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Written Question
Vetting: Standards
Monday 29th January 2024

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time for a DBS check is in (a) Canterbury constituency, (b) Kent and (c) England.

Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)

DBS publishes its performance data on a quarterly basis. For the third quarter of 2023-24, DBS achieved the following performance:

The target to process 85% of Basic checks within 2 days was met, with an average attainment of 88.1%. The 85% target was met on day 2 and the average turnaround time was 0.9 days.

The target to process 85% of Standard checks within 5 days was met, with an average attainment of 88.5%, the 85% target was met on day 3 and the average turnaround time was 1.5 days.

The target to process 80% of Enhanced checks within 14 days was not met during the quarter, with an average attainment of 76.7%. The 80% target was met on day 18 and the average turnaround time was 11.5 days.

For the Canterbury constituency, the average turnaround time between 1/04/2023 and 31/12/2023 was 19.8 days for Enhanced checks and 1.3 days for Standard checks.

For the Kent, the average turnaround time between 1/04/2023 and 31/12/2023 was 19.9 days for Enhanced checks and 1.3 days for Standard checks.


Written Question
Animal Welfare: Dogs
Monday 26th June 2023

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to protect the welfare of beagles bred for sale to animal testing facilities.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)

The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) provides protections for animals bred in the UK for use in scientific procedures.

All establishments licensed to breed protected animals under ASPA are required to comply with the published Code of Practice, which sets out standards for the appropriate care and accommodation of animals, including dogs.


Written Question
Manston Asylum Processing Centre: Heating
Thursday 23rd February 2023

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much is spent on weekly running costs for Manston Processing Centre, (a) in total and (b) for heating.

Answered by Robert Jenrick

The costs of operating the Manston Processing Centre sits across multiple commands and are attributed to a number of different budgets and funding streams. A costing exercise, commissioned in response to a similar request from the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC), is currently underway to capture this information. Once that exercise has been completed and the detail passed to HASC then this will be publicly available.


Written Question
Afghanistan: Hazara
Monday 13th February 2023

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many refugees from the Hazara community in Afghanistan have been granted asylum in the United Kingdom since August 2021.

Answered by Robert Jenrick

he Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on initial decisions on asylum applications by nationality can be found in table Asy_D02 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the year ending September 2022. Data for the year ending December 2022 will be published on 23 February 2023. Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.

The Home Office does not publish initial decisions on asylum applications by ethnicity, as ethnicity is not routinely collected as part of an asylum application in a way that is reportable.


Written Question
Manston Asylum Processing Centre: Detainees
Tuesday 7th February 2023

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people are held at Manston migrant processing centre.

Answered by Robert Jenrick

As of 21:15 on 30 January, there were no persons held at Manston.


Written Question
Homes for Ukraine Scheme
Thursday 21st July 2022

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time is for a visa application made under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

Answered by Kevin Foster

Applications are being processed as quickly as possible, with an aim of deciding the majority within 48 hours where we can do so.


Written Question
Asylum: Rwanda
Thursday 16th June 2022

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether scheduled deportation flights from the UK to Rwanda are planned to take place without passengers onboard; and what the cost to the public purse is of those flights.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

Our priority will always be to keep our communities safe, and we make no apology for seeking to remove those with no right to remain in the UK.

Charter flight operations are an important means to remove individuals with no right to remain in the UK where there are limited scheduled routes. We manage the charter programme flexibly, balancing it with use of scheduled flights to best respond to operational needs. Costs for individual flights will vary based on a number of different factors and are regularly reviewed to ensure that best value for money is balanced against the need to remove those individuals with no right to remain in the UK.

The endless merry go round of late legal claims – which are often unfounded or without merit – can result in people being removed from flights at the last minute. However, our New Plan for Immigration will stop the abuse of the system and expedite the removal of those who have no right to be here.


Written Question
Asylum: Rwanda
Thursday 16th June 2022

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an estimate of the cost to the taxpayer of the deportation flight from the UK to Rwanda scheduled for 14 June 2022.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

Our priority will always be to keep our communities safe, and we make no apology for seeking to remove those with no right to remain in the UK.

Charter flight operations are an important means to remove individuals with no right to remain in the UK where there are limited scheduled routes. We manage the charter programme flexibly, balancing it with use of scheduled flights to best respond to operational needs. Costs for individual flights will vary based on a number of different factors and are regularly reviewed to ensure that best value for money is balanced against the need to remove those individuals with no right to remain in the UK.

The endless merry go round of late legal claims – which are often unfounded or without merit – can result in people being removed from flights at the last minute. However, our New Plan for Immigration will stop the abuse of the system and expedite the removal of those who have no right to be here.


Written Question
HM Passport Office: Labour Turnover and Recruitment
Wednesday 8th June 2022

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to improve recruitment and retention of staff at HM Passport Office, in order to manage the backlog of outstanding passport cases.

Answered by Kevin Foster

To support the processing of an unprecedented demand of passport applications, Her Majesty’s Passport Office has increased its staffing numbers across the UK.

650 new staff have joined HM Passport Office since April 2021, with plans for a further 550 to have joined by the summer.


Written Question
HM Passport Office
Wednesday 8th June 2022

Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will instruct HM Passport Office to make available more fast-track and premium service appointments.

Answered by Kevin Foster

HMPO have implemented a range of interventions to increase our capacity for providing urgent service appointments.

Across March and April 2022, HM Passport Office completed the processing of nearly two million applications