Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the “best interests of the children test” pursuant to section 55 of the Borders, Citizens and Immigration Act 2009 was applied in the cases where those having their citizenship revoked had British children in their care.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The duty in Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 to have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in the United Kingdom, applies to all immigration and nationality decisions.
This includes decisions taken to deprive an individual of British citizenship where it is conducive to the public good. Where a child is outside of the UK, the Home Secretary applies the spirit of the Act and therefore still takes into account the best interests of the child when making decisions which affect them.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many British children have been repatriated from Syria or from territory that was formerly part of the sovereign states of Syria or Iraq in the last 12 months.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
We can confirm that in the last 12 months there have been a small number of British children who have left Syria and returned to the UK via third countries.
The Government does not have a consular presence within Syria from which to provide consular assistance. FCO Travel Advice advises against all travel to Syria, and that British Nationals should leave by any practical means. We will not put British officials’ lives at risk to assist those who have left the UK to join a proscribed terrorist organisation.
If a British child who has been in Syria is able to seek consular assistance outside of Syria, then we would work with local and UK authorities to facilitate their return if requested.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many UK visas have been issued to persons living in Myanmar in each visa category since January 2016; and how many they estimate were to (1) Christians, and (2) Muslims.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The specific data requested is not published by the Home Office.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential need for Mrs Asia Bibi and her family to apply for asylum should she be released from detention in Pakistan.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
We remain concerned about the situation of all religious minorities in Pakistan. We urge Pakistan to uphold the rule of law and ensure the rights of all citizens are respected regardless of gender, ethnicity or religious belief.
Our obligations under the Refugee Convention do not extend to considering claims from people overseas who may want to seek asylum here. There is no provision in the Immigration Rules for someone to be given permission to travel to the UK to seek asylum.
The UK and European Union approach is that an individual should apply for protection from the authorities in the first available safe country or through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many refugees from Iraq have been (1) granted asylum under the UN mandate or gateway scheme, and (2) granted asylum whilst resident in the UK.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Home Office publishes figures on asylum and resettlement by nationality in the quarterly Immigration Statistics release.
The numbers of Iraqis resettled under the Mandate and Gateway schemes, from 2013 to 2015, are given in Table A. The numbers of grants of asylum or other forms of protection, at initial decision, to Iraqi nationals, from 2011 to 2015 are provided in Table B.
Table A: Iraqi refugees (and others) resettled, including dependants, 2013 to 2015 | |||||
Year | Gateway Protection Programme | Mandate Scheme | |||
2013 | 121 | 11 | |||
2014 | 107 | 6 | |||
2015 | 102 | 4 | |||
Source: table as_019_q, Immigration Statistics October to December 2015, Home Office | |||||
Table B: Grants of asylum or other forms of protection to Iraqi nationals, main applicants only, 2011 to 2015 | ||||||
Year | Total grants | |||||
2011 | 80 | |||||
2012 | 54 | |||||
2013 | 69 | |||||
2014 | 116 | |||||
2015 | 216 | |||||
Table Notes: | ||||||
Source: Table as_01_q, Immigration Statistics October to December 2015, Home Office | ||||||
(1) Initial decisions do not necessarily relate to applications made in the same period and exclude the outcome of appeals or other subsequent decisions. | ||||||
(2) Figures for 'Total grants' include: grants of asylum, humanitarian protection, discretionary leave, grants under family and private life rules, Leave Outside the Rules and UASC leave | ||||||
(3) 2015 data are provisional and subject to update. | ||||||
A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics, October to December 2015, is available from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2015.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many Yazidis have been given asylum in the UK under (1) the Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Scheme, (2) the Gateway Protection Programme, and (3) the Mandate Refugee Scheme, in the last six months.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We continue to work closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to identify appropriate cases that they deem in need of resettlement for the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, the Gateway Protection Programme and the Mandate Refugee Scheme.
Statistics on arrivals under each of these schemes are published in the regular quarterly Immigration Statistics in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
The next set of statistics will be in the quarterly release on 26 May 2016 and will cover the period January – March 2016. We do not publish a breakdown of these statistics by religion or ethnicity.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 21 April (HL Deb, col 762–4) on religiously motivated crime, whether they will provide details of which community groups the Home Secretary is engaging with in the "community round tables", and how many times each of those round tables have met in the past year.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
In his speech on countering extremism in July 2015, the Prime Minister said that he wanted to hear directly from those in our society who are challenging extremism. The Community Engagement Forum is one of the ways we are doing this. The Forums provide a platform for a wide range of partners to share their experiences and learn from each other. Attendance at the Forums is fluid to ensure Ministers can hear from a wide range of partners from a variety of backgrounds.
To date, the Community Engagement Forum has met on 13 October 2015, 19 November 2015 and 14 January 2016. A list of those that have attended is available in response to written parliamentary questions HL6419 and HC20784. Further community forums are planned for later this year. In addition, I myself have chaired round tables with different faith communities and leaders.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the murder of Asad Shah in Glasgow, what action they are taking to restrict access to websites that espouse extremism in Pakistan.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The tragic murder of Asad Shah demonstrated the powerful influence of extremist online content. In the UK, the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) is responsible for the referral of terrorist-related content to online communication service providers (CSPs) for removal. Upon receipt of a referral, CSPs remove material on a voluntary basis where it breaches their terms and conditions.
Referrals made to CSPs by CTIRU have led to over 160,000 pieces of terrorist-related content being removed to date world-wide, including websites, user accounts and videos. Overall, removals at the request of CTIRU have increased from around 60 items a month in 2010, when CTIRU was first established, to over 4,000 a month in 2016.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of the ongoing problems faced by the Yazidi community and children affected by the conflict in Iraq and Syria, they will reassess the criteria for eligibility for the Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Programme and other UK resettlement schemes.
Answered by Lord Bates
Under the current scheme, only UNHCR registered Syrian refugees are eligible under the Syrian Resettlement Scheme, which has been expanded to resettle up to 20,000 during this Parliament. We work closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to identify cases that they deem in need of resettlement according to seven agreed vulnerability criteria for the Syrian Resettlement Scheme.
The Syrian Resettlement Scheme is operated in addition to our global resettlement schemes: Gateway and Mandate, which are not nationality specific.
Asked by: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will extend the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme to include Iraqi Refugees fleeing religious persecution.
Answered by Lord Bates
The first beneficiaries of the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation (VPR) scheme arrived in March, and by the end of June 50 Syrians had been relocated to the UK. Groups of Syrians are now being brought to the UK on a regular basis under the scheme. We will be publishing the number of people arriving under the VPR scheme each quarter as part of the Home Office’s official migration statistics.
The VPR scheme is a bespoke programme designed to help particularly vulnerable refugees displaced by the Syrian crisis who cannot be supported effectively in the region, particularly survivors of torture and violence, women and children at risk and those in need of medical care. We have no plans to extend the scheme to include Iraqi refugees fleeing religious persecution. However, the Government has already brought a number of Iraqis into the UK under the Gateway Programme where they have been in a protracted refugee situation for five years or more, and who amongst other things are escaping religious persecution.
Furthermore, the Government will of course continue to consider asylum claims, including applications from Iraqi nationals suffering religious persecution, under our normal rules.