Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been arrested for publicly endorsing Hamas since the attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
As of 1200hrs Monday 23rd October, as a result of Counter Terrorism Policing led investigations, there have been 6 arrests of individuals for publicly supporting Hamas.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to resolve delays to processing of (a) visa applications for highly skilled workers and (b) visa sponsor licences.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Performance and efficiency of visa and sponsor licence processing is continually reviewed to ensure performance is as strong as possible.
Information on our immigration routes with service standards and whether they have been processed against these standards is available as part of our transparency data, at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
We are, however, currently flexing resources across all routes to ensure a robust response to the Ukrainian crisis while still processing standard applications and sponsor licences within service standard wherever possible. As a result, customers with standard applications in study, work, and family routes may experience some temporary impacts to the processing of their application.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to speed up the process of Ukrainian visa applications in circumstances where visas are issued for all but one member of a family, preventing them all from travelling.
Answered by Kevin Foster
UK Visas and Immigration have received thousands of applications for the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine Scheme. UKVI are processing the paperwork as quickly as possible, and additional caseworkers have been brought in to manage this demand. UKVI staff are carrying out vital security checks for each application, and these checks are important to keep people safe in the UK, and protect people making journeys from Ukraine
Applications are normally processed in date order from when documents were uploaded, or after an appointment at a Visa Application Centre (VAC). We are working seven days a week to process applications, and where we have applications from family groups we would look to group these decisions together so families receive decisions wherever possible at the same time.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle the backlog of applications in HM Passport Office.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Ahead of unrestricted international travel returning, HM Passport Office prepared extensively to serve an unprecedented number of customers, with 9.5 million British passport applications forecasted throughout 2022.
These preparations have ensured that passport applications can be processed in higher numbers than ever before. This was demonstrated in March and April 2022 when HM Passport Office achieved record outputs by completing the processing of two million applications.
Ministers continue to meet regularly with officials to monitor performance, and to explore further options which will help to ensure people receive their passports in good time
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-crime hate incidents the police have recorded in 2022.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
I refer the Hon member to the previous answer given to UIN 153861 on 26 April 2022.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-crime hate incidents the police have recorded in 2022.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Home Office collects and publishes information on the number of hate crime offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. Information is not collected on non-hate crime incidents.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Tier 5 Exceptional Talent visas were issued to people working in (a) FinTech and (b) science in 2018.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office does not hold the information requested in a reportable format. As such the information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an estimate of the average salary of a person who has been granted a Tier 5 Exceptional Talent visa.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) route is designed for internationally recognised leaders and promising future leaders in the digital technology, science and research, arts, humanities and culture sectors. There is no minimum salary requirement for applying for a visa on this route and the Home Office does not collect salary data.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to tackle cyber crime.
Answered by Ben Wallace
Cyber security, including cyber crime, is a top priority threat to national security. This is why the National Cyber Security Strategy 2016-2021 is supported by £1.9billion of transformational investment. We have boosted the capabilities of the National Crime Agency’s National Cyber Crime Unit by increasing their ability to investigate the most serious cyber crime, and we are continuing to invest in the cyber teams within each of the Regional Organised Crime Units across England and Wales.
We have also established the National Cyber Security Centre which manages national cyber security incidents, carries out real-time threat analysis and provides tailored sectoral advice. We have invested in regional cyber crime prevention coordinators, who engage with SME’s and the public to provide bespoke cyber security advice based on the latest technical understanding from the National Cyber Security Centre.
Driving up cyber knowledge and expertise at the local policing level is also extremely important. The College of Policing provides a range of courses for police officers and staff on cyber crime. The College are also working on behalf of the Home Office to create the Cyber Digital Career Pathways project. This project will create a Cyber Digital Investigation Profession across all of law enforcement, providing a career pathway and professional certification for Cyber Digital Investigation Professionals.
The Home Office delivers the Government’s Cyber Aware campaign which encourages the public and small businesses to adopt simple behaviours which will help protect them against the majority of cyber threats. Most recent activity to educate the public on the cyber threat and how they can protect themselves includes the #OneReset campaign to encourage greater use of a strong and separate password for primary email accounts, and, launching on 1 March 2018, a new research report entitled “A Call to Action: The Cyber Aware Perception Gap”, which outlines the need for, and benefit of, a collaborative effort to increase the adoption of cyber secure behaviour.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Office, what steps she is taking to improve awareness of cyber fraud amongst the public.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The Home Office delivers the Government’s Cyber Aware campaign, and the Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign, which is run in conjunction with UK Finance and supported by the UK’s banks. The Cyber Aware and Take Five campaigns are designed to help encourage the public and small businesses to protect themselves from cyber crime and fraud, providing advice on specific protective and actionable behaviours to increase resilience.
Cyber Aware and Take Five in particular have been developed jointly by industry and Government experts including the National Cyber Security Centre and the Joint Fraud Taskforce and have established consensus around a single set of authoritative advice to protect individuals from cyber criminals and fraudsters. This advice is deployed through a network of over 450 public, private and third sector partners, and through targeted media interventions.