Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the number of (a) Sudanese and (b) other nationals residing in Sudan who (i) are waiting, (ii) have been waiting for more than two months and( iii) have been waiting for more than three months for the outcome of their family reunification applications to the UK.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Information regarding processing times and nationality of applicants is not routinely published and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the number of (a) Eritrean and (b) Sudanese children waiting for the outcome of their family reunification applications to the UK.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Information regarding processing times and nationality of applicants is not routinely published and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Sudanese nationals have been returned to Sudan on the basis of failed claims for asylum in 2023; and whether her Department considers Sudan to be a safe country for such returns from 15 April 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on asylum and returns in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on asylum applications awaiting a decision, by nationality, can be found in table Asy_D03 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. The latest data relates to March 2023. Data as at 30 June 2023 will be published on 24 August 2023.
The Home Office does not currently publish data on the waiting times of asylum applications receiving initial decisions.
Data on returns by destination are published in table Ret_D02 of the ‘Returns detailed datasets’. The latest data relates to December 2022. Additionally, the Home Office publishes aggregate returns data broken down by asylum-related and non-asylum-related in the ‘summary tables’. The ‘contents’ sheet contains an overview of all available data broken down in this way. Data for asylum-related returns by nationality and destination are not available in the published statistics..
The Home Office’s assessment of the general security situation in Sudan for the use of officials handling protection claims is set out in our country policy and information note on this subject of June 2023. This note is available on 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 Sudanese national asylum seekers are waiting for a decision on their application as of 1 July 2023; and what the (a) median and (b) longest waiting time was for that group.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on asylum and returns in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on asylum applications awaiting a decision, by nationality, can be found in table Asy_D03 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. The latest data relates to March 2023. Data as at 30 June 2023 will be published on 24 August 2023.
The Home Office does not currently publish data on the waiting times of asylum applications receiving initial decisions.
Data on returns by destination are published in table Ret_D02 of the ‘Returns detailed datasets’. The latest data relates to December 2022. Additionally, the Home Office publishes aggregate returns data broken down by asylum-related and non-asylum-related in the ‘summary tables’. The ‘contents’ sheet contains an overview of all available data broken down in this way. Data for asylum-related returns by nationality and destination are not available in the published statistics..
The Home Office’s assessment of the general security situation in Sudan for the use of officials handling protection claims is set out in our country policy and information note on this subject of June 2023. This note is available on 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 (a) passports and (b) other identity documents submitted to the Khartoum Visa Application Centre before 15 April 2023 (i) remain in the Khartoum Visa Application Centre, (ii) are being held by the Nairobi Visa Application Centre, (iii) are being held in countries neighbouring Sudan, (iv) otherwise remain in UK Government custody and (v) have been returned to applicants.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Where our records confirm that a customer’s passport is being held in the Visa Application Centre (VAC) in Khartoum, UK Visas and Immigration have contacted all those customers that have been issued or refused visa applications in our VAC in Khartoum and offered them a letter confirming that their passport is securely stored and attaching a digital copy of their passport, that may help support their travel out of Sudan and into a third country.
Where our records show that the passport is held in Nairobi or Pretoria and a named individual (either the applicant or a designated 3rd party) is identified to return the passport to outside of Sudan, the passport can be sent (to the named individual) by courier or for collection from another visa application centre. UK Visas and Immigration have contacted all those customers. For customers that have been able to exit Sudan, processes are in place to re-direct printing of their visa and endorsement on a Form for affixing a visa (FAV) to another VAC location of their choice for collection.
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 make an assessment of the implications for the UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership of the policy of the Rwandan government on the eviction of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Rwanda has been recognised globally for its record in welcoming and integrating migrants and refugees, and our own comprehensive assessment as set out in the relevant country policy and information notes (CPINs) Rwanda is a safe and secure country.
Our CPINs are kept under constant review and updated periodically on the Gov.uk website. Any decision to relocate a person to Rwanda will be made on a case-by-case basis and take into account their individual circumstances and relevant country information.
