Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of her Department's efficiency in responding to Members of Parliament correspondence in relation to immigration casework.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of MPs written correspondence within 20 working days. Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, alongside the need for Ministers and officials to instigate a remote process for drafting and signing correspondence during the period of COVID-19 restrictions.
The Department recognises it has not been able to meet the service standard in some cases but has implemented an action plan to clear backlogs and drive up performance.
Staff unable to perform front facing roles in the Department have been redeployed to assist in clearing MPs correspondence backlogs. The Department are also contacting MPs offices by telephone to offer to close urgent cases by telephone, whilst continuing to work through the backlog and to offer regular engagement surgeries to discuss and resolve some of the enquiries they have made.
The Department uses a workflow tool which records all Operational MPs correspondence. The Department runs reports each day which summarise the daily situation in relation to intake and output and the age of each piece of MPs correspondence. The report also monitors the daily progress of output towards the weekly 95% target.
Presently different areas of the Department work on different IT systems for Correspondence, but the Department is undergoing a transfer so all Correspondence is on one system to help improve efficiency. This should be completed in 2021.
The latest published data on UKVI performance against the service standard, which includes data up to and including the end of quarter 3-2020/21, is held at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-november-2020.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers have been evicted from their homes in England in areas where covid-19 local lockdown measures have been in place.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We have commenced the cessation of support for both positive cases (who move on to be supported in Local Authority accommodation) and negative cases (failed Asylum seekers).
A Notice to Quit is served on all discontinued cases by the provider and steps taken to remove people from the accommodation following the end of grace period.
Due to the sequencing of both cessations themselves and the additional local restrictions being put in place the number who have received a Notice to Quit where Covid 19 measures are in place is not available in a recordable format.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many reports of anti-social behaviour were made in relation to mopeds in (a) Salford and Eccles constituency and (b) Greater Manchester in each of the last three years.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Office collects data on the number of anti-social behaviour incidents recorded by the police forces in England and Wales. From this information it is not possible to identify how many of such incidents related to mopeds.
Anti-social behaviour incidents recorded by the police are published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and can be found here:
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applications are pending where the claimant has a recorded mental health condition; and how many of these are claims have been awaiting decision for (a) three years (b) two years and (c) 12 months.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Department does not hold data on the number of asylum seekers who have mental health issues and have been waiting a decision for two years, three years and 12 months in a reportable format.
The basis of a person’s asylum claim and any personal information is recorded on their individual Home Office file, but not in a way that can be easi-ly aggregated, so this information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost, because it would require a manual search through individual records. Even then, the data may not be sufficiently reliable, as it is worth noting that the claimants do not always disclose their mental health issues to case-workers despite having opportunity to do so.
The Home Office publishes data, in its quarterly Immigration Statistics release, on the number of asylum applications lodged in each year, broken down by outcome, including cases with a decision, or appeal outcome, or not known, as at May 2018 (time of publication), in table as_06 (Asylum, volume 2).
Latest edition available at:
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) full-time and (b) part-time decision-making staff deal with (i) visa applications and (ii) asylum applications (A) currently and (B) in 2009.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
UK Visas and Immigration regularly reviews its capacity plans and resources and redeploys staff where necessary to help meet and maintain service standards for individual services or routes.
However, to provide the number of decision-making staff and support staff who were employed to process visa and asylum applications in 2019 and 2009 it would require a manual check through resourcing databases and would encounter disproportionate costs.
Data on staffing within UK Visas & Immigration is published online at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#staffing-data
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) full-time and (b) part-time support staff in his Department work on (i) visa applications and (ii) asylum applications (A) in 2019 and (B) in 2009.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
UK Visas and Immigration regularly reviews its capacity plans and resources and redeploys staff where necessary to help meet and maintain service standards for individual services or routes.
However, to provide the number of decision-making staff and support staff who were employed to process visa and asylum applications in 2019 and 2009 it would require a manual check through resourcing databases and would encounter disproportionate costs.
Data on staffing within UK Visas & Immigration is published online at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#staffing-data
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will release all documents relating to the 1984 strike at Cammell Lairds Shipyard and the subsequent arrest and imprisonment of 37 striking workers.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Office does not hold any files relating to the 1984 strike at Cammell Lairds Shipyard and the subsequent arrest and imprisonment of 37 striking workers.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications for asylum applications that were submitted (a) three years ago, (b) two years ago and (c) within the last 12 months are awaiting a decision.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office publishes data, in its quarterly Immigration Statistics release, on the number of asylum applications lodged in each year, broken down by outcome, including cases with a decision, or appeal outcome, not known as at May 2018 (time of publication), in table as_06 (Asylum, volume 2)
Latest edition available at:
The next update of this table is due in August 2019.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of his staff leave their respective posts on an annual basis; how many vacant posts there are in his Department; and what proportion of posts in his Department are currently vacant.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Department records actual staffing levels but does not centrally record the number of posts or vacancies. It is therefore not possible to provide details of vacant posts.
The level of turnover within the Department is currently 5.35% per annum.
Turnover represents the number of staff that leave the Home Office, voluntarily or otherwise,
i.e. through resignation or dismissal.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) visa applications and (b) asylum applications were awaiting a decision on 22 January 2019.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
All asylum claims lodged in the UK are carefully considered on a case by case basis, based on their individual merits, against a background of relevant case law and up to date country information.
The available information for the number of visa applications awaiting a decision up until the end of September 2018, can be found at table Visa_03 of the International Operations Transparency Data at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-operations-transparency-data-november-2018
The available information for the number of Asylum Applications awaiting a decision up until the end of September 2018 can be found at table Asy_11 of Asylum Transparency Data at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/asylum-transparency-data-november-2018