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Written Question
Asylum: Nicaragua
Tuesday 12th March 2024

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many asylum seekers from Nicaragua have arrived in the UK in each year since 2018; and how many of those have been granted asylum so far.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Home Office publishes data on asylum as part of the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’ which is published on gov.uk. Data on asylum applications and initial decisions by nationality are published in tables Asy_D01 and Asy_D02 of the ‘Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the year ending December 2023.

Please note, the applications data in Asy_D01 relates to applications for asylum – not arrivals. Individuals must be in the country to apply for asylum; some will apply immediately upon arrival, but some may be in the country for a period of time before applying. Arrival information for refugees is not collected as part of the asylum application.

Please note that initial decisions in Asy_D02 are based on date of decision and do not necessarily relate to applications made in the same period. For example, a decision in 2023 may relate to an application made in 2022.


Written Question
INTERPOL: Databases
Tuesday 20th February 2024

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what representations they have made to Interpol regarding (1) arrest warrants being issued by the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities for Hong Kong dissidents and (2) their targeting through Interpol, including through its Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Government strongly supports INTERPOL’s efforts to ensure systems are in place that protect individuals’ human rights in line with Article 3 of INTERPOL's Constitution which strictly forbids any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.

The Home Office continues to work with INTERPOL and the National Crime Agency (NCA), which acts as the UK’s National Central Bureau (NCB) for INTERPOL, to monitor the effectiveness of existing safeguards. We encourage INTERPOL to uphold international human rights obligations and we won’t hesitate to recommend further reforms to INTERPOL as necessary.

We are continuing to strengthen our collective efforts to deter the misuse of INTERPOL systems and support organisational reform and governance at INTERPOL.


Written Question
INTERPOL: Databases
Tuesday 20th February 2024

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following reports of the Turkish government's misuse of the Interpol Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database, what assessment they have made of the Chinese government's ability to use the SLTD database to target Chinese and Hong Kong dissidents abroad.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Government strongly supports INTERPOL’s efforts to ensure systems are in place that protect individuals’ human rights in line with Article 3 of INTERPOL's Constitution which strictly forbids any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.

The Home Office continues to work with INTERPOL and the National Crime Agency (NCA), which acts as the UK’s National Central Bureau (NCB) for INTERPOL, to monitor the effectiveness of existing safeguards. We encourage INTERPOL to uphold international human rights obligations and we won’t hesitate to recommend further reforms to INTERPOL as necessary.

We are continuing to strengthen our collective efforts to deter the misuse of INTERPOL systems and support organisational reform and governance at INTERPOL.


Written Question
INTERPOL: Databases
Tuesday 20th February 2024

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following reports of the Turkish government's use of the Interpol Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database to target dissidents abroad, what representations they have made to Interpol regarding misuse of the SLTD database.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Government strongly supports INTERPOL’s efforts to ensure systems are in place that protect individuals’ human rights in line with Article 3 of INTERPOL's Constitution which strictly forbids any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.

The Home Office continues to work with INTERPOL and the National Crime Agency (NCA), which acts as the UK’s National Central Bureau (NCB) for INTERPOL, to monitor the effectiveness of existing safeguards. We encourage INTERPOL to uphold international human rights obligations and we won’t hesitate to recommend further reforms to INTERPOL as necessary.

We are continuing to strengthen our collective efforts to deter the misuse of INTERPOL systems and support organisational reform and governance at INTERPOL.


Written Question
Refugees: Afghanistan
Wednesday 10th January 2024

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks made by Lord Sharpe of Epsom on 18 December 2023 (HL Deb cols 2046-2049) how many members of the Hazara community targeted by the Taliban and IS-K in Afghanistan have been resettled to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy or the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Resettlement of eligible Afghans remains a top priority for this Government.

The latest published Immigration system statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)(opens in a new tab) show that at the end of September 2023, around 24,600 vulnerable people affected by the events in Afghanistan have been brought to safety so far.

Statistics on individuals resettled or relocated under the Afghan schemes is available in the immigration system statistics release. For detailed data, see table Asy_D02 of the asylum and resettlement datasets.

The Home Office does not publish data on resettlement by ethnicity, as ethnicity is not routinely collected in a way that is reportable.

The capacity of the UK to resettle people is not unlimited and difficult decisions have to be made on who will be prioritised for resettlement.

We continue to work with likeminded partners and countries neighbouring Afghanistan on resettlement issues, and to support safe passage for eligible Afghans.


Written Question
Asylum: Hong Kong
Wednesday 20th December 2023

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the number of asylum seekers from Hong Kong who have switched to British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) visa routes, and the way in which such applications have been handled, since they decided to allow adult children of BN(O) status holders to apply independently of their parent.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Those who apply to the British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) route from overseas should not travel to the UK until they have received a decision on their application. Most individuals who hold a BN(O) or Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport will be able to apply to the BN(O) route without needing to attend a visa application centre by using the UK Chip Checker smartphone application.

