Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to increase the number of GP surgeries registered as skilled worker visa sponsors.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government is working to increase the number of GP surgeries registered as Home Office sponsors. The Home Office continues to deliver an extensive, wide-reaching campaign and engagement programme – both virtual and in-person - targeting employers and other interested parties about the new immigration system. This included a dedicated joint Home Office and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) event for GP surgeries in 2021. Sponsorship is straightforward and business-friendly; the majority of sponsors on our register are SMEs, much like GP surgeries are likely to be and the Government strongly encourages more surgeries to become sponsors as the quickest way for the sector to attract and retain international GPs.
More broadly, the Home Office have already delivered a range of measures to support the health and care sector to recruit GPs to work in the UK. The Home Office launched the Health & Care visa in 2020, which makes it easier, cheaper, and quicker for health workers to come and stay in the UK to work, compared to other immigration routes.
The Home Office and the DHSC continues to work together to raise awareness of the Health and Care visa.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to increase the number of indefinite leave to remain applications from international medical graduates who have undertaken general practitioner training.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Being granted indefinite leave to remain (ILR) allows an individual to work in the UK permanently without being subject to immigration control. International medical graduates (IMGs) who have undertaken GP training are eligible to apply for ILR after completing five years on the Health and Care visa route, in line with IMGs in other fields and work visa routes in general.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the time taken to approve applications to the Homes for Ukraine Scheme.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We have received thousands of applications submitted to one of the fastest and largest visa programmes in UK history. Information on the number of visas granted under these schemes can be found on the GOV.UK webpage: Ukraine Schemes: application data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
We are committed to ensuring our operational teams have the resources they need to run an efficient and effective system, and we actively monitor workflows to ensure sufficient resources are in place to meet demand, including from pressures relating to Ukraine.
The Home Office and the commercial provider operating our Visa Application Centres have surged staff across Europe to meet demand and UKVI staff in the UK are working seven days a week to process applications.
As part of the Home Office’s commitment to make it easier for applicants to apply to our schemes, since 15 March, Ukrainians with valid passports no longer need to go to a Visa Application Centre to give their biometrics before they come to the UK.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of increasing the use of CCTV cameras in parks on anti-social behaviour.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
It is for Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners, as operational leaders and elected local representatives respectively, to decide how best to respond to local priorities and to help ensure the police have the resources they need; we have given them the biggest funding increase in a decade and are enabling policing to recruit 20,000 additional officers over the next three years.
The Metropolitan Police Service funding will be up to £3.24bn in 2022/23, an increase of up to £169.3m when compared to 2021/22. As at 30 June 2022, the Metropolitan Police Service has recruited 2,952 additional Police Uplift Programme officers against a total three-year allocation of 4,557 officers.
Provision of CCTV is a local matter, but the Safer Streets Fund (SSF) includes the delivery of situational crime prevention measures, such as improved street lighting and increased CCTV coverage, as possible funded interventions to prevent anti-social behaviour (ASB), neighbourhood crime and violence against women and girls. There is strong evidence to show simple solutions like increased CCTV can help to prevent crimes before they happen, relieving the strain on police and empowering communities and individuals to feel safer when they are out in public.
On 25 July the Government announced a further £50 million funding for 111 projects through Round Four of the SSF; 83 of these projects have a primary focus on tackling ASB, using a wide range of interventions including: outreach and diversionary activities; educational programmes; behavioural change campaigns; as well as additional CCTV cameras and improved streetlighting.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to ensure that police forces have adequate funding to tackle anti-social behaviour.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
It is for Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners, as operational leaders and elected local representatives respectively, to decide how best to respond to local priorities and to help ensure the police have the resources they need; we have given them the biggest funding increase in a decade and are enabling policing to recruit 20,000 additional officers over the next three years.
The Metropolitan Police Service funding will be up to £3.24bn in 2022/23, an increase of up to £169.3m when compared to 2021/22. As at 30 June 2022, the Metropolitan Police Service has recruited 2,952 additional Police Uplift Programme officers against a total three-year allocation of 4,557 officers.
Provision of CCTV is a local matter, but the Safer Streets Fund (SSF) includes the delivery of situational crime prevention measures, such as improved street lighting and increased CCTV coverage, as possible funded interventions to prevent anti-social behaviour (ASB), neighbourhood crime and violence against women and girls. There is strong evidence to show simple solutions like increased CCTV can help to prevent crimes before they happen, relieving the strain on police and empowering communities and individuals to feel safer when they are out in public.
On 25 July the Government announced a further £50 million funding for 111 projects through Round Four of the SSF; 83 of these projects have a primary focus on tackling ASB, using a wide range of interventions including: outreach and diversionary activities; educational programmes; behavioural change campaigns; as well as additional CCTV cameras and improved streetlighting.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the standard processing time for (a) Spouse, (b) Fiancé, and (c) Unmarried Partner visas.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office had been prioritising Ukraine visa schemes applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Staff from other Government departments, including DWP and HMRC, have been surged into the department to help with Ukraine work and enable normal visa routes to return to normal service levels in due course.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the World Health Organisation report entitled Carcinogenicity of occupational exposure as a firefighter, published on 30 June 2022, if she will make an assessment of the implications of her policies of the evidence linking flame retardants to cancers in firefighters.
Answered by Sarah Dines
The health and safety of firefighters is of great importance.
The emerging evidence of firefighters being exposed to risks of cancer is concerning.
It is for individual fire and rescue authorities, as employers with responsibility for health and wellbeing, to ensure that firefighters receive the appropriate equipment and training they need to safely respond to the wide range of incidents which they attend.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the World Health Organisation report entitled Carcinogenicity of occupational exposure as a firefighter, published on 30th June 2022, if she will include cancer in firefighters related to flame retardant chemicals in the list of diseases covered by the Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit.
Answered by Sarah Dines
The health and safety of firefighters is of great importance.
The emerging evidence of firefighters being exposed to risks of cancer is concerning.
It is for individual fire and rescue authorities, as employers with responsibility for health and wellbeing, to ensure that firefighters receive the appropriate equipment and training they need to safely respond to the wide range of incidents which they attend.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that Ukrainian refugees who have applied under the Ukraine Family Scheme from within the UK are not waiting significantly longer for approval than those applications made from Ukraine and the surrounding region.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is committing to processing applications as quickly possible, both those submitted overseas and the UK. To support this we are working at pace with our UK commercial partner, Sopra Steria, and local partners/devolved regions, to expand capacity to meet the demand for biometric enrolment appointments from those applying under Ukrainian schemes within the UK. We have also ensured sufficient casework capacity is deployed, including staff being loaned from other government departments.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have arrived (a) in Lewisham East constituency and (b) within the Lewisham Council area through the Ukraine Family Scheme since that scheme began.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is committing to processing applications as quickly possible, both those submitted overseas and in the UK.
To support this, we are working at pace with our UK commercial partner, Sopra Steria, and local partners/devolved regions, to expand capacity to meet the demand for biometric enrolment appointments from those applying under the Ukrainian schemes from within the UK. We have also ensured sufficient casework capacity is deployed, including staff being loaned from other government departments.