Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been given leave to remain on the basis of (a) family life as a (i) partner and (ii) parent and (b) exceptional circumstances in compliance with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights in each year since 2012.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The number of applications for Entry Clearance and to stay in the UK that are made on the basis of family life as a partner or parent and any exceptional circumstances in compliance with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the number of applicants granted access to public funds following a successful entry clearance or leave to remain change of conditions application, do not form part of any current transparency data or migration statistics and is not published.
The transparency data does, however, include a range of processing data and the latest data can be found at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#uk-visas-and-immigration.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been given entry clearance to the UK on the basis of family life as (a) a partner, (b) a parent and (c) exceptional circumstances in compliance with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights in each year since 2012.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The number of applications for Entry Clearance and to stay in the UK that are made on the basis of family life as a partner or parent and any exceptional circumstances in compliance with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the number of applicants granted access to public funds following a successful entry clearance or leave to remain change of conditions application, do not form part of any current transparency data or migration statistics and is not published.
The transparency data does, however, include a range of processing data and the latest data can be found at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#uk-visas-and-immigration.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the recommendations in the report entitled Creating a nature-rich UK: Unleashing the potential of nature-based solutions, published by Zero Hour on 13 September 2023.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government is already carrying out a programme of large-scale habitat creation and restoration to implement nature-based solutions. Taking actions for nature, including protecting our land and species, is also a core part of our third National Adaptation Programme.
Through the Environment Act 2021, we have committed to the legally binding targets of creating or restoring more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside of protected sites by 2042 and increasing the tree canopy and woodland cover of England to 16.5% by 2050. We have also made a number of further commitments in the Environmental Improvement Plan, including restoring approximately 280,000 hectares of peatland in England by 2050 and encouraging and supporting increased agroforestry with an aim to increase silvo-arable agroforestry to 10% of all arable land by 2050.
We are providing significant funding in this area. Our transformational, £675m, Nature for Climate Fund has supported tree planting to reach the decade’s highest levels, with more than 15 million trees planted in England during this Parliament. In February we awarded £25 million funding to 40 schemes around England for improving flood resilience through a new natural flood management programme.
The Government has guaranteed an average annual budget of £2.4 billion for the farming sector for the life of this Parliament. Our reforms require specific actions to be taken that enhance the environment and protect food production. This includes paying farmers to restore valuable habitats such as lowland peat and to engage in sustainable agroforestry and wetland management, which will support adaptation to climate change.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff in his Department are on a maximum payscale below (a) £34,500 and (b) £38,700.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
Within the Home Office, as of March 2024, there are 31,936 staff that have a maximum payscale below (a) £34,500 and 37,096 staff that have a maximum payscale below (b) £38,700.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the video entitled The first individuals set to be removed to Rwanda, posted on X by his Department on 1 May 2024, what the objectives of posting the video were; when the video received ministerial clearance; and if he will publish the minutes of the meeting in which the decision was made to produce the video.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
Videos on government social media accounts should inform the public about government policy and delivery. This video showed Immigration Enforcement officers executing thier public duties as they do all the time. It was produced by civil servants as part of their routine duties and involved no additional costs. As with all videos featuring service users or sensitive content, every care was taken to protect subjects’ identities. The video went through normal approval processes for social media content.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the video entitled The first individuals set to be removed to Rwanda, posted on X by his Department on 1 May 2024, who produced the video; and how much the video cost to produce.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
Videos on government social media accounts should inform the public about government policy and delivery. This video showed Immigration Enforcement officers executing thier public duties as they do all the time. It was produced by civil servants as part of their routine duties and involved no additional costs. As with all videos featuring service users or sensitive content, every care was taken to protect subjects’ identities. The video went through normal approval processes for social media content.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will make an estimate of the (a) average annual cost between 31 March 2023 and 31 March 2024 and (b) projected annual cost until 31 March 2025 of (i) electricity and (ii) heating bills for households on communal and district heat networks; and if she will make a comparative assessment of the cost of (A) those customer's bills and (B) the bills of other domestic customers.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
No new estimation has been made. I refer the hon Member to the answer I gave to the hon Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on 17 April 2023 to Question UIN 176758.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will take steps to bring district heating schemes under the same price protections as the rest of the energy market.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
We are introducing regulation from 2025 to appoint Ofgem as the heat network regulator. They will have powers to investigate and intervene on networks where prices for consumers appear to be unfair. Ofgem will consult on pricing regulation later in 2024 and price benchmarking will come into force in 2026.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 30 April 2024 to Question 23225 on Visas: Families, how many staff have been (a) recruited and (b) re-deployed to his Department's Family and Human Rights Unit.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Whilst this information is recorded on our systems, it is not in a reportable format.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff in his Department have a maximum payscale below £29,000.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
Within the Home Office, as of March 2024, there are 10,819 staff that have a maximum payscale below £29,000.