Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of providing transitional arrangements for current applicants when changing the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The earned settlement model, proposed in ‘A Fairer Pathway to Settlement’, announced changes to the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain. It is currently subject to a public consultation, running until 12 February 2026.
The consultation seeks views on whether there should be transitional arrangements for those already on a pathway to settlement. Details of the earned settlement model, including any transitional arrangements for those already in the UK, will be finalised following that consultation.
The final model will also be subject to economic and equality impact assessments, which we have committed to publish in due course.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will provide updated guidance to police forces on the enforcement of speed limits, in the context of the number of deaths caused by drivers exceeding the speed limit.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Excess speed remains a major cause of death and serious injury on our roads. Anyone who breaks the speed limit should expect to face sanction.
Current National Police Chiefs’ Council National Guidance on Speeding Enforcement advocates proportionality in applying the law and discretion to take account of the individual circumstances of each speeding offence and take the action they consider appropriate.
Enforcement measures range from informal advice, the offer of a speed awareness course or fixed penalty, and where speeding results in a fatality to court prosecution.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the correspondence of 27 October 2021, 10 November 2021, 7 December 2021, 12 January 2022 and 17 February 2022 from the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, reference DA43798, when her Department plans to make a decision on case MPAM/0198564/21, in the context of the decision date of 29 May 2022 having passed.
Answered by Kevin Foster
All Asylum Further Submissions lodged in the UK are carefully considered on their individual merits against a background of relevant case law and up to date country information.
We ensure those seeking asylum based on their Further Submissions are given every opportunity to disclose information relevant to their claim before a decision is taken. We aim to make decisions on Further Submissions cases as quickly as possible whilst ensuring the required security checks have been conducted.
We do not comment publicly on individual cases.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to (a) support Afghan nationals after their six months leave to remain in the UK ends and (b) provide information, advice and support for those people prior to the end of their leave to remain.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office has written to Afghan families advising them of the next steps to progress permanent residence in the UK.
The Home Office has established a dedicated caseworking team, which is working jointly with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence. This team will contact those here in the UK under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy and those moving onto the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, to assist them to obtain Indefinite Leave to Remain status.
While families are being accommodated in Bridging Hotel accommodation, we remain committed to ensuring that there essential living needs are being met.
We also have Home Office Liaison Officers (HOLO’s) allocated to Bridging Hotel Accommodation.
The role of the HOLO is to provide both face to face support and remote support when not physically present. They are reactive to the needs of those accommodated in hotels and can provide signposting to other government departments and Local Authorities and ensure safeguarding concerns are appropriately acted upon.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has received representations from Greater Manchester child and migrant rights organisation on concerns that children seeking asylum in the UK are at a higher risk of criminal exploitation, self-harm and dying by suicide; and what steps she is taking to resolve backlog of children seeking asylum.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office regularly receive representations from Greater Manchester child and migrants’ rights organisations on children seeking asylum in the UK.
The department most recently received a courtesy copy of an open letter dated 16 December 2021, from the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU) in which 25 child and migrant rights organisations wrote to us and we replied to this on the 20 January 2022.
The department maintains a working relationship with GMIAU and other regional organisations through our strategic partnerships; including the Strategic Engagement Group (SEG) and National Asylum Stakeholder Forum (NASF), who continue to work collaboratively to ensure asylum claims from children and young people remains one of our top priorities.
The Home Office have established two dedicated case working Hubs for deciding children’s asylum claims which are now fully operational. The hubs have established improved focus on and greater control of children’s cases to build expertise, identify efficiencies and provide a consistency of decision making (and quicker outcomes) for our customers.
We continue to work collaboratively with Local Authorities nationally on the remote interview process for Accompanied and Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and young people utilising digital interviewing video capabilities to complement in person interviews.
Since May 2021 we have increased Local Authority opt in for digital interviewing to 108 Local Authorities helping to speed up processes, reduce delays and the numbers of children and young people who have an outstanding claim.
We are continuing to recruit additional decision-makers who will be trained to process children’s asylum claims to further reduce the number outstanding.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has plans to give people seeking asylum the right to work in the UK.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office already allows asylum seekers the right to work in the UK if their claim has been outstanding for 12 months or more, through no fault of their own.
Those permitted to work are restricted to jobs on the Shortage Occupation List, which is based on expert advice from the independent Migration Advisory Committee. We have no plans to change this approach.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department keeps official records (a) the average number of days it takes to process claims for unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK and (b) trends in the number of days it takes her Department to reach a decision on children seeking asylum claims in (i) 2021, (ii) 2020 and (iii) 2019; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office are unable to state the average number of days it takes to process claims for unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK or provide trends in the number of days it takes to reach a decision in 2021, 2020 and 2019 as this information is not held in a reportable format and could only be obtained at disproportionate costs.
However, the Home Office does publish data on the number asylum applications awaiting an initial decision by duration. This data can be found at Asy_D03, (broken down by nationality and applicant type) in the asylum and resettlement detailed datasets:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets
The Home Office have established two dedicated case working Hubs for deciding children’s asylum claims which are now fully operational. The hubs have established improved focus on and greater control of children’s cases to build expertise, identify efficiencies and provide a consistency of decision making (and quicker outcomes) for our customers.
We continue to work collaboratively with Local Authorities nationally on the remote interview process for Accompanied and Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and young people utilising digital interviewing video capabilities to complement in person interviews.
Since May 2021 we have increased Local Authority opt in for digital interviewing to 108 Local Authorities helping to speed up processes, reduce delays and the numbers of children and young people who have an outstanding claim.
We are continuing to recruit additional decision-makers who will be trained to process children’s asylum claims.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many places remain to be allocated on the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme; and how many and what proportion of the people given protection under that scheme are British nationals or living in the UK as of 8 February 2022.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) commenced on 6th January. The ACRS will provide up to 20,000 women, children and others at risk with a safe and legal route to resettle in the UK.
We are not giving a running commentary on statistics of those in the scheme due to the continuing flow of people being welcomed. We will include this data within published resettlement statistics later in 2022.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of people crossing the Channel in small boats had existing family members in the UK in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office is unable to state what proportion of people crossing the Channel in small boats had existing family members in the UK in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021, as this information is not recorded in a way that is reportable.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to respond substantively to correspondence originally sent by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth on 28 January 2021, reference DA39000 and MPAM/0131372/21, which has since been followed up with her Department on 4 March 2021, 22 April 2021, 17 June 2021, 29 July 2021, 1 September 2021, 21 October 2021 and 9 December 2021.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
I apologise for the unacceptable delay. The Home Office responded to the correspondence on 13 January 2022.