Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to allocate additional funds to the Windrush Compensation Scheme; and if she will make a statement to mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush in Britain.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Scheme has reached its public commitment of deploying 154 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) Executive Office (EO) Decision Makers by Quarter 2 2023. The Scheme also continues to run ongoing recruitment campaigns to ensure the necessary level of staffing is maintained and has continued to backfill those who leave.
As set out by the Home Secretary at the Windrush Working Group Meeting on 24 January 2023, additional experienced EO decision makers have also been deployed on a temporary basis to assist with accelerating decision making; these staff are in addition to meeting the public commitment to post 154 substantive EO decision makers recruited.
Regarding allocating additional funds to the Windrush Compensation Scheme, there is no cap on the amount of compensation the Scheme will pay out. The Government is determined to right the wrongs for affected members of the Windrush generation and will ensure that all funding requirements are met.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department is taking steps to increase the number of full time equivalent staff working on processing Windrush Compensation Scheme claims.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Scheme has reached its public commitment of deploying 154 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) Executive Office (EO) Decision Makers by Quarter 2 2023. The Scheme also continues to run ongoing recruitment campaigns to ensure the necessary level of staffing is maintained and has continued to backfill those who leave.
As set out by the Home Secretary at the Windrush Working Group Meeting on 24 January 2023, additional experienced EO decision makers have also been deployed on a temporary basis to assist with accelerating decision making; these staff are in addition to meeting the public commitment to post 154 substantive EO decision makers recruited.
Regarding allocating additional funds to the Windrush Compensation Scheme, there is no cap on the amount of compensation the Scheme will pay out. The Government is determined to right the wrongs for affected members of the Windrush generation and will ensure that all funding requirements are met.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time is for Entry Clearance applications submitted on the basis of family reunion from (a) Syrian, (b) Afghan and (c) Ukrainian refugees.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Information regarding processing times and nationality of applicants is not routinely published and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
We prioritise all applications where the application has been made by an unaccompanied child, under the age of 18. We will also prioritise applications where there is an evidenced urgent or compelling reason.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent progress her Department has made on reducing the backlog of asylum applications.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We are streamlining and modernising the end-to-end asylum casework process, extending the asylum questionnaire to Iranians and Iraqi nationals, and increasing the number of asylum decision makers by over 48% since July 2022.
The Home Office has already reduced the legacy asylum backlog by over 13,800 cases and we are on track to clear the backlog by the end of 2023.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of their Department's employees are recorded as having a disability.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The proportion of Home Office staff who have declared they have a disability is 12%.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to help prevent hate crime against disabled people.
Answered by Sarah Dines
Hate crime is a scourge on communities across the country. It does not reflect the values of modern Britain.
All forms of hate crime, including disability hate crime, are completely unacceptable. We expect the police to fully investigate these hateful attacks and make sure the cowards who commit them feel the full force of the law.
Our absolute priority is to get more police onto our streets, cut crime, protect the public and bring more criminals to justice. We are supporting the police by providing them with the resources they need, including recruiting 20,000 extra police officers.
To tackle online hate crime, including disability hate crime, we fund a National Online Hate Crime Hub, which is a central police capability designed to support forces in dealing with online hate crime. The hub includes a public reporting portal and provides expert advice to forces to support them in investigating these offences.
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the proportion of disability hate crime offences which resulted in a charge or summons for selected offence groups in an annual statistical bulletin on hate crime. Data for 2021/22 can be found in Figure 2.8 of the publication, available here: Hate crime, England and Wales, 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Data for previous years can be found in the respective annual publications.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to help encourage individuals to report hate crime against disabled people.
Answered by Sarah Dines
Hate crime is a scourge on communities across the country. It does not reflect the values of modern Britain.
All forms of hate crime, including disability hate crime, are completely unacceptable. We expect the police to fully investigate these hateful attacks and make sure the cowards who commit them feel the full force of the law.
Our absolute priority is to get more police onto our streets, cut crime, protect the public and bring more criminals to justice. We are supporting the police by providing them with the resources they need, including recruiting 20,000 extra police officers.
To tackle online hate crime, including disability hate crime, we fund a National Online Hate Crime Hub, which is a central police capability designed to support forces in dealing with online hate crime. The hub includes a public reporting portal and provides expert advice to forces to support them in investigating these offences.
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the proportion of disability hate crime offences which resulted in a charge or summons for selected offence groups in an annual statistical bulletin on hate crime. Data for 2021/22 can be found in Figure 2.8 of the publication, available here: Hate crime, England and Wales, 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Data for previous years can be found in the respective annual publications.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many disability hate crime reports resulted in a charge in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Dines
Hate crime is a scourge on communities across the country. It does not reflect the values of modern Britain.
All forms of hate crime, including disability hate crime, are completely unacceptable. We expect the police to fully investigate these hateful attacks and make sure the cowards who commit them feel the full force of the law.
Our absolute priority is to get more police onto our streets, cut crime, protect the public and bring more criminals to justice. We are supporting the police by providing them with the resources they need, including recruiting 20,000 extra police officers.
To tackle online hate crime, including disability hate crime, we fund a National Online Hate Crime Hub, which is a central police capability designed to support forces in dealing with online hate crime. The hub includes a public reporting portal and provides expert advice to forces to support them in investigating these offences.
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the proportion of disability hate crime offences which resulted in a charge or summons for selected offence groups in an annual statistical bulletin on hate crime. Data for 2021/22 can be found in Figure 2.8 of the publication, available here: Hate crime, England and Wales, 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Data for previous years can be found in the respective annual publications.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many disability hate crime reports resulted in a court summons in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Dines
Hate crime is a scourge on communities across the country. It does not reflect the values of modern Britain.
All forms of hate crime, including disability hate crime, are completely unacceptable. We expect the police to fully investigate these hateful attacks and make sure the cowards who commit them feel the full force of the law.
Our absolute priority is to get more police onto our streets, cut crime, protect the public and bring more criminals to justice. We are supporting the police by providing them with the resources they need, including recruiting 20,000 extra police officers.
To tackle online hate crime, including disability hate crime, we fund a National Online Hate Crime Hub, which is a central police capability designed to support forces in dealing with online hate crime. The hub includes a public reporting portal and provides expert advice to forces to support them in investigating these offences.
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the proportion of disability hate crime offences which resulted in a charge or summons for selected offence groups in an annual statistical bulletin on hate crime. Data for 2021/22 can be found in Figure 2.8 of the publication, available here: Hate crime, England and Wales, 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Data for previous years can be found in the respective annual publications.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of disabled people hold a valid passport.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
His Majesty’s Passport Office can apply exemptions to its policies where a disability would create undue difficulties in applying for a passport and will hold data on an individual record where such an exemption has been applied. However, a person being disabled otherwise has no bearing upon applying for a passport, and therefore data relating to a disability is not routinely captured or held in a reportable format.