guidance in 2015 to support businesses to draft high quality modern slavery statements and we are currently working with a diverse group of stakeholders to update this.
We encourage businesses to upload their modern slavery statements to the online modern slavery statement registry. This is a powerful tool for transparency, bringing together modern slavery statements into one place on GOV.UK. The registry now hosts over 16,400 modern slavery statements and over the last year there have been an average of 22,500 public searches for the registry every month. We are currently developing a public facing data dashboard that will support businesses and members of the public to analyse the data held on the registry in more detail.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, in the context of the Coronavirus Act 2020, of the need to protect children without an Education, Health and Care plan who may live in households where there is domestic abuse.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Domestic abuse is a devastating crime. We fully recognise the severe impact it has on both victims and their children, and that many of them may feel even more vulnerable during social distancing and self-isolation.
The Government is liaising with specialist domestic abuse service providers and local authorities to monitor and assess the impact of social distancing on victims of domestic abuse and their children, and to ensure that sources of advice and support continue to be available to them.
Schools have been asked to continue to provide care for vulnerable children including those who are supported by social care, those with safeguarding and welfare needs, and those on child protection plans. We are working with schools and local authorities to help identify the children who most need support at this time.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of applicants for support under section 4(2) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, in the last year for which records are held, were asked to provide further information to support their request, broken down by the reason further information was required.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
The information requested would require a manual trawl of records of all service users receiving section 4 support and could only be provided at a dis-proportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Statement by the Minister for Immigration on 15 June (HCWS768), what criteria were used to determine which countries were included in the expanded low-risk Tier 4 visa category for overseas students; and why India was not amongst them.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Careful consideration is given to which countries could be added to Appendix H of the Immigration Rules, taking into account objective analysis of a range of factors including the volume of students from a country and their Tier 4 immigration compliance risk.
The list of countries in Appendix H will be regularly updated to reflect the fact that countries’ risk profiles change over time.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the average waiting time between the request for transfer of an unaccompanied minor under the National Transfer Scheme and the new local authority receiving that child.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
We are grateful to the local authorities who continue to support to unaccompanied asylum seeking children, including those who have participated in the National Transfer Scheme (NTS).
Data on the NTS can be found at the following link:
The average waiting time to transfer unaccompanied children through the NTS varies according to the individual circumstances involved.
The number of unaccompanied children awaiting transfer through the scheme is fluid, depending on asylum intake, the number of transfer requests by local authorities and the number of transfers completed.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many unaccompanied minors are currently waiting to be transferred through the National Transfer Scheme.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
We are grateful to the local authorities who continue to support to unaccompanied asylum seeking children, including those who have participated in the National Transfer Scheme (NTS).
Data on the NTS can be found at the following link:
The average waiting time to transfer unaccompanied children through the NTS varies according to the individual circumstances involved.
The number of unaccompanied children awaiting transfer through the scheme is fluid, depending on asylum intake, the number of transfer requests by local authorities and the number of transfers completed.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government which local authorities have agreed to take part in the National Transfer Scheme for unaccompanied minors.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
We are grateful to the local authorities who continue to support to unaccompanied asylum seeking children, including those who have participated in the National Transfer Scheme (NTS).
Data on the NTS can be found at the following link:
The average waiting time to transfer unaccompanied children through the NTS varies according to the individual circumstances involved.
The number of unaccompanied children awaiting transfer through the scheme is fluid, depending on asylum intake, the number of transfer requests by local authorities and the number of transfers completed.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many unaccompanied minors have been transferred through the National Transfer Scheme to date, broken down by receiving local authority.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
We are grateful to the local authorities who continue to support to unaccompanied asylum seeking children, including those who have participated in the National Transfer Scheme (NTS).
Data on the NTS can be found at the following link:
The average waiting time to transfer unaccompanied children through the NTS varies according to the individual circumstances involved.
The number of unaccompanied children awaiting transfer through the scheme is fluid, depending on asylum intake, the number of transfer requests by local authorities and the number of transfers completed.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the average waiting time from arrival in the UK to starting full-time education for children resettled under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Latest statistics published on 30 November 2017 confirmed that a total of 9,394 vulnerable people have been resettled since the start of the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) across various local authorities. Around half of those resettled under the VPRS were children.
The Home Office is committed to publishing data in an orderly way as part of the regular quarterly Immigration Statistics, in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The statistics are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release
The Home Office does not hold data in relation to the number of children resettled through this scheme who are currently accessing education or the average waiting time for children to start full-time education.
We continue to work with local authorities to make sure that every child has a school place.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many of those children resettled under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme to date are currently accessing education.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Latest statistics published on 30 November 2017 confirmed that a total of 9,394 vulnerable people have been resettled since the start of the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) across various local authorities. Around half of those resettled under the VPRS were children.
The Home Office is committed to publishing data in an orderly way as part of the regular quarterly Immigration Statistics, in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The statistics are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release
The Home Office does not hold data in relation to the number of children resettled through this scheme who are currently accessing education or the average waiting time for children to start full-time education.
We continue to work with local authorities to make sure that every child has a school place.