Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many assessments for destitution her Department has made for people with no recourse to public funds in the last six months.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office publishes statistics, as part of the department’s migration transparency data, setting out the number of Change of Conditions applications made by those seeking to have their No Recourse to Public Funds condition lifted. This data, for the period up until June 2024, can be found in tab CoC_05 of the immigration and protection data: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-and-protection-data-q2-2024.
The data includes statistics for other routes, including destitution consideration for fee waiver applications. Whilst the data can be filtered to provide a breakdown of age group; nationality; and gender it cannot be filtered in a way so as to determine how many applications were granted on the basis of destitution, and that information could only be obtained for the purposes of this question at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many assessments for destitution her Department made for people subject to no recourse to public funds conditions in 2023.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
We are unable to provide this information as it is not routinely published, and it can only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
When an individual goes through the process of assessment for Change of Conditions, various No Recourse to Public Funds conditions are checked, with ‘destitution’ being one of these conditions.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many assessments for destitution her Department has made for people subject to No Recourse to Public Funds conditions in each of the last five years.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
We are unable to provide this information as it is not routinely published, and it can only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
When an individual goes through the process of assessment for Change of Conditions, various No Recourse to Public Funds conditions are checked, with ‘destitution’ being one of these conditions.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department made an assessment of the potential merits of including outdoor events in the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Bill has provided for events to be in scope where it is considered that there is an appropriate level of control and that mitigating measures for protective security and preparedness can reasonably be put in place.
For an event to be in scope of the bill, it must:
Outdoor events that satisfy the above criteria will fall within scope of the Bill. Well established processes already exist to help those responsible for large open events to consider threats and develop appropriate protection and preparedness arrangements. This includes processes, led by the police, to consider security for large open events and, where appropriate, the deployment of appropriate measures and procedures working with event organisers.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department made an assessment of the potential merits of including unticketed events in the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
An event must satisfy several criteria to be in scope of the Bill. One of these criteria is that the event must have employees, or other individuals involved in the event, checking that attendees have paid to attend the event, have an invitation granting access, or have a pass that grants access (which might include a free ticket).
Whilst this provision applies to paid-for events, this provision will also encompass free events, if there is a check that attendees satisfy a condition of entry as specified above.
We consider the ‘express permission’ requirement provides an appropriate basis to capture events where there is the resource and control to consider and take forward security requirements.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to provide additional funding to the Security Industry Authority following the passage of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
The regulator function of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill will be delivered as a new function of the Security Industry Authority and will be funded by the Home Office.
The Security Industry Authority has an existing licence fee-funded arrangement that will not be used to deliver its functions under this Bill.
Work is ongoing to design the new regulatory regime and to finalise costs.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will ensure that official correspondence from her Department to people seeking to establish biological family relationships in immigration applications makes clear that providing DNA evidence is the best way of establishing parenthood.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office has no statutory power to require DNA evidence as part of an immigration application, but applicants are free to volunteer DNA evidence. Where applicants choose not to provide DNA evidence, no negative inference can be drawn from that and used in the decision-making process.
Where there is insufficient evidence of a biological relationship, applicants are given the opportunity to provide further supporting evidence. This can include DNA evidence, a declaration of parentage by the Family or High Court, or any other relevant evidence of the existence of the claimed biological relationship.
As the provision of DNA evidence is voluntary, officials must not send out letters only inviting applicants to offer DNA evidence and are unable to advise applicants on the relative merits of the evidence they may choose to provide.
The publicly available guidance is shown on gov.uk: DNA Policy Guidance.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many assessments for destitution her Department has made for people subject to No Recourse to Public Funds conditions in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
We do not routinely publish the information you have requested, and we are unable to provide this information, as it could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
When an individual goes through the process of assessment for Change of Conditions, various No Recourse to Public Funds conditions are checked, with ‘destitution’ being one of these conditions.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the pilot implementation of provisions relating to the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill by local authorities.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
As a result of pre-legislative scrutiny, and extensive consultation in relation to proposals for the standard tier, the Government made significant changes to the Bill. This was to ensure public protection outcomes can be achieved whilst avoiding undue burdens on businesses and other organisations. This includes raising the standard tier threshold from 100 to 200.
Lowering the minimum threshold for the standard tier back to 100 would result in significant changes to the coverage of the Bill and increased costs to business. Government believes a threshold of 200 achieves an appropriate balance between protecting the public from the risk of physical harm and imposing burden on business, whilst continuing to deliver the Bill’s overall aims of increasing protective security and organisational preparedness across the UK.
We will continue to liaise with all relevant stakeholders as the Bill progresses.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to clause 2 of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, for what reason venues with a 100 person capacity will be excluded from full risk assessments.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
As a result of pre-legislative scrutiny, and extensive consultation in relation to proposals for the standard tier, the Government made significant changes to the Bill. This was to ensure public protection outcomes can be achieved whilst avoiding undue burdens on businesses and other organisations. This includes raising the standard tier threshold from 100 to 200.
Lowering the minimum threshold for the standard tier back to 100 would result in significant changes to the coverage of the Bill and increased costs to business. Government believes a threshold of 200 achieves an appropriate balance between protecting the public from the risk of physical harm and imposing burden on business, whilst continuing to deliver the Bill’s overall aims of increasing protective security and organisational preparedness across the UK.
We will continue to liaise with all relevant stakeholders as the Bill progresses.