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 New support for victims of county lines exploitation, published on 24 September 2022, how much funding will be allocated to support services in London, for each of the next three years.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
We are determined to crack down on county lines gangs and that is why, through the ten-year Drugs Strategy, we are investing up to £145m over three years in our successful County Lines Programme.
As part of that, in order to support those exploited, this financial year we are awarding not-for-profit organisation Catch22 up to £1.035m to deliver a specialist support service in London, the West Midlands, Merseyside and Greater Manchester. These are the four biggest exporting areas for county lines activity, aligning with the wider investment in police forces as part of the County Lines Programme.
We are awarding up to £1.5m in both financial years 2023/24 and 2024/25. Separate allocations have not been made by area.
As part of the package of support, funding will also be allocated to continue the delivery of the national confidential and anonymous helpline ‘SafeCall’, delivered across England and Wales by Missing People – including bespoke support for parents and carers.
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 level of potential risk that people deported to Rwanda under the Migration and Economic Development partnership will be required to join that country’s armed forces.
Answered by Simon Baynes
Rwanda has been recognised globally for their record in welcoming and integrating migrants and asylum seekers, and our own comprehensive assessment found it to be generally a safe and secure country.
Any decision to relocate a person to Rwanda will be made on a case-by-case basis taking into account their individual circumstances and relevant country information.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the potential for the Windrush Compensation Scheme application form to serve as a barrier to people wishing to apply for compensation with particular regard to (a) its complexity and (b) the nature of information it requires.
Answered by Kevin Foster
In response to question UIN: 41960
Any information provided as part of a compensation claim is solely used for the purpose of assessing that claim. Information provided as part of a compensation claim is held on a separate system, and is not shared outside of the compensation team. Information provided as part of a compensation claim would never be passed on to Immigration Enforcement or used as part of enforcement action.
Immigration Enforcement have put in place safeguards to ensure members of the Windrush generation are not subjected to enforcement action. Whenever a person is encountered who claims to be a member of the Windrush generation or to be in the UK lawfully, they are referred to the Windrush Help Team to consider their case and, if appropriate, issue documentation under the Windrush (status) Scheme confirming their right to be in the UK. No enforcement action is taken against individuals whose status is under review by the Windrush Help Team, or who have an ongoing Windrush (status) Scheme application.
Anyone is free to submit a claim to the Windrush Compensation Scheme, irrespective of whether they are actually eligible for compensation. It is possible for a person who is in the UK unlawfully, and who is not a member of the Windrush generation, to submit an unmeritorious compensation claim. They may, rightly, be subject to enforcement action on the basis of information obtained by Immigration Enforcement independently. We do not hold data on how many compensation claimants have later faced enforcement action.
In response to question UIN: 41961
Since its launch, the Home Office has continued to listen and respond to feedback from affected communities and stakeholders about how the Scheme operates and its accessibility. In response to feedback, we have re-designed the primary claim form to make it easier to complete.
We have designed the compensation scheme to be as clear and simple as possible, so people do not need legal assistance to make a claim. We have published a redesigned primary claim form which now has a Crystal Mark from the Plain English Campaign, demonstrating our commitment to ensuring the scheme is accessible and as easy to use as possible.
The new form includes more targeted and closed questions to help people understand and provide the key information we need from them. We believe the new form will improve peoples’ experiences of applying to the scheme and help to speed up the processing of claims by reducing the amount of additional information and evidence we must ask people to provide.
We have made the evidential threshold as low as possible. Our intent is to ask for the minimum evidence necessary to reduce the burden on individuals, whilst maximising the offers we can make. In doing so we are seeking to strike the right balance between ensuring the scheme is comprehensive and covers the broadest range of circumstances, whilst also making it easy to navigate.
However, for those who want or need support to make a claim, the Home Office provides free assistance in making applications through our independent claims assistance provider - We Are Digital. The Windrush Compensation Scheme Help Team can also assist individuals should they have questions about the claim form or process.
We continue to work extensively with communities and stakeholders to raise awareness of the Scheme and encourage affected individuals to apply.