Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Government's 2024 election manifesto's commitment to hold an investigation or inquiry into events at Orgreave on 18 June 1984, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to (a) preserve and (b) protect from destruction all (i) documents and (ii) records held by (A) police forces and (B) relevant public bodies relating to those events.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Police forces are independent of government and decisions concerning the management of their records are for them to make in accordance with their respective review, retention and disposal policies. However, the Government expects any such decisions to be made in accordance with relevant legislation and national guidance.
Further details about the Government’s manifesto commitment for an investigation or inquiry into the events at Orgreave will be made available in due course.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether Northumbria Police sought (a) permission, (b) guidance, and (c) clearance from her Department prior to the destruction of (i) documents and (ii) records on 29 and 30 April 2024 relating to (A) events at Orgreave on 18 June 1984 and (B) the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Police forces are independent of government and decisions concerning the management of their records are for them to make in accordance with their respective review, retention and disposal policies. However, the Government expects any such decisions to be made in accordance with relevant legislation and national guidance.
Further details about the Government’s manifesto commitment for an investigation or inquiry into the events at Orgreave will be made available in due course.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will investigate the destruction of documents by Northumbria Police on (a) 29 and (b) 30 April 2024 relating to the 1984 miners’ strike and Orgreave.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Police forces are independent of government and decisions concerning the management of their records are for them to make in accordance with their respective review, retention and disposal policies. However, the Government expects any such decisions to be made in accordance with relevant legislation and national guidance.
Further details about the Government’s manifesto commitment for an investigation or inquiry into the events at Orgreave will be made available in due course.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that people with a Frontier Worker Permit are (a) on UK employment contracts and (b) paid above the National Minimum Wage.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Frontier Worker Permit scheme implements our commitment under the Citizens’ Rights Agreements to protect the rights of EU, other EEA and Swiss citizens who were frontier working in the UK before the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020 for as long as they continue to be frontier workers.
The Agreements provide that frontier workers must not be discriminated against on grounds of nationality as regards employment, remuneration and other conditions of work and employment. Free and confidential advice on the National Minimum Wage is available by contacting Acas on 0300 123 1100. Any worker who believes they are not receiving what they are entitled to can also complain directly to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs via their online complaints form on GOV.UK, which can be found by searching “complain about pay and work rights”.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time is for forensic analysis of (a) fingerprints and (b) DNA testing in criminal investigations.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Individual forces would hold data on fingerprint processing times.
The Forensic Capability Network holds data on contractual compliance levels for DNA testing conducted on behalf of policing by the commercial sector.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken to process forensic evidence in criminal investigations.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Individual forces would hold data on fingerprint processing times.
The Forensic Capability Network holds data on contractual compliance levels for DNA testing conducted on behalf of policing by the commercial sector.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people holding a Frontier Worker Permit have retained worker status.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The information requested is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Frontier Worker Permits were (a) issued and (b) valid in 2024-25.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas by visa type, including Frontier Worker Permits, in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on the outcomes of visa applications are published in table ‘Vis_D02’ of the ‘detailed entry clearance dataset’.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. Data is from January 2005 up to the end of March 2025.
Information on how many visas were valid in a given period is not currently available from published statistics.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which UK Visas and Immigration international (a) application points and (b) decision-making centres processed applications to work in (i) construction, (ii) maintenance and (iii) seafaring roles in the offshore wind industry under the Offshore Wind Workers Concession scheme between 2017 and 2023.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Visa applications for the Offshore Wind Workers Concession Scheme were processed by the following Decision Making Centres (DMCs): Riyadh, Beijing, Manila, Bogota, Istanbul, Pretoria, Chennai, Warsaw, Abu Dhabi, Amman, New Delhi, Croydon, Liverpool and Sheffield.
A number of construction, maintenance and seafaring roles were also processed by the above DMCs.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the (a) staff headcount, (b) full-time equivalent number of staff and (c) departmental budget required to administer the Frontier Worker Visa scheme was in each year between 2021-22 and 2024-25.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department operates a flexible staffing model to ensure that available resources are deployed effectively according to demand. As such, staff engaged on the Frontier Worker Visa scheme are also engaged in the administration of other high-volume routes.