Asked by: Caroline Spelman (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-UK EU children are residing in the five local authorities selected by his Department for the private beta testing phase two of the EU Settlement Scheme in (a) total and (b) in each local authority pilot site area.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office does not hold data on how many EU National children reside in the five local authorities which participated in the second Private Beta test phase of the EU Settlement Scheme.
Asked by: Caroline Spelman (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of (a) the number of non-UK EU children in care and (b) the number of those children in each local authority that were part of his Department's private beta phase two testing pilot by (i) age and (ii) EU nationality.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The precise number of non-UK EU children in care is not known. Local authorities do not routinely collect this data. The Home Office has estimated that there are approximately 5,000 EU children in care in the UK, not including care leavers. This estimate is based on ONS data on the proportion of EEA citizens per Local Authority and government data on volumes of children in care per Local Authority
The second Private Beta phase included some applications for Looked After Children made by five local authorities. The local authorities which participated did so voluntarily for some of the EU children in their care. In total 19 applications were made on behalf of looked after children by these local authorities. Applicants were aged between 5-17 and comprised 6 different nationalities.
Asked by: Caroline Spelman (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of non-UK EU children in care who could not take part in his Department's private beta phase test pilot (a) in total and (b) in each local authority pilot site because they did not have a passport.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
According to the rules laid before parliament (on 11/10/2018) for the second Private Beta phase of the EU Settlement Scheme, only a child being looked after (within the meaning of section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989) by one of the five named local authorities, with a chipped passport, was eligible to apply.
The Home Office did not estimate the number of children who could not take part in the Private Beta phase because they did not have a passport.
All EU applicants, including looked after children, will be able to apply with an ID card or a passport once the scheme is rolled out fully from 30 March 2019. In addition, from that date it will be possible for applicants to submit alternative evidence of their identity and nationality where they are unable to provide a passport or national identity card due to circumstances outside of their control, or for compelling practical or compassionate reasons.
Asked by: Caroline Spelman (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-UK EU children in care took part in the Home Office's private beta testing phase two of the EU Settlement Scheme (a) in total and (b) in each local authority area; how many (i) received settled status, (ii) received pre-settled status, (iii) were refused, (iv) requested an administrative review (A) in total and (B) in each local authority area.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
In total 19 applications were made on behalf of looked after children by the participating local authorities. We are unable to provide a breakdown by local authority as this may identify some of the children involved.
16 have received settled status.
0 have received pre-settled status
0 have been refused
0 have requested an administrative review
We are working with the relevant local authorities to gather further evidence for the 3 outstanding cases.
Asked by: Caroline Spelman (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether during the private beta testing phase two of the EU Settlement Scheme his Department instructed local authorities to support eligible non-UK EU children in care to secure British citizenship.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
During the second Private Beta phase of the EU Settlement Scheme, participating local authorities were not instructed to support eligible EU national children in care to secure British citizenship.
Local authorities participated on a voluntary basis to apply on behalf of some children in their care. Only looked after EU national children (within the meaning of section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989) were eligible to participate in this phase of the scheme.
The Private Beta phase did not involve applications for British citizenship, which is a separate process.
Asked by: Caroline Spelman (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to help refugee families reunite in the UK.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Government provides a safe and legal route to bring families together through its family reunion policy. Under our refugee family reunion policy, we have granted visas to nearly 26,000 partners and children of those granted protection in the UK in the last five years.
Our policy allows immediate pre-flight family members of those granted protection here to reunite with them. It also includes a provision to grant visas outside the Rules in exceptional circumstances; this enables reunion between family members who otherwise do not qualify under the Rules. However, we are listening carefully to calls to expand the scope of the refugee family reunion rules and continue our productive discussions with non-governmental organisations in this area.
Family reunion is only part of the Government’s wider package of support for refugees and we have resettled a total of 5,702 people under our resettlement schemes in the year ending June 2018.
Asked by: Caroline Spelman (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to publish the findings of the follow-up audit of reports made under Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Stephen Shaw CBE, the former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for England and Wales, has completed the review into the welfare of vulnerable immigration detainees which the Home Secretary asked him to conduct, and has recently submitted his report to Ministers at the Home Office and Department of Health. His findings are being carefully considered. The report will be published by laying it before Parliament, alongside the Government’s response to the recommendations. The Government intends to publish the Rule 35 audit alongside publication of Stephen Shaw’s report.