In most cases, a person with a pending asylum claim can make an application to the BN(O) route, but all applications will need to meet the relevant requirements to be granted, including the suitability requirements. The Home Office is aware of the issues some individuals have faced when switching into the BN(O) route since it was amended to allow adult children of BN(O) status holders who were born after the handover of Hong Kong to apply independently of their parent, and we are looking into these cases.

Recent published data shows that in Quarter 2 of 2023, 98.58% of leave to enter cases and 98.35% of leave to remain cases classed as straightforward were decided within the service standard of 12 weeks.

This can be found at the following link: Visas and citizenship data: Q3 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Home Office does not currently hold any publishable data on the longest outstanding case.


Written Question
Visas: British National (Overseas)
Wednesday 20th December 2023

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to the position of British National (Overseas) visa applicants who remain in Hong Kong while their application is considered.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Those who apply to the British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) route from overseas should not travel to the UK until they have received a decision on their application. Most individuals who hold a BN(O) or Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport will be able to apply to the BN(O) route without needing to attend a visa application centre by using the UK Chip Checker smartphone application.

In most cases, a person with a pending asylum claim can make an application to the BN(O) route, but all applications will need to meet the relevant requirements to be granted, including the suitability requirements. The Home Office is aware of the issues some individuals have faced when switching into the BN(O) route since it was amended to allow adult children of BN(O) status holders who were born after the handover of Hong Kong to apply independently of their parent, and we are looking into these cases.

Recent published data shows that in Quarter 2 of 2023, 98.58% of leave to enter cases and 98.35% of leave to remain cases classed as straightforward were decided within the service standard of 12 weeks.

This can be found at the following link: Visas and citizenship data: Q3 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Home Office does not currently hold any publishable data on the longest outstanding case.


Written Question
Visas: British National (Overseas)
Wednesday 20th December 2023

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how long it takes on average to process a British National (Overseas) visa application and what is the longest outstanding application awaiting assessment.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Those who apply to the British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) route from overseas should not travel to the UK until they have received a decision on their application. Most individuals who hold a BN(O) or Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport will be able to apply to the BN(O) route without needing to attend a visa application centre by using the UK Chip Checker smartphone application.

In most cases, a person with a pending asylum claim can make an application to the BN(O) route, but all applications will need to meet the relevant requirements to be granted, including the suitability requirements. The Home Office is aware of the issues some individuals have faced when switching into the BN(O) route since it was amended to allow adult children of BN(O) status holders who were born after the handover of Hong Kong to apply independently of their parent, and we are looking into these cases.

Recent published data shows that in Quarter 2 of 2023, 98.58% of leave to enter cases and 98.35% of leave to remain cases classed as straightforward were decided within the service standard of 12 weeks.

This can be found at the following link: Visas and citizenship data: Q3 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Home Office does not currently hold any publishable data on the longest outstanding case.


Written Question
Visas: British National (Overseas)
Tuesday 19th December 2023

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to take steps to reduce the limited leave to remain period from five years to three years on the British National (Overseas) visa scheme for Hong Kongers, considering the finding of the Welcoming Committee for Hong Kongers in its report From HK to UK: Hong Kongers’ new lives in Britain, published in November, that 99 per cent of Hong Kongers who hold a British National (Overseas) visa intend to apply for British citizenship.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Hong Kong British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) route is a generous offer, reflecting the UK’s moral and historic commitment to those people of Hong Kong who chose to retain their ties to the UK, by obtaining BN(O) status before Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997.

After five years in the UK, those on the route can choose whether to apply for indefinite leave to remain, and after obtaining that will be eligible to apply for British citizenship, generally after a further 12 months’ residence. The Government currently has no plans to change the way we grant permission on the BN(O) route.


Written Question
Corruption
Tuesday 5th December 2023

Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the level of corruption, in particular money laundering, in the UK, and the scale of involvement of law firms, global corporations and banks in such crime; what steps they are taking to address corruption; and whether they support proposals to establish an international anti-corruption court.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

There is widespread international agreement that reliably measuring the scale of corruption or corrupt proceeds presents a significant challenge. The National Crime Agency assesses that it is a realistic possibility that over £100 billion is laundered through and within the UK or UK registered corporate structures each year using high end money laundering methods, with cash-based money laundering highly likely to be over £12 billion each year. However, it is not currently possible to identify the proportion of these laundered amounts which involve corruption.

Despite challenges identifying overall scale, we have advanced our understanding of the nature of corruption and money laundering including the role of professional enablers.

The Economic Crime Plan (2023-26) sets out ambitious reforms to reduce money laundering and recover more criminal assets; combat kleptocracy and drive down sanctions evasion; and cut fraud. This is supported by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and will be complemented by a new UK Anti-Corruption Strategy, which is currently under development. This will outline the UK response to strengthen resilience against corruption in the UK and internationally and build on the progress made by the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy (2017-22).

This government is fully committed to ensuring that all corrupt actors are held to account, including those responsible for the most egregious acts of corruption. We have considered the idea of an International Anti-Corruption Court, including with 40 international partners in November last year, and have concluded that now is not the time to endorse a new, bespoke institution of this nature.