Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of correspondence from hon. Members is answered by the Home Office MP Account Management Team (a) within the 20 working day standard, (b) between 20 and 30 working days and (c) over 30 working days; and what the average response time is for enquiries made to the urgent inbox.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Members written correspondence within 20 working days.
Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan. Ministers and officials have also had to instigate a remote process for drafting and signing correspondence during the period of COVID-19 restrictions.
The Department recognises that it has not been able to meet service standard in some cases but has implemented an action plan to clear backlogs and drive up performance. The Department has recruited additional resources and expects to return to answering Hon. Member’s correspondence within service standard by the end of March 2022.
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-q3-2021 and this includes data up to and including the end of quarter 3 - 2021.
The Department does not publish data about the number of cases still awaiting a response after 20-30 days, over 30 days or those specifically made to the MPs urgent inbox.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made on reuniting unaccompanied Afghan child refugees in Qatar with relatives in the UK; and what discussions she has had with international partners to help settle those children who have no relatives in other countries.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office is continuing to work with local authorities in the UK and authorities in the USA to ensure the best interests of the children are met when deciding where the children are ultimately settled.
We are working with the utmost urgency to ensure that, where it is in their best interests, these children are brought to the UK. Where the children cannot be safely settled in the UK they will be settled in the USA. None of them children remain in Qatar.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to implement the recommendations made in Bishop James Jones' review of the Hillsborough families' experiences.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The points of learning made by Bishop James Jones in his report on the experiences of the Hillsborough families span a number of departments and organisations.
The Home Office is coordinating the Government’s response to the report and is working closely with its partners in the relevant government departments and organisations to carefully consider the points of learning. The Government will first engage with the Hillsborough families and will publish the Government’s overarching response to the Bishop’s report in due course.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to prevent poverty among those with No Recourse to Public Funds.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Those with temporary migration status are generally required to demonstrate their ability to support themselves and any accompanying family members, including children, in the UK without recourse to public funds as part of their immigration application. This is a well-established principle which protects taxpayer-funded public services from becoming overburdened.
There are, nonetheless, strong and important safeguards in place to ensure migrants receive support where they are destitute, at risk of destitution, or have community care needs, including issues relating to human rights or the wellbeing of children.
Migrants with leave under the family and human rights routes, and those who have been granted leave on the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa route as a British National (Overseas) status holder or a family member of a British National (Overseas) status holder can apply, for free, to have their NRPF condition lifted by making a ‘change of condition’ application if they are destitute or at risk of destitution, if the welfare of their child is at risk due to their low income, or where there are other exceptional financial circumstances.
Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 imposes a general duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of “children in need” in their area. Support provided to a child by local authorities under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 is not dependent on the immigration status of the child or their parent(s).
Local authorities may also provide basic safety net support, regardless of immigration status, if it is established there is a genuine care need that does not arise solely from destitution. This might include where there are community care needs, migrants with serious health problems or family cases where the wellbeing of a child is in question.
Migrants who have made the necessary national insurance contributions can also claim contributory benefits such as Jobseekers Allowance and a state pension, which are not subject to residence conditions.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the number of key workers with no recourse to public funds.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office’s Chief Statistician wrote to the Office for Statistics Regulation last July to explain why the Home Office does not provide a breakdown or overall figure for the total number of people currently in the UK to whom the NRPF condition applies. His letter can be found at: https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/response-from-daniel-shaw-to-ed-humpherson-parliamentary-question-response/.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason it would not be reasonably practicable for notice to be given to a person to be deprived of citizenship under clause 9 of the Nationality and Borders Bill.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Clause 9 of the Nationality and Borders Bill amends section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981 to allow a decision to deprive a person of British citizenship to be implemented in the absence of contact with a person, in specified circumstances, including where it is not reasonably practicable to give notice.
The reasons why it may not be reasonably practicable to give notice could include where the Home Office knows the address of an individual, but the postal service in the country does not function, private couriers do not operate, or the security situation prohibits an official serving notice in person.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to Women’s Aid's estimate of September 2021 that at least £409 million is needed in 2022 to run specialist domestic abuse services across England, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding allocated to tackle domestic violence and abuse.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
We recognise the important work Women’s Aid and other such charities do in raising issues around support for victims of domestic abuse. The Home Office funds many such vital services, providing support to frontline services to victims and survivors, and the national domestic abuse helpline.
The Home Office has regular engagement with the sector in a multitude of forums, including regular dedicated stakeholder sessions. As part of this we use sector insight to understand their assessment of gaps in provision.
The Government set out its Budget and Spending Review plans in October of this year, including the high-level Home Office funding settlement for the next 3 years.
In order to deliver our ambition in the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, and complementary Domestic Abuse Strategy to be published later this year, we will take advantage of any multi-year Spending Review outcome to best fund specialist support services.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether Afghan citizens whose cases have already been raised with her Department by hon. Members will automatically be considered for the Afghan citizens' resettlement scheme.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) is not yet open. Officials are working urgently to stand up the remaining elements of the scheme, amid the complex and changing picture.
The Government will continue to work closely with other government departments, non-governmental organisations, charities, local authorities and other partners and relevant organisations in the development and implementation of the ACRS.
Further information on the eligibility, prioritisation and referral of people for the ACRS is set out in the policy statement published on gov.uk on 13 September, available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghanistan-resettlement-and-immigration-policy-statement
The Home Office is logging the cases we have received from Honourable Members, and we are considering how this data will be used in the future.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she next plans to provide an update on the Afghan citizens' resettlement scheme.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) is not yet open. Officials are working urgently to stand up the remaining elements of the scheme, amid the complex and changing picture.
The Government will continue to work closely with other government departments, non-governmental organisations, charities, local authorities and other partners and relevant organisations in the development and implementation of the ACRS.
Further information on the eligibility, prioritisation and referral of people for the ACRS is set out in the policy statement published on gov.uk on 13 September, available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghanistan-resettlement-and-immigration-policy-statement
The Home Office is logging the cases we have received from Honourable Members, and we are considering how this data will be used in the future.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her timescale is for bringing to the UK unaccompanied Afghanistan refugee children currently in temporary camps in Qatar who have relatives in the UK.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office is aware of a group of unaccompanied Afghan minors with family links to the UK in Qatar and officials are working closely with UNICEF, the UNHCR and the US State Department to ensure the most appropriate outcomes for these children. Our priority is to ensure that the children will be safe and well cared for and to ensure any outcome is in the best interests of the children.
We are working with the utmost urgency to ensure that, where appropriate, these children are brought to the UK. However, we need to conduct assessments of the relatives the children will be living with to ensure the children’s safety, and that moving to the UK is in their best interests. As soon as these assessments are made, and we are content moving to the UK is in the best interests of the children, arrangements will be made to bring them to the UK.