Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on resourcing Kent County Council to look after unaccompanied asylum seeking children.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office and the Department for Education are working closely with HMT to resolve funding arrangements as soon as possible. This is subject to litigation so I am afraid I cannot say much more at this stage.
Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve access to and availability of GP (a) services and (b) appointments.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
We expect the measures in 'Our Plan for Patients' to make over a million more appointments available this winter.
We have provided 31,000 additional phone lines to practices, freed up funding rules to bolster general practice teams with other professionals, and accelerated support for practices to secure high-quality cloud-based telephony systems.
From November 2022, we will publish practice-level data for the first time, giving patients information on appointments at every GP practice in England.
Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Syrian refugees who claimed asylum in the UK since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 have returned to that country.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office does not hold data on the location of refugees after they are granted asylum. We cannot therefore comment on the total number of Syrian asylum seekers who have since left the UK.
Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many migrants were housed in hotels in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office accommodates some supported asylum seekers and resettled Afghans temporarily in hotels. The number of asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority, although not broken down into hotels or other accommodation can be found at Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Data is published on a quarterly basis, with the latest information published 24 February 2022. The next quarterly figures are due to be released in May 2022. There are currently over 12,000 resettled Afghans in bridging accommodation. This cohort includes Afghan nationals who may be eligible for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), the Afghan Citizen Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) and British nationals.
Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many migrants who came to the UK by crossing the Channel in 2021 have been removed from the UK.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office routinely publishes data on Irregular Migration to the UK and can be found at: Irregular migration to the UK, year ending December 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and also routinely publish data on the number of outcomes of asylum applications at initial decision, broken down by nationality, age, sex and applicant type and can be found at Asy_D02 of the published immigration statistics: Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many migrants who came to the UK by crossing the Channel in 2021 have had their asylum cases processed.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office routinely publishes data on Irregular Migration to the UK and can be found at: Irregular migration to the UK, year ending December 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and also routinely publish data on the number of outcomes of asylum applications at initial decision, broken down by nationality, age, sex and applicant type and can be found at Asy_D02 of the published immigration statistics: Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to help prevent the practice of people avoiding enforcement action by submitting repeated retrospective planning applications for the same development in the event that previous retrospective applications for that development have been refused.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
A person who has undertaken unauthorised development has only one opportunity to obtain planning permission after the event. This can either be by means of a retrospective planning application or by means of an appeal against an enforcement notice.
The local planning authority can decline to determine a retrospective planning application if an enforcement notice has previously been issued.
Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that U1 waste exemptions are not being used to dispose of waste illegally.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Environment Agency undertakes a risk-based approach and may inspect U1 sites if it receives intelligence or complaints suggesting illegal activity.
The Government is currently reviewing the waste exemptions element within the environmental permitting regime to prevent the use of exemptions, including the U1 exemption, to cover illegal activity. A Government response will be published in the spring. The Environment Agency is also developing a charges scheme for 2024, which will help fund proactive compliance assessment at exempt sites.
Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of discontinuing the use of U1 waste exemptions.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In 2018, Defra and the Welsh Government consulted on reforming the waste exemptions element in the environmental permitting regime to prevent the use of exemptions to cover illegal activity.
The consultation specifically asked whether the Government should keep the U1 exemption with no changes to its conditions, change the exemption (amend its conditions) or remove the exemption and require activities it covers to be carried out under an environmental permit.
A Government response to the consultation was published on 26 November 2018. However, because of the breadth of impacts that will result from changing these exemptions, and the implications for different business practices that can emerge from relatively minor technical changes, Defra and the Welsh Government have been further considering the impacts of the proposed changes. A supplementary Government response will be published in the spring.
Asked by: Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to publish a response to the proposal by the National Farmers Union for a sustainable food and farming scheme.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
We met the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) to discuss their proposals at Ministerial and official level and the Secretary of State wrote to the NFU to thank them for their considered input into the development of our new policies. The Agricultural Transition Plan published in November sets out our plans for agricultural policies, including for the Sustainable Farming Incentive which we are currently piloting.
We have ongoing engagement with the NFU and meet regularly.