Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of providing exit plans from hotel accommodation to give settled residents 56 days notice.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Since September 2023, all individuals receive a minimum of 28 days’ support (including accommodation) after being issued with a Biometric Residence Permit (BRP). There are no current plans to extend the 28 days prescribed in legislation due to the huge pressures on the asylum system.
We offer move on support to all individuals through Migrant Help or their partner organisation. This includes providing advice on accessing the labour market, on applying for Universal Credit and signposting to local authorities for assistance with housing. Individuals do not need to wait for their BRP to make a claim for benefits and are encouraged to do so as early as possible if they require them.
We work closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to ensure the right asylum decision data is being shared with local authorities to enable effective planning and to lessen the impact on existing homelessness and rough sleeping pressures. Our accommodation providers are directly working with local authorities to notify them when an individual is due to have their asylum support ended. We are working with our partners, including local authorities, to provide timely notification of key events that impact them. We are working with our Strategic Migration Partners (SMPs) to facilitate regional sessions with councils and to share data.
We are also utilising Home Office Liaison Officers (HOLOs) to replicate part of the Afghan resettlement move on process. We have been working in three local authority areas since December 2023; Glasgow, Brent and Hillingdon. This has now been expanded to Manchester and Liverpool.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when his Department plans to end the use of hotels in Weaver Vale constituency for (a) adults and (b) children seeking asylum.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
By the end of this month, we will have successfully closed 100 hotels. We continue to work with accommodation providers on closing further hotels across the estate and will write to local authorities and MPs when a decision to close a site has been made.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the report entitled Progress against the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 recommendations, published on 29 June 2023, if he will publish an updated report.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government publishes a detailed bi-annual progress tracker on implementation of the Phase 1 recommendations. The next iteration is due to be published shortly.
The tracker can be found on the gov.uk website under Grenfell Progress Tracker. The June 2023 tracker reported the following overall completion rates:
7 out of 8 for other bodies including other emergency services.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of ensuring that people who (a) live in high-rise buildings and (b) cannot self-evacuate have personal emergency evacuation plans.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Government consulted on personal emergency evacuation plans, identifying concerns over their practicality, proportionality and safety.
A new package of measures to address these concerns was consulted on, and government is currently considering the responses and will publish a response in due course.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of the recommendations from phase one of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry have been implemented.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government published the 6th bi-annual progress tracker on implementation of the Phase 1 recommendations on 29 June on gov.uk and Fire England.
This reported that 31 of the 46 recommendations have been completed overall. This includes the following completion rates:
· 10 out of 15 recommendations for Government.
· 13 out of the 14 for LFB only.
· 1 out of the 9 for all fire and rescue services (FRSs). FRSs have, however, reported completion rates of 91% of their actions on average, but national recommendations cannot be signed off as complete until all 44 services have completed all actions in full.
7 out of 8 for other bodies including other emergency services.
Government remains committed to overseeing the delivery of all of the Phase 1 recommendations. The 7th tracker is due to be published shortly and will report on the further progress made by FRSs and Government.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an estimate of the number and proportion of people served with a seven-day notice to quit accommodation when section 95 support was ceased who were without alternative accommodation on leaving that accommodation in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office does not publish the information requested.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 25 July 2023 to Question 194471 on Court Orders: Children, if she will investigate the circumstances under which Ibrahim Faraj was taken out of the UK on 12 November 2022.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The UK’s Joint International Crime Centre based in the National Crime Agency are working with Cheshire police following the abduction of Ibrahim Faraj from the UK last year.
FCDO officials met with the family in July to discuss this case. It would be inappropriate for us to comment further. The FCDO provides consular assistance to British nationals overseas; they do not provide assistance to foreign nationals outside the UK even if they usually live in the UK.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the total cost to the public purse was of proposals to accommodate asylum seekers on cruise ships in (a) Liverpool and (b) Edinburgh.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
There is an urgent need to reduce reliance on hotels to accommodate asylum seekers, to reduce cost to taxpayer, to better manage community impacts and to better support asylum seekers. In exploring potential alternative large sites, we continue to consider all available options to source appropriate and cost-effective temporary accommodation.
We work closely with stakeholders, including local authorities and our contractors, to ensure that accommodation provided for those seeking asylum is suitable. As per standard practice, audited costs for large accommodation sites will be published through the Home Office annual report and accounts.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times children who were subject to court orders preventing them from leaving the UK were allowed to leave the UK in the last (a) three, (b) six and (c) 12 months.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold any information on children subject to court orders which prevent them leaving the UK.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the systems used by the Border Force to prevent children subject to court orders from travelling abroad.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office receives information relating to people entering and leaving the UK from air, rail and maritime carriers. This information is shared with the Police.
The systems used to prevent children subject to court orders from travelling overseas are operated by Counter Terrorist Police on behalf of territorial policing.
Port Alert Orders are signed and issued by a Judge at the Family Court; they are in response to an immediate threat that a child is at risk of being taken out of the UK. Due to the immediacy of the risk, the Judge will usually authorise the Order for a timebound period e.g. 28 days. Once signed, the Court, Solicitor or parent / guardian applicant sends a copy of the order to the police.
If the child attempts to travel out of the UK (in a name / passport provided to the police), then an intervention will take place by uniform policing colleagues at the port the child is leaving from.