Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Defending Democracy Taskforce has taken evidence from BBC Persian journalists as part of its review into the UK's approach to transnational repression; and whether it has had recent discussions with the BBC World Service on that review.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
This Government is committed to tackling the issue of transnational repression. Any threats made by a foreign state against individuals in the UK, including journalists, will be thoroughly investigated.
The Defending Democracy Taskforce's review into the UK's approach to transnational repression is intended to ensure the UK has a robust and joined up response across government and law enforcement to this threat to our democracy.
The Taskforce has engaged a range of partners during the review, including other government departments, relevant agencies and law enforcement, and external stakeholders.
I intend to update the House on the review in due course.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 26 October 2023 to Question 203790 on Visas: Africa, whether the (a) passports and (b) other documents of visa applicants applying at Visa Application Centres in (i) South Africa, (ii) Kenya, (iii) Nigeria and (iv) Ghana are (A) digitally copied and (B) checked at that Visa Application Centre.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Commercial partners take tri-scans of customers passports and scan all other supporting documents onto a digital portal for Decision Making Centres to view via a secure cloud solution.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the findings on pages 64 to 66 and 103 to 106 of the report “Join Us or Die”: Rwanda’s Extraterritorial Repression, published by Human Rights Watch in October 2023.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
All attempts by foreign Governments to coerce, intimidate, harass or harm their critics overseas, undermining democracy and the rule of law, are unacceptable. Any threats made by a foreign state against individuals in the UK will be thoroughly investigated.
This Government is committed to tackling the issue of transnational repression. The National Security Act will strengthen our legal powers to counter foreign interference and the Defending Democracy Taskforce, established last year to help protect the democratic integrity of the UK, is conducting a review into the UK’s approach to transnational repression.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Visa Application Centres in (a) Kenya, (b) Nigeria, (c) Ghana and (d) South Africa contain scanners and other equipment required for (i) checking the authenticity of passports and other documents and (ii) making electronic copies of those documents.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Visa Application Centres (VACs) in Africa are operated by the commercial partner, TLS Contact, on behalf of UK Visas and Immigration. TLS Contact do not send physical passports or documents from these locations to the UK. Passports are stored either at the VAC or, for some locations, at a remote print location. A Keep My Passport service is available for purchase at the majority of the VACs in these countries which allows a customer to keep their passport while their application is processed.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether Visa Application Centres in (a) Kenya, (b) Nigeria, (c) Ghana and (d) South Africa courier passports and other documents of visa applicants to Decision Making Centres in the UK.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Visa Application Centres (VACs) in Africa are operated by the commercial partner, TLS Contact, on behalf of UK Visas and Immigration. TLS Contact do not send physical passports or documents from these locations to the UK. Passports are stored either at the VAC or, for some locations, at a remote print location. A Keep My Passport service is available for purchase at the majority of the VACs in these countries which allows a customer to keep their passport while their application is processed.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2023 to Question 195882 on Visas: Tourism, how much his Department spent on contracts with Teleperformance Ltd for (a) visa processing and (b) contact centre services in (i) 2021, (ii) 2022 and (iii) 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office does not categorise the information in a way that groups together Visa Processing spend with Teleperformance Ltd from 2021 to 2023, therefore we are unable to answer part of this question.
Contractual information in Contracts Finder is available for the second part of the question.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to work with local (a) businesses and (b) authorities to provide safe spaces for child victims of sexual street harassment in Newham.
Answered by Sarah Dines
Public sexual harassment is an appalling crime which the Government is committed to tackling. Our children have the right to both be and feel safe on our streets.
We are providing just over £1.2 million in funding, for the next two years, to the Children's Society for a programme to drive targeted action to respond to child sexual abuse and exploitation. The programme works with national and local partners, including businesses, to identify exploitation trends and work collaboratively to prevent harm.
In addition, we have:
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to help ensure ensure that public parks in Newham are safe for children during the hours when children travel home from school.
Answered by Sarah Dines
Policing of parks in Newham is an operational matter for the Metropolitan Police Service. Multi-agency partners, including the Metropolitan Police Service receives over £22.5m in funds to tackle serious violence in London. This includes funds for the Violence Reduction Unit which delivers a multi-agency partnerships to lead the local response to reducing violence, with a focus on long-term prevention.
To date, £3.2 million has been awarded through all rounds of the Safer Streets Fund to local projects across London. This includes just over £1.5 million in funding through the current fourth round for projects targeting anti-social behaviour, as well as neighbourhood crime and violence against women and girls. Interventions funded have included the installation of additional CCTV, streetlighting and alleygating. The Mayor for Policing and Crime in London and the City of London Police Authority board have both been allocated £2m in total through the latest fifth round of the fund to support delivery of a range of interventions focused on VAWG, ASB and Neighbourhood Crime.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost to the public purse was for processing (a) an average tourist visa application and (b) all tourist visa applications in (i) 2021 and (ii) 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The estimated cost of processing visit visa applications for the years 2021 – 2022, is published on gov.uk as part of the Home Office’s transparency publications Visa fees transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many tourist visa applications were made to UK Visas and Immigration in (a) 2021 and (b) 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
According to the Home Office published data on visit visa applications in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’ and in the Entry clearance detailed dataset of the quarterly publication, for 2021 there were 613,741 visit visa applications and in 2022 there were 1,795,963 visit visa applications.