Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent review her Department has conducted of the format and provision of the Welsh language on registration documents provided by the General Register Office in Wales.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 requires all events to be registered in the registration district in which they take place. The forms which are used are prescribed in secondary legislation. Where an event takes place in Wales, the information to be recorded in the registration can be provided and recorded in English only, or in both English and Welsh.
The General Register Office (GRO) has not conducted a recent review of the format and provision of the Welsh language on registration documents.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing a Seasonal Visa Scheme for qualified lorry drivers to tackle shortages in labour supply.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The UK Government is working with the haulage sector to promote jobs, training and a range of other initiatives to get more people into HGV driving.
Like other sectors the focus should be on training and recruiting from the UK based workforce in the first instance, especially given the impact of the pandemic resulting in more looking for secure new employment. Immigration policy will be considered alongside strategies to do this, not separately or as an alternative to doing so.
The Government therefore has no plans to introduce a seasonal visa scheme for heavy goods vehicle drivers in the UK. The job of HGV driver is not eligible to be sponsored for a Skilled Worker visa so cannot be added to the Shortage Occupation List.
The Home Office has though amended the Immigration Rules to enable drivers who come to the UK on an international journey to transport goods or people on journeys within the UK and undertake cabotage operations in line with Department for Transport rules.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of adding drivers of heavy goods vehicles to the Shortage Occupation List to tackle shortages in labour supply.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The UK Government is working with the haulage sector to promote jobs, training and a range of other initiatives to get more people into HGV driving.
Like other sectors the focus should be on training and recruiting from the UK based workforce in the first instance, especially given the impact of the pandemic resulting in more looking for secure new employment. Immigration policy will be considered alongside strategies to do this, not separately or as an alternative to doing so.
The Government therefore has no plans to introduce a seasonal visa scheme for heavy goods vehicle drivers in the UK. The job of HGV driver is not eligible to be sponsored for a Skilled Worker visa so cannot be added to the Shortage Occupation List.
The Home Office has though amended the Immigration Rules to enable drivers who come to the UK on an international journey to transport goods or people on journeys within the UK and undertake cabotage operations in line with Department for Transport rules.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the affordability of short-stay visa and work permits for UK citizens who perform temporary seasonal tourism work in the EU.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is responsible for setting the immigration policy for those who wish to travel for work purposes to the UK and not those who seek to travel for work purposes to other countries. Hence we do not assess the immigration policies relating to seasonal work set by foreign Governments.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Biometric Residence Permit Cards enquiry forms were (a) received and (b) answered within the five day working day target in November 2020.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Quality assured data on the number of unique enquiries received is not available.
The Home Office is not meeting its five working day response time for deliveries, collections and errors. At the end of November, it was taking 35 working days. Additional staff are being recruited and trained to undertake this work to improve this position.
An Application Planning Interface (API) is due to be introduced at the end of January 2021 to improve the National Insurance Number verification process between the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and UKVI. This will reduce data transfer delays and speed up the verification process.
Work is underway to improve address quality and prevent mis-delivery of BRPs, as well as reducing errors in production. We are meeting weekly with our delivery partner (FEDEX) to improve delivery processes.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to improve the (a) production and (b) delivery times of Biometric Residence Permit Cards since the 1 of November 2020.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Quality assured data on the number of unique enquiries received is not available.
The Home Office is not meeting its five working day response time for deliveries, collections and errors. At the end of November, it was taking 35 working days. Additional staff are being recruited and trained to undertake this work to improve this position.
An Application Planning Interface (API) is due to be introduced at the end of January 2021 to improve the National Insurance Number verification process between the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and UKVI. This will reduce data transfer delays and speed up the verification process.
Work is underway to improve address quality and prevent mis-delivery of BRPs, as well as reducing errors in production. We are meeting weekly with our delivery partner (FEDEX) to improve delivery processes.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to minimise the time taken by her Department to issue biometric residence permits.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold the data in a way that would allow it to provide an accurate estimate of people who have been unable to (a) work, (b) access healthcare, (c) access social security benefits and (d) enrol onto further or higher education courses as a result of the time taken to provide Biometric Residence Permits (BRP). Finding the requested information would be likely to breach the disproportionate cost threshold.
The Home Office process includes daily checks on any failure by decision makers to request a Biometric Residence Permit and to identify any request for a BRP which has not been produced. The Home Office aims to deliver a BRP within 10 working days of an immigration application being approved.
