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 White Paper entitled Restoring control over the immigration system, published on 12 May 2025, what assessment she has made on the potential impact of changes to the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain on people working (a) part-time and (b) on low wages.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
A technical annex has been published alongside the White Paper. It can be found in the following link: Restoring control over the immigration system: white paper - GOV.UK.
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and further details on the proposed scheme will be provided at that time.
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 White Paper entitled Restoring control over the immigration system, published on 12 May 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain on people seeking to buy property in the UK.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
A technical annex has been published alongside the White Paper. It can be found in the following link: Restoring control over the immigration system: white paper - GOV.UK.
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and further details on the proposed scheme will be provided at that time.
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 White Paper entitled Restoring control over the immigration system, published on 12 May 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the proposed extension of the qualifying period for indefinite leave on levels of poverty in migrant communities.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
A technical annex has been published alongside the White Paper. It can be found in the following link: Restoring control over the immigration system: white paper - GOV.UK.
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and will provide details of how the scheme will work at that time.
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 White Paper entitled Restoring control over the immigration system, published on 12 May 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to the qualifying period for indefinite leave on families with British-born children.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
We will reform our settlement and citizenship rules by expanding the Points-Based System and increasing the standard qualifying period for settlement to ten years.
Individuals will have the opportunity to reduce the qualifying period to settlement and citizenship based on contributions to the UK economy and society.
Paragraph 265 of the White Paper states that we will continue to offer a shorter pathway to settlement for non-UK dependants of British citizens of five years, provided they have remained compliant with the requirements of the relevant family route.
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.