Student Visas

Debate between Munira Wilson and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Nothing could be further from the truth. It is this Government who established the international education strategy that led to 600,000 international students coming to the UK every year. Indeed, that number is likely to grow next year. With respect to public services, we created the health and social care visa, which last year led to 76,000 applications. Their dependants were able to join them. That was 11% of all the visas issued to individuals wishing to come to the United Kingdom. We are doing everything we can to support public services, but we must address the fact that very high levels of net migration place intolerable pressure on housing, public services and integration.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Our schools are in the midst of such a chronic teacher recruitment and retention crisis that the Department for Education currently offers £10,000 relocation payments to overseas applicants to come and train as language and physics teachers in the UK, on postgraduate taught courses. If they cannot bring their families, they will not want to settle here and use the training that we have provided in our schools, where they are desperately needed. Why are the Government cutting off their nose to spite their own face?

[Robert Jenrick]

If the hon. Lady is referring to pressure on school places, that would be a good argument for reducing the number of dependants coming to the UK, because the children of the students will be using primary schools in her constituency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Munira Wilson and Robert Jenrick

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

6. What steps her Department is taking to support women and girls applying for UK visas from Afghanistan.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

More than 24,000 people have arrived in the UK from Afghanistan under or since Operation Pitting, of whom 21,000 have been resettled under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy or the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. There is not a visa application centre in Afghanistan for security reasons, but those who have left the country can make a visa application in the normal way. The ACRS is designed to support vulnerable people such as women and girls at risk.

[Munira Wilson]

For the fourth time in recent weeks, I feel compelled to raise on the Floor of the House the case of five British children who have been in hiding in Kabul for the past 18 months. Four of those British passport holders are girls and only one of them is allowed to attend school. I and my team have not been able to bring them to safety, to be with their family in the UK, because their Afghan mother cannot secure a visa. I am grateful that the Minister has looked at this case personally, but it has stalled again, because his officials are insisting she travels to Pakistan to do her biometrics. He will be aware that it is totally unsafe for a woman to risk her life to travel on her own, without a chaperone, to Pakistan to get a visa, even if Pakistan grants her a visa to travel there. So please, will the Minister waive the requirement for biometrics in this case and those of other women and girls who face mortal danger, as this family does?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the tenacious way in which she has represented her constituents. She knows that I intervened personally to seek a swift resolution to this case. I am told that UK Visas and Immigration has the application under consideration and is speaking with the hon. Lady’s office to help progress the application, and I hope we can resolve it very soon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Munira Wilson and Robert Jenrick

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Our sympathies go to all those affected by the tragic events in Turkey. The UK Government are doing a number of things, including sending specialists to help with those who have been trapped in the wreckage. We have a range of visa options, including family reunion and visit visas, so that those people who have strong family ties to the United Kingdom can come here.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Last week, I raised with the Foreign Secretary that, for the past 15 months, I have been trying to bring to safety five British children in hiding in Kabul after their British father was blown up by the Taliban. They are too young to travel alone, but the Home Office will not grant their Afghan mother a visa, unless she passes an English test. However, she is not allowed to access education in Afghanistan. The Foreign Office tells me it is a Home Office issue. The Home Office is not responding to my correspondence, so will the Minister grant me a meeting to discuss this case?

Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Debate between Munira Wilson and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Those are the hon. Gentleman’s words, not mine. We want to distinguish between people who come to this country fearing persecution or fleeing war or human rights abuses, and those who come here for economic purposes. Conservative Members are capable of making that important distinction. Where people are coming here on small boats with no genuine right to asylum and gaming the system, it is absolutely right that we take a robust line. It is also appropriate that we bear down on illegal employers, using a range of measures through our compliant environment, because those are the very people who are perpetuating this evil trade by giving work to these individuals in car washes and care homes and on construction sites.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

In the Minister’s answers to various Members, there seems to have been a lot of verbal gymnastics about the legal status of either the Home Office or local authorities in respect of these children. Will he clarify it for the record: will the Home Office take legal responsibility for these children until they are properly placed in local authority care? Why will the Home Office not take on corporate parenting responsibilities? Regardless of where these children have come from, how they got here or what gender they are, these are vulnerable children who need our protection.

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady may know the recent history of this issue, which is that previously young people were primarily placed in Kent and it took legal responsibility. The numbers arriving in Kent were sufficiently high that Kent chose to walk away from that responsibility, and we understand the reasons behind that. Since then, where children are not placed immediately within a local authority, we have had no choice but to stand up these hotels. As I said in answer to an earlier question, that means that the Home Office provides all the support services that are required. We are considering the proposal made by a number of organisations about acting as corporate legal guardians of the young people and we will make a decision on that in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Munira Wilson and Robert Jenrick

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Member is entirely incorrect. We are determined to build more homes in this country while protecting and enhancing standards, and absolutely nothing that we do will compromise building safety regulations. Indeed, quite the opposite. We are creating the largest change to building safety standards in my lifetime.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

  In ensuring that children with special educational needs and disabilities have the provision that they need locally, the London Borough of Richmond is running a cumulative deficit of some £15 million in the high needs element of its dedicated schools budget, putting wider council finances and services at risk. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me, representatives of the council and the Department for Education to find a workable solution to this untenable situation? Our discussions with the DFE have proved fruitless so far.