The Home Office works closely with the DVLA, which produces BRPs, and TNT/Fedex, which delivers them, to ensure that service level agreements are met and performance is improved, through improved reconciliation reporting and clearer escalation processes.
The DVLA has an SLA to complete 90% of production requests within one working day and the remaining 10% within two working days. While this was met consistently until early 2020 the impacts of Covid-19 restrictions and safe working practices have caused occasional delays of up to four working days since April.
TNT/Fedex is required to attempt first delivery of 99% of BRP within two working days of collection from DVLA. This target was met up until February 2020 and is 91% since then.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of people who have been unable to (a) work, (b) access healthcare, (c) access social security benefits and (d) enrol onto further or higher education courses as a result of the time taken by her Department to provide biometric residence permits.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold the data in a way that would allow it to provide an accurate estimate of people who have been unable to (a) work, (b) access healthcare, (c) access social security benefits and (d) enrol onto further or higher education courses as a result of the time taken to provide Biometric Residence Permits (BRP). Finding the requested information would be likely to breach the disproportionate cost threshold.
The Home Office process includes daily checks on any failure by decision makers to request a Biometric Residence Permit and to identify any request for a BRP which has not been produced. The Home Office aims to deliver a BRP within 10 working days of an immigration application being approved.
The Home Office works closely with the DVLA, which produces BRPs, and TNT/Fedex, which delivers them, to ensure that service level agreements are met and performance is improved, through improved reconciliation reporting and clearer escalation processes.
The DVLA has an SLA to complete 90% of production requests within one working day and the remaining 10% within two working days. While this was met consistently until early 2020 the impacts of Covid-19 restrictions and safe working practices have caused occasional delays of up to four working days since April.
TNT/Fedex is required to attempt first delivery of 99% of BRP within two working days of collection from DVLA. This target was met up until February 2020 and is 91% since then.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of (a) Biometric Residence Permit cards are issued within her Department's target time; (b) responses to BRP has not been delivered forms are answered within her Department's target time; and (c) correspondence in relation to BRP are answered within her Department's target time.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
(a) The Home Office does not keep data relating to volume of Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) issued and delivered within target, but it does have service level agreements (SLAs) with partners for the creation and delivery of BRPs. The Home Office can also check whether and how quickly an individual BRP was created and delivered.
The Home Office aims to deliver a BRP within 10 working days of an immigration application being approved.
The DVLA, which produces BRPs, has an SLA to complete 90% of production requests within one working day and the remaining 10% within two working days. While this was met consistently until early 2020 the impacts of Covid-19 restrictions and safe working practices have caused occasional delays of up to four working days since April.
Our delivery partner is required to attempt first delivery of 99% of BRP within two working days of collection from DVLA. This target was met up until February 2020 and is 91% since then. We are working to improve our performance in all areas.
(b) Based upon locally held records, for the period 1st April 2020 to 31st October 2020, the Home Office received 44,258 BRP delivery enquiry forms and answered 91% within the 5 working day target.
(c) Based upon locally held records, for the period 1st April 2020 to 31st October 2020, the Home Office received 38,226 items of correspondence relating to matters other than delivery and answered 76% within the 5 working day target.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will remove the requirement for EU, EEA and Swiss nationals with Settled Status to have had Comprehensive Sickness Insurance when studying or self-sufficient in order to be able to be granted British citizenship.
Answered by Kevin Foster
To meet the statutory requirements for naturalisation, a person of any nationality must have been in the UK lawfully during the residential qualifying period.
EEA Regulations set out the requirements which EEA nationals needed to follow if they wished to reside here lawfully on the basis of free movement. In the case of students or the self-sufficient, but not those who were working here, the possession of comprehensive sickness insurance has always been a requirement under them.
The British Nationality Act allows us to exercise discretion over this requirement in the special circumstances of any particular case. We cannot therefore prescribe when discretion will or will not be exercised. UKVI will consider cases sensitively, taking into account the nature and reasons for any period of unlawful residence alongside other information relevant to the individual.
There are no plans to amend legislation in this respect.
We do not have figures for the number of EU, EEA Swiss nationals in the UK who do not hold comprehensive sickness Insurance. It is only required where a person is either self-sufficient or a student. As EEA and Swiss nationals did not previously need to hold a document confirming their status, we cannot say how many failed to comply with this requirement.