Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the error rate in asylum applications where decisions had an (a) automated and (b) AI-based element was between November 2024 and March 2025.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
No automated / AI tools were deployed in Asylum decision making between November 2024 and March 2025.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether asylum applicants are made aware of their right to (a) receive and (b) amend their transcript from their substantive interview.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Asylum claimants are advised throughout the interview process that they will receive a copy of their interview transcript, and are invited to make any clarifications that are required.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether data and imagery collected by Anduril Maritime Sentry Towers are used in asylum application decision-making.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The data and imagery collected by Anduril Maritime Sentry Towers are not used in asylum application decision-making.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's publication entitled Restoring Control Over the Immigration System: White paper, published on 12 May 2025, whether the changes to the qualifying period for settlement from five to 10 years will impact people on the skilled worker route who are already in the UK.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and will provide further details at that stage.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of banning asylum claims from foreign national offenders convicted of sexual offences in their country of origin on LGBTQI+ people from countries where same-sex relationships are criminalised.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government has introduced an amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill which will strengthen existing provisions by creating a new presumption that convictions for all sexual offences in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sex offences which are subject to the notification requirements) are considered particularly serious for the purposes of Article 33(2) of the Refugee Convention.
The same provision will only apply to convictions received overseas where we are able to show that an individual has received, from a foreign court, a conviction for a sexual offence that would have resulted in the notification requirements had they committed it in the UK.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to publish a Hate Crime Action Plan.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is determined to tackle all forms of hate crime.
We have a robust legislative framework in place to respond to hate crimes which target race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and transgender identity, and we back the police in taking strong action against the perpetrators of these heinous crimes.
The Government funds an online hate crime reporting portal, True Vision, designed so victims of all types of hate crime do not have to visit a police station to report. We are also continuing to fund the National Online Hate Crime Hub, which supports individual local police forces in dealing specifically with online hate crime, providing expert advice to police to support them in investigating these abhorrent offences.
The Government is carefully considering how best to strengthen the response to hate crime going forward so we can continue to tackle this offending head on.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the raised standard of proof for asylum claims on LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
All relevant impact assessments related to the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 have been published by the Home Office in the normal way.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to (a) respond to and (b) implement the proposals set out in the consultation entitled Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner's fee structure, published on 14 March 2024.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office together with the Office of the Immigration Service Commissioner (OISC) ran the fees consultation for a period of 12 weeks, which closed on 5 June 2024. The consultation was designed to help best understand the impact of proposals to amend the structure of the fees charged by the OISC to its registered advisers, and to minimise the risks of any adverse impact.
The Government is committed to ensuring advice seekers receive the advice that they need, through an efficient and regulated immigration advice sector. We will consider next steps in this area in due course in line with that commitment.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 23 October 2024 to Question 9238 on Immigration: Detainees, whether the Adults at Risk review will consider the (a) Immigration (Guidance on Detention of Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2024 and (b) findings and recommendations of the Brook House Inquiry.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The scope of the Adults at Risk review includes the Immigration (Guidance on Detention of Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2024.
The review forms part of the response to one of the recommendations of the Brook House Inquiry (Recommendation 9: Review of the operation of Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001). The review will not cover all areas of the Brook House Inquiry and will not reassess the findings and recommendations made.
Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield Hallam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister of State in her Department in debate on the Immigration (Guidance on Detention of Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2024 in Grand Committee in the House of Lords on 14 October 2024, Official Report, column 17GC, what the (a) timetable is and (b) terms of reference are for the review into immigration detention.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
We intend to complete the Adults at Risk review in Spring 2025, including Rule 34 and Rule 35 of the detention centre rules.