Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of family visa applications had passed the six month timeframe for a response as of 19 October 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Data on the number or proportion of family visa applications which have taken more than six months to process does not form part of any current transparency data and is not published.
The transparency data does, however, include a range of processing and service standard data and can be found at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason his Department classifies psilocybin as a Class A Drug without commissioning an analysis of that drug's potential harms.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Government has no plans to commission the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to assess the classification of Psilocybin. Ministers are under a duty to consider advice from the ACMD prior to making regulations under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (The 1971 Act), including any regulations which reclassify existing controlled drugs. Psilocybin, as an “ester of psilocin”, is controlled as a Class A drug under the 1971 Act and has been since the Act was introduced.
Psilocybin is also placed in Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. Psilocin is subject to the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, to which the United Kingdom is signatory.
A number of drugs which have been controlled under the 1971 Act for a considerable period of time have not been subject to analysis or recent analysis of harm. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs regularly provides advice on the harms of drugs, and these are published on the gov.uk website.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the effects of psilocybin and the current level of regulation of the drug.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Government has no plans to commission the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to assess the classification of Psilocybin. Ministers are under a duty to consider advice from the ACMD prior to making regulations under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (The 1971 Act), including any regulations which reclassify existing controlled drugs. Psilocybin, as an “ester of psilocin”, is controlled as a Class A drug under the 1971 Act and has been since the Act was introduced.
Psilocybin is also placed in Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. Psilocin is subject to the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, to which the United Kingdom is signatory.
A number of drugs which have been controlled under the 1971 Act for a considerable period of time have not been subject to analysis or recent analysis of harm. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs regularly provides advice on the harms of drugs, and these are published on the gov.uk website.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will discuss the reclassification of psilocybin from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Government has no plans to commission the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to assess the classification of Psilocybin.
Psilocybin, as an “ester of psilocin”, is controlled as a Class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (the 1971 Act) and is placed in Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001.
Psilocin is also subject to the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, to which the United Kingdom is signatory.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to implement the advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs on reducing barriers to research on controlled substances.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) published its report titled: Considerations of barriers to research Part 1: Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRA) on 30th July 2021. This report can be found here:
The Government will respond to the recommendations in due course. The ACMD is progressing a further stage of its consideration of Barriers to Research and the Government welcomes their attention to this important area of drug policy.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 11 October 2022 to Question 54609 on Home Office: Complaints, whether other parts of the Home Office share complaint reference numbers with complainants.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Within the Home Office, UK Visas and Immigration, Border Force and Detention Services routinely provide a complaint reference number as part of any written response.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impacts of rises in the cost of living to people with no recourse to public funds.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Government has no plans to revoke the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) policy. It is a well-established principle that migrants coming to the UK should be able to maintain and support themselves and their families without reliance on the welfare system. This protects taxpayer-funded public services from becoming overburdened. Successive governments have taken the view that access to benefits and other publicly funded services should reflect the strength of a migrant’s connections to the UK and, in the main, only become available to migrants when they have become settled here with indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of revoking no recourse to public funds in light of rises in the cost of living.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Government has no plans to revoke the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) policy. It is a well-established principle that migrants coming to the UK should be able to maintain and support themselves and their families without reliance on the welfare system. This protects taxpayer-funded public services from becoming overburdened. Successive governments have taken the view that access to benefits and other publicly funded services should reflect the strength of a migrant’s connections to the UK and, in the main, only become available to migrants when they have become settled here with indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what evidence her Department uses to support the classification of psilocybin as a Class A drug.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Government has not commissioned or published any recent analysis of the harms of psilocybin. Psilocybin, as an “ester of psilocin”, is controlled as a Class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (the 1971 Act) and is placed in Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. Psilocin is also subject to the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, to which the United Kingdom is signatory.
A number of drugs which have been controlled under the 1971 Act for a considerable period of time have not been subject to analysis or recent analysis of harm. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs regularly provides advice on the harms of drugs, and these are published on the gov.uk website.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason does the Home Office not share complaint reference numbers with those who make a complaint.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
His Majesty’s Passport Office routinely provides a complaint reference number as part of any written complaint response.