Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Kevin Foster and Deidre Brock(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
Our United Kingdom has a proud history of providing sanctuary to those in need through our resettlement schemes. The new plan for immigration will ensure that our resources can be focused on those in most need of resettlement around the world, including in Afghanistan, rather than on those who can pay a people smuggler.
Deidre Brock
Does the Minister share my concern regarding the findings of nine expert groups last month, including Humans Rights Watch, which found the UK Government’s resettlement schemes to be “unjustifiably restrictive”, and that it is deeply concerning that the UK Government are not offering a safe route for many Afghan women and girls, or to oppressed minority groups?
Kevin Foster
Well, I look at our record, which includes last year’s evacuation—the largest since the war—to bring people to safety here in the United Kingdom, and at the work we are doing week in, week out with colleagues, particularly in the Ministry of Defence, to bring more people to safety. We need to focus our efforts on those who need resettlement and safety and are under threat in Afghanistan, rather than on those who prefer to be here than in another safe and democratic country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Kevin Foster and Deidre Brock(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Kevin Foster
As we saw last week, those who have nothing to offer by way of policy like to go personal. To help the hon. Member, the question was about the proportion of passport applications received. He got an answer to it, but his supplementary makes it clear that he has no ideas of his own to offer.
Deidre Brock
The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents the staff at Her Majesty’s Passport Office, has commented that the backlog is due to a number of issues including
“lack of staff, poor management and failures”
on the part of contractors. Rather than blaming staff or suggesting more privatisation, will the UK Government meet union representatives in order to learn what action is needed to ensure that the Passport Office is properly funded and staffed?
Kevin Foster
We are certainly grateful for the hard work that staff are putting in, and, as I said last week, it is a pity that we are seeing their efforts being rubbished for political ends. We have been recruiting more staff at the Passport Office and investing in the modernisation of processes, and we engage regularly with senior HMPO officials, as well as ensuring that union officials can have their say. We should bear in mind the current record output from the Passport Office, which is dealing with a surge of applications. I must say that it is striking to note the sudden interest expressed by Opposition Members who said very little about this last year.
Homes for Ukraine: Visa Application Centres
Debate between Kevin Foster and Deidre Brock(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Kevin Foster
We have already done step-by-step guidance for the form in both Ukrainian and Russian, which makes it much simpler to follow. One of the issues with translating the form into other languages is that it means we would need to have decision makers who can speak the particular language. We are clear that sponsors and others can assist with filling in the form to make for a better experience for those needing to apply. As already shown, we have now granted nearly 90,000 visas, which speaks for itself and the performance that is being achieved.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I understand the pressure that officials are working under, but visa application centres are giving conflicting advice to applicants and to my constituents who are part of the Homes for Ukraine scheme. In one instance, we were told that a child’s visa was granted and that travel documents should be with them within a couple of days, and then that the child’s mother had been phoned by mistake, as it was in fact someone else’s visa that had been granted and it would take around another two weeks for the right visa to come through. These folk are in effect homeless, and time is of the essence. In another case, a constituent’s fiancé and daughter were told that a decision had been made on 13 April, but two weeks later, they still have not been told to go and collect the documents. A mother and two daughters are still trapped in Ukraine, 22 days since applications were submitted. As my constituent who would like to host those three when they finally arrive says, each day the message that they are welcome in the UK fades a little more. Those are just a few of the cases that my team and I are dealing with at the moment. The Minister offered to look at a colleague’s case. Will he be prepared to take a look at these cases when I send them through to him?
Kevin Foster
Yes, I am very happy to look at them. If incorrect or confusing advice is being given by a visa application centre, we certainly want the details of that so that we can intervene and engage to ensure the centre is fully conversant with what it should be doing and how the process should work. For example, we have made clear with carriers that if people have a form for affixing the vignette, they do not also need permission to travel letters. That was one issue we encountered. We made clear that the form is their permission to travel once they have it. I am very happy to look at individual cases if forwarded to me.
EU Settlement Scheme
Debate between Kevin Foster and Deidre Brock(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Kevin Foster
I could not agree more. I suspect that a few years back we were getting lots of predictions that we would never manage to grant millions of statuses to people who are our friends and neighbours, but we have managed to do that and we have had applications come in. I agree that now is the time to encourage people to get their applications in and secure their rights, and join the millions of people who have already done so.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
It has been clear that the Government have no idea how many EU citizens were in the UK, or how important they are to the NHS, the economy and our cultural and educational institutions. It is also clear that the settlement scheme is overly bureaucratic and unwieldy, so I am going to press the Minister again: will the Government at least extend the deadline by six months so that the mess they created can be sorted out?
Kevin Foster
The many people who found it was a simple application using an app would be surprised to hear the comments about it being unwieldy and everything else. The fact we have managed to grant millions of statuses already and have hundreds of thousands of applications received, and be granting thousands more statuses and receiving thousands more applications every day, would not suggest that this is a particularly unwieldy system to deal with.
Trident
Debate between Kevin Foster and Deidre Brock(9 years ago)
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Deidre Brock
I have nearly finished. The Government might not wish to take any note of legal advice on military issues—some previous Governments have shown a reluctance to take such advice too—but surely Ministers will not wish to ignore the effect that renewing Trident would have on other areas of defence spending. They do not have to listen to us; they can speak to officials at the MOD—cancelling Trident would be very good for their sleep patterns.
Deidre Brock
I have nearly finished. The combined effects of spending cuts and the blind insistence on spending huge sums on a virility totem would leave poorly equipped frontline service personnel even worse off. I certainly hope that the Government would have the decency to consider them.