Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many medical cannabis licences have been granted to pharmacies in (a) Birmingham, Ladywood constituency, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office Drugs and Firearms Licensing Unit (DFLU) issue controlled drug licences to possess, produce or supply drugs; they are company, site and activity specific. Separate licences may be issued to import or export controlled drugs. Pharmacies would ordinarily obtain their supplies of controlled drugs from licensed pharmaceutical wholesalers and, generally speaking would not require licensing by the DFLU.
This means that the data provided in response to this question will not give an insight into UK-based medicinal cannabis patients nor the pharmacies via which they receive their prescriptions. Instead, UK pharmacies would generally only require a DFLU licence where they are involved in exporting medicinal cannabis overseas, primarily to the Channel Islands and other Crown Dependencies with whom we have established licensing processes enabling the supply of controlled drugs.
Individual consignment export licences have been issued by DFLU to companies who supply Cannabis-Based Products for Medicinal use in Humans (CBPMs) to patients resident in Crown Dependencies. Some of those applications will have been made by General Pharmaceutical Council- registered ‘pharmacies’.
The number of applications for CBPM licences made by pharmacies in each the last 12 months in England are as follows:
|
|
May-21 | 95 |
Jun-21 | 136 |
Jul-21 | 124 |
Aug-21 | 95 |
Sep-21 | 99 |
Oct-21 | 99 |
Nov-21 | 59 |
Dec-21 | 34 |
Jan-22 | 34 |
Feb-22 | 40 |
Mar-22 | 29 |
Apr-22 | 10 |
May-22 (to 17 May) | 18 |
|
|
No licences were issued over this period to companies based in the West Midlands, inclusive of Birmingham Ladywood.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the number of applications for medical cannabis licences made by pharmacies in each the last 12 months.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the average time taken to award medical cannabis licences to pharmacies following their initial application.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many medical cannabis licences have been granted to pharmacies in (a) England, (b) the West Midlands and (c) Birmingham Ladywood in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Minister for Policing has taken to tackle anti-social behaviour within and around areas with a high concentration of exempt accommodation properties, following his visit to Birmingham in January 2022.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is committed to tackling and preventing anti-social behaviour (ASB).
We have provided the police, local authorities and other local agencies with a range of flexible tools and powers they can use to respond quickly and effectively to ASB through the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. It is for local areas to decide how best to deploy these powers; they are best placed to understand what is driving the behaviour in question and the impact it is having.
The Beating Crime Plan laid out the Government’s plan for tackling crime and ASB and the fourth round of the Safer Streets Fund will for the first time include ASB as a primary focus.
The Government has provided £1.84m to Birmingham City Council through a pilot to improve the standard and quality of Exempt Accommodation in the city. As part of the pilot, Birmingham City Council is working with West Midlands Police to tackle criminal exploitation of vulnerable people in supported housing by organised crime groups, by sharing information with local neighbourhood policing teams. The local authority has also launched a set of Quality Standards for supported housing, which it is using to accredit local providers and a Charter of Rights for residents.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress the Government has made on publishing its response to the consultation on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is in the final stages of producing its response to the consultation on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) and aims to publish the document as soon as possible.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of Afghan relatives of UK nationals who received advice from her Department on settling in the UK.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office does not hold the information requested.
Since the end of Operation Pitting, our helpline for non-British nationals in Afghanistan has provided information and support on the UK’s evacuation efforts, as well as general information about the relocation schemes, to 5.8 million callers.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the level of support that is offered to (a) UK nationals and (b) UK nationals’ relatives living in Afghanistan to apply to the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
We are working across government and with partners such as UNHCR to design the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), amidst a complex and changing picture. We are committed to working in step with the international community to get this right, and we will set out more details soon.
The first to be resettled through the ACRS will be some of those who arrived in the UK under the evacuation programme, which included individuals who were considered to be at particular risk.
There will not be a formal Home Office owned application process for the ACRS. Instead, eligible people will be prioritised and referred for resettlement to the UK as set out in the policy statement published on gov.uk on 13 September, available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghanistan-resettlement-and-immigration-policy-statement.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme will begin bringing those eligible for the scheme to the UK.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
We are working across government and with partners such as UNHCR to design the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), amidst a complex and changing picture. We are committed to working in step with the international community to get this right, and we will set out more details soon.
The first to be resettled through the ACRS will be some of those who arrived in the UK under the evacuation programme, which included individuals who were considered to be at particular risk.
There will not be a formal Home Office owned application process for the ACRS. Instead, eligible people will be prioritised and referred for resettlement to the UK as set out in the policy statement published on gov.uk on 13 September, available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghanistan-resettlement-and-immigration-policy-statement.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help ensure that all immigration applicants understand the immigration application process, including processing times and what happens after the receipt of a decision.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is committed to ensuring all applications are considered without unnecessary delay. Information on our immigration routes with service standards and whether they have been processed against these standards is available as part of our transparency data, at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data
If an application is deemed complex and expected to take longer than the standard processing timescale, UKVI will write to the customer within the standard processing time and explain what will happen next. The published information on processing times for complex/ non straightforward visa applications is published as part of the Migration Transparency data, at the above link.
All asylum claims are carefully considered on their individual merits on the evidence available to the decision maker. Although we concentrate on oldest cases there may be reasons where some applications may be prioritised due to several factors such as vulnerability. Delays may also occur where we require further information/investigations before a decision can be made on the application.
The Home Office issues an information leaflet to asylum claimants at the point of claim which outlines the asylum process and the claimant’s responsibilities within the process. This information leaflet is periodically reviewed. Independent guidance and advice are also available to asylum claimants provided by Migrant Help.
Migrant Help are present in initial accommodation where destitute asylum seekers are initially housed and their services can also be accessed via their website or by phone. Their website is available in multiple languages, and the helpline is free and accessible in multiple languages.
UKVI work closely with our key partners and stakeholders to seek and share feedback to identify ways in which we can improve the quality of experience of people seeking asylum in the UK. Our Customer Experience Management Team, based across the UK, work closely on a local level with stakeholders, to identify key areas to improve the overall experience for people seeking asylum in the UK.