Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential risks for individuals applying for UK refugee status who are transferred to Rwanda under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership of (a) arbitrary detention by Rwandan security services and (b) forced recruitment into either non-state actor or state actor armed organisations; and if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of that matter.
Answered by Simon Baynes
People who are relocated to Rwanda under the Migration and Economic Development will not be detained. Rwanda will process their asylum claims in accordance with national and international human rights laws, and will ensure their protection from inhuman and degrading treatment or being returned to the place they originally fled.
Rwanda is a safe country with a track record of providing opportunities for refugees. Those relocated will be given all the support they need, with accommodation, food, healthcare, and help to integrate into the local community. They will be free to come and go.
This Partnership will be underpinned by a monitoring system put in place to ensure that the scheme is successfully relocating people to Rwanda to rebuild their lives and their welfare needs are being adequately addressed.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of removing fees for priority passport services when individuals have already waited beyond the stated usual service standard time of 10 weeks for their passport application to progress.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Upgrades to urgent services are only required where an applicant needs a passport sooner than ten weeks. For the small percentage of customers whose applications take longer than ten weeks, there is an expedited service at no additional cost to help ensure they receive their passport ahead of any planned travel.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) airlines and (b) airports (i) follow Government guidance on the use of national identification documents by people with Settled Status going to and from the EU and (ii) ensure that travellers are aware of that guidance.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We have issued advice to airlines confirming EU, EEA and Swiss citizens who have been granted status under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) may continue to use a national identity card to enter the UK.
We have also advised airlines they do not currently need to establish whether a person has been granted EUSS status, and is thus entitled to use a national identity card, when deciding whether to bring them to the UK but may use the online View and Prove service if they elect to do so.
GOV.UK provides advice on documentary requirements, including the use of national identity cards, for EU, EEA and Swiss citizens with status under the EU Settlement Scheme travelling to the UK. If you're from the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Carriers can, and do, play a role in encouraging their passengers to check that they are properly documented for travel to the UK for example by providing advice or links to government guidance on their websites and apps. However, it is ultimately a matter for individual carriers what information they provide for their passengers.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time was for enquiries to support teams for hon. Members at HM Passport Office in each month in 2021; what steps her Department is taking to manage the (a) performance and (b) case management of those teams; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Members written correspondence within 20 working days.
Performance against target has been impacted by a significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan and more recently in Ukraine and about HMPO passport applications.
The Department continues to prioritise enquiries related to Ukraine and recognises that it has not been able to meet service standard in other cases. Actions are being taken to clear backlogs and drive-up performance.
Members can escalate urgent and compassionate cases via the team at Portcullis House or via engagement surgeries with the MP Engagement team.
The Department continues to recruit additional resources and has recently been loaned staff from non-operational areas to assist in clearing the backlogs. A detailed recovery plan to support a return to an acceptable service standard is being prepared.
Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest Quarter available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q1-2022
The Department does not publish average processing times for substantive responses to correspondence.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will commit to undertake an external audit of average (a) visa and (b) passport processing times.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is regularly audited by external organisations, which includes the audit of our visas and passports operations.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of allowing an independent assessment of passport processing times between March and May 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is regularly audited by external organisations, which includes the audit of our passport operations.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had recent discussions with the Civil Aviation Authority on the potential merits of enabling travel within the Common Travel Area using biometric identification documents.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Common Travel Area (CTA) is an immigration arrangement between the UK and Ireland, as well as the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey which allows British and Irish citizens to travel freely between the UK and Ireland and reside in either jurisdiction.
As part of the CTA arrangements, the UK does not operate routine immigration controls on journeys from within the CTA, with no immigration checks whatsoever on the Northern Ireland-Ireland land border.
However, individuals are still expected to comply with the UK’s immigration framework and where required most people who are not British or Irish citizens will need to show a valid passport on arrival if required by a Border Force Officer. The document must be valid for the whole time individuals are in the UK.
There are no plans to change the document requirements on CTA routes.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of call back services by HM Passport Office.
Answered by Kevin Foster
As has already been said in Parliament, the recent performance of the Passport advice line has been unacceptable.
Teleperformance, the contractor who runs the line on behalf of HM Passport Office, has been required to put in place an improvement plan which has seen additional staff recruited to enable the expected performance standards to be met.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to help increase the response times for Visa application enquiries.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We continue to work with our service provider to review their performance to ensure service standards are maintained, this includes increasing the number of staff operating the customer helpline.
It is envisaged this will enable the service standard to be met in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is undertaking to ensure that Border Force staff provide airlines with accurate information when they are contacted on the use of National Identification documents by people with Settled Status travelling to the EU.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Documentary requirements for passengers seeking to travel from the UK are a matter for the destination country, and passengers should ensure they meet those requirements. The Home Office does not routinely engage with carriers in relation to documentary requirements for outbound travel as we are not responsible for or set the rules related to this.
GOV.UK does, however, provide advice for British citizens planning to travel to the EU. This advice can be viewed here: Visiting the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein: Checks for all types of travel - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)