Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an estimate of the number of international students who go on to work in the NHS after studying in the UK.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office publishes data on how people move through the immigration system in the Migrant Journey report. The report contains information on the number of people starting a journey each year broken down by immigration route (e.g. study) and how many extend into other categories (e.g. work) following their initial leave. The statistics do not show which sectors people were employed in. The latest report covers up to the end of 2022.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the recent technical issue with the processing and issuing of Biometric Resident Permits has been; what steps his Department is taking to resolve that issue; and what estimate he has made of when that work will be complete.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Incidences of technical issues preventing BRP card production are extremely low, and no systemic issues have been identified.
Where individual card requests do fail, operational case working teams and IT Support endeavour to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
For any case that cannot be resolved immediately, the Employer Checking and Landlord Checking Services are available to provide support to customers to verify their immigration status and permission to work and rent properties in the UK.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many vehicles were caught speeding in (a) Warwickshire, (b) Leicestershire, (c) Derbyshire, (d) County Durham and (e) Hampshire in 2022.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects data on Fixed Penalty Notices and other outcomes for motoring offences, including data on speed limit offences, for each police force in England and Wales.
These data are published annually as part of the “Police Powers and Procedures: Other PACE powers” statistical bulletin. The most recent data, up to 2021, are available here:
Police powers and procedures: Other PACE powers, England and Wales
Data for the calendar year ending December 2022 will be published in November/December of 2023, and is pre-announced here:
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officers were employed by Warwickshire Police in each year since 2010.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the size of the police workforce in England and Wales, broken down by Police Force Area (PFA), on a bi-annual basis in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin which can be accessed here: Police workforce England and Wales statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Information on the number of police officers in Warwichshire as at 31 March each year, from 2007 to 2022, on a full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount basis, can be found in the ‘Workforce Open Data Table’ here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1093587/open-data-table-police-workforce-270722.ods
The next release of ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, which will cover the situation as at 31 March 2023, is scheduled for release on Wednesday 26th July at 9:30am.
While the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin remains the key measure of the size of the police workforce, throughout the Police Officer Uplift Programme, the Home Office also published a quarterly update on the number of officers (headcount terms only) in England and Wales, also broken down by PFA. Data as at 31 March 2023 are available here: Police Officer Uplift, quarterly update to March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The latest provisional data from the ‘Police Officer Uplift’ statistics shows, as at 31 March 2023, across England and Wales, there are over 149,500 police officers, the highest number of police officers on record, surpassing the previous peak of 146,030 in March 2010.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of limiting the ability for international students not on a research postgraduate course to bring dependents on women's (a) access to and (b) participation in higher education in the UK.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We consider our Public Sector Equality Duty in the development of all policy, and an Equality Impact Assessment was produced and considered in developing this package of reforms.
We consider any indirect impact to be proportionate in achieving our overall aim of reducing net migration and only allowing dependants to a specific cohort of students with the types of skills the UK is specifically seeking to attract to assist economic growth.
We keep all our immigration policies under constant review to ensure they best serve the UK and reflect the public’s priorities.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of international students arriving with dependents are (a) male and (b) female
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We consider our Public Sector Equality Duty in the development of all policy, and an Equality Impact Assessment was produced and considered in developing this package of reforms.
We consider any indirect impact to be proportionate in achieving our overall aim of reducing net migration and only allowing dependants to a specific cohort of students with the types of skills the UK is specifically seeking to attract to assist economic growth.
We keep all our immigration policies under constant review to ensure they best serve the UK and reflect the public’s priorities.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of dependent study visas were granted by her Department to students undertaking research postgraduate courses in the last three years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Our published data on dependent study visas can be found in the available Migration Statistics on GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2022/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-to-study
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of dependent study visas were granted by her Department to students undertaking taught postgraduate courses in the last three years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Our published data on dependent study visas can be found in the available Migration Statistics on GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2022/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-to-study
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with representatives from the higher education sector on membership of the Defending Democracy Taskforce.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Defending Democracy Taskforce was established in November 2022. Its mission statement is to reduce the risk of foreign interference to the UK’s democratic processes, institutions, and society, and ensure that these are secure and resilient to threats of foreign interference.
The Taskforce is a cross-departmental and inter-agency initiative made up of ministers and officials from policy-owning departments, including the Cabinet Office, Home Office, DSIT, DLUHC and DfE, law enforcement, the UK intelligence community and Parliament.
Meetings of the Taskforce will be complemented by wider formal engagement with partners outside central government and Parliament, including in the devolved administrations, local government and private, education and third sectors.
The government takes the risk of foreign interference in higher education very seriously.
This is why there is already a dedicated cross-government programme of work to assess and counter foreign interference in higher education. This responsibility ultimately lies with Department for Education, but the Taskforce has taken a keen interest in this issue and will continue to support efforts to protect academic freedoms and universities from the threat of foreign interference.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Defending Democracy Taskforce includes representatives from the (a) university, (b) research and (c) higher education sectors.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Defending Democracy Taskforce was established in November 2022. Its mission statement is to reduce the risk of foreign interference to the UK’s democratic processes, institutions, and society, and ensure that these are secure and resilient to threats of foreign interference.
The Taskforce is a cross-departmental and inter-agency initiative made up of ministers and officials from policy-owning departments, including the Cabinet Office, Home Office, DSIT, DLUHC and DfE, law enforcement, the UK intelligence community and Parliament.
Meetings of the Taskforce will be complemented by wider formal engagement with partners outside central government and Parliament, including in the devolved administrations, local government and private, education and third sectors.
The government takes the risk of foreign interference in higher education very seriously.
This is why there is already a dedicated cross-government programme of work to assess and counter foreign interference in higher education. This responsibility ultimately lies with Department for Education, but the Taskforce has taken a keen interest in this issue and will continue to support efforts to protect academic freedoms and universities from the threat of foreign interference.