Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ruth Cadbury and Johnny Mercer

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

We meet the devolved authorities regularly to make sure that all our strategies are in sync. Obviously, a lot of these policy areas, whether health, housing or education, are devolved, but we are clear that, both nationally and internationally, we want the Office for Veterans’ Affairs to set the standard. We have great relationships internationally now in terms of setting the pace on that, and I want to make sure it is concomitant with what we are doing with the devolved authorities: we have regular meetings with the Welsh Government and the Scottish, and indeed we are going over to Northern Ireland again in two weeks.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department’s processes for scrutinising nominations for honours.

Afghan Resettlement Update

Debate between Ruth Cadbury and Johnny Mercer

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

The two things that the Minister for Armed Forces was saying on Monday are correct. Being in a taskforce does not automatically entitle someone to be in the United Kingdom, because while that might initially get them through the eligibility criteria, there may be well-founded reasons why that individual does not settle into accommodation in the UK, including many different national security reasons that have been outlined. He was correct to say that, and he is correct to say that the Afghan taskforce had an Afghan command reporting chain. I am clear about the criteria for ARAP entitlement, and the vast majority of triple-three and triple-four operators should fit within those criteria. If they meet the criteria and deserve to be in the United Kingdom, I will do everything I can to get them here. This is a Government effort; it is not led by a single Department. This is a cross-Government issue for the Home Office, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Ministry of Defence. I have been asked by the Prime Minister to oversee it, and that is what I am doing at the moment.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for including the word “integration” in his statement. This weekend I met a man who is now settled through the ARAP scheme in a permanent home in my constituency after living for over a year in a hotel elsewhere with his family. Although he is hugely grateful to the Government, Hounslow London Borough Council and Refugees Welcome Hounslow for the support he has had to ensure that he and his family are safe and secure, it is not everything. He is working 16 hours a week in a minimum-wage catering job. He has had no support to find properly paid work that uses the skills and experience that the UK valued when he worked for our specialist services in Afghanistan. As well as providing adequate housing, will the Government please ensure that those settled through ARAP and ACRS get quality support to help them into a future career in this country, so that they can be fully integrated?

[Johnny Mercer]

I do not accept that this individual will have had no support. There would have been a lot of money and support thrown at such individuals and communities as they came in. There is the £20,520 integration fund, which is specifically for that purpose. Clearly, we are balancing different competing pressures when it comes to individuals getting into jobs and using skills that they had in Afghanistan, and that work continues. That will be stood up again for the process that we stood up in the summer, to make sure that we get people out of hotels and into good, long-term accommodation. I fully accept that there is a job of integration to be done there, and that is what we are working to do, using the voluntary sector, the third sector, local authorities and everybody else who is willing to lean into this.

Pakistan: Evacuation of Afghans

Debate between Ruth Cadbury and Johnny Mercer

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

I will look at every case. There is no policy decision to block those who are entitled to be in the UK from being in the UK. Many of us take this personally, and we will see this duty through. Of course I will look at every case and ensure that a decision is made fairly. There are individuals in the Ministry of Defence who are under extreme pressure and working incredibly hard to try to meet this challenge. It is very difficult. I am more than happy to look at cases again, but I do not want people to go away thinking that there is some blanket decision to reject these applicants and not to allow them the protections we promised then. That is categorically not the case and I am more than happy to look at individual situations.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

My constituent’s parents fled Afghanistan for Pakistan. On appeal, they were granted adult dependent relative visas to join their family here, but before that decision was made, their Pakistan visa expired and they were forced to return to Afghanistan. Due to their being Hazaras, the fear of travel, their disabilities and medical needs, and the policy of the Pakistan Government, they cannot return to Pakistan to collect their paperwork to travel to the UK. Will the Government consider issuing some form of digital visa or travel document, so that they can fly to the UK and join their family here?

[Johnny Mercer]

I am more than happy, as I have said, to look at individual cases. We are dealing with competing pressures here of UK visas and Pakistan visas running out, but I can only reiterate what I have said: where there is a duty to these people, we will see it through, and I will work night and day to achieve that endeavour.