Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of projected trends in the number of hotels being used as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers between 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office has a statutory obligation to accommodate asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute and accommodation needs are kept under continuous review.
Data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation (including in contingency hotels and other contingency accommodation) is published in table Asy_D11 here: Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)(opens in a new tab). Data is published on a quarterly basis.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 19 December 2023 to Question 6089 on Home Office: Training, whether participants in the e-learning training on FGM were asked to provide an approval rating for that course.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Upon completion of the course, attendees are asked a series of questions to gather feedback on their experience of the course.
This includes, how much their knowledge of FGM has improved and whether they recommend it to others.
According to the most recently available data, 95% of those who have completed the FGM course have said they would now do something differently in their role as a result.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2024 to Question 15230 on Northern Ireland Strategic Migration Partnership, what each of those multiple agreements in place with Northern Ireland government departments are.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office continues to engage with Northern Ireland government departments to progress agreements to ensure continued delivery for service users in Northern Ireland. We have agreements with the following departments: The Executive Office, The Department for Health and The Department for Economy.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many hotels are in use as temporary accommodation for people seeking asylum in Northern Ireland; and what recent estimate he has made of the number that will be required by the end of 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office has been clear that the use of hotels is a temporary and short-term measure to ensure we meet our statutory obligation to accommodate destitute asylum seekers. We have already made significant progress by ending the use of 100 hotels across the UK by 31 March 2024, including 6 in Northern Ireland. A total of 150 hotels will no longer be used for accommodating asylum seekers by the beginning of May, reducing the strain on local communities.
Our statutory accommodation needs are kept under continuous review, and we will write to MPs and local authorities as further decisions on hotels are made.
Data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation (including in contingency hotels and other contingency accommodation) is published in table Asy_D11 here: Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Data is published on a quarterly basis. The Home Office does not publish a breakdown of statistics which disaggregates the number of hotels used to house asylum seekers by region.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will have discussions with his Irish counterpart on the number of asylum seekers who arrived in Northern Ireland who have subsequently relocated to the Republic of Ireland in 2022-23.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
There is a high level of cooperation on migration and border security between the UK and Irish governments. In particular, the Home Office regularly discuss asylum trends and work to respond to these trends with our counterparts in the Department of Justice. The Home Secretary will hold discussions with his Irish counterpart in due course.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on how many occasions a person (a) was interviewed and (b) had charges brought against them in connection with controlling drones above an ongoing crime scene in 2023.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold information on the number of interviews or charges in connection with controlling drones above ongoing crime scenes.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will hold discussions with his Irish counterpart on the accuracy of figures for asylum-seekers who moved between the two countries in 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
There is a high level of cooperation on migration and border security between the UK and Irish Government. In particular, the Home Office regularly discuss asylum trends and work to respond to these trends with our counterparts in the Department of Justice.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Ukrainian government has requested that boats used for illegal channel crossings be offered to that country.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office is not aware of any formal request from the Ukrainian government for these lethally dangerous and unseaworthy craft, though it has repeatedly made clear the unsuitability of these boats to those who have advocated that they be sent to Ukraine.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a knife amnesty.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Many police forces provide amnesty bins all year round to provide the public with a facility to safely dispose of unwanted knives and other offensive weapons. It is for Chief Constables, directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and Mayors with PCC functions to make operational decisions including how to allocate resources based on their local knowledge and experience.
The Government continues to encourage police forces to undertake a series of coordinated national weeks of action to tackle knife crime under Operation Sceptre. The operation includes targeted stop and searches, weapon sweeps of hotspot areas, surrender of knives, including through amnesty bins, test purchases of knives from retailers, and educational events. The latest phase of the operation took place between 13 to 19 November 2023 and saw 12,149 knives surrendered or recovered.
On 25 January we laid the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) Order 2024 in Parliament. Subject to parliamentary approval, this will prohibit the manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes in England and Wales from 24 September 2024. From 26 August 2024 to 23 September 2024 we will be running a surrender and compensation scheme so that those who own zombie-style knives and machetes which will be banned, can surrender them and receive compensation.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many hotels were used to temporarily accommodate asylum seekers on 31 December (a) 2023 and (b) expected to be used by 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office has been clear that the use of hotels is a temporary and necessary measure to ensure we meet our statutory obligation to accommodate destitute asylum seekers.
We have made rapid progress since autumn 2023, having handed back over 100 hotels to their local communities. Over 20,000 fewer asylum seekers are accommodated in hotels now than in September 2023. In total, we will have closed 150 hotels by the beginning of May 2024.
Our statutory accommodation needs are kept under continuous review, and we will write to MPs and local authorities as further decisions on hotels are made.
For the safety and security of individual premises, the Home Office does not publish statistics showing the number or location of hotels used to house asylum seekers. However, provisional internal management information indicates a total of 342 hotels were accommodating asylum seekers as of 31 December 2023.