Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department processes applications to the Homes for Ukraine scheme from unaccompanied minors on a case-by-case basis.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Unaccompanied minors are only eligible under the Homes for Ukraine scheme if they are reuniting with a parent or legal guardian in the UK, this policy is being kept under review.
The current data on unaccompanied minors is contained in the following link:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukraine-family-scheme-application-data
Information requested which is not contained within this published data is not routinely captured. To capture numbers would require a manual trawl of data and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Such applications received in accordance with the immigration rules for unaccompanied minors will normally be processed in date order from when documents are uploaded or after an appointment at a Visa Application Centre (VAC). Some cases will take longer as these are complex cases where safeguarding issues must be a priority before any decision is made.
Applications made under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme are being prioritised by UKVI, and case workers are processing applications as quickly as possible.
Applicants are contacted by email once their application has been received and processed. Where further information is needed on an application, UKVI contact applicants as a priority. Decisions are emailed to the email address provided in the application form.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications from unaccompanied minors to the Homes for Ukraine scheme her Department has fully processed.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Unaccompanied minors are only eligible under the Homes for Ukraine scheme if they are reuniting with a parent or legal guardian in the UK, this policy is being kept under review.
The current data on unaccompanied minors is contained in the following link:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukraine-family-scheme-application-data
Information requested which is not contained within this published data is not routinely captured. To capture numbers would require a manual trawl of data and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Such applications received in accordance with the immigration rules for unaccompanied minors will normally be processed in date order from when documents are uploaded or after an appointment at a Visa Application Centre (VAC). Some cases will take longer as these are complex cases where safeguarding issues must be a priority before any decision is made.
Applications made under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme are being prioritised by UKVI, and case workers are processing applications as quickly as possible.
Applicants are contacted by email once their application has been received and processed. Where further information is needed on an application, UKVI contact applicants as a priority. Decisions are emailed to the email address provided in the application form.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of applications to her Department under the Homes for Ukraine scheme on processing time for asylum applications; and what steps her Department is taking to mitigate any such impact.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office publishes data on how many asylum applications were waiting to be processed, but only up to and including March 2022. This data can be further broken down by nationality and is found in table Asy_D03 of the published immigration statistics:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-applications-decisions-and-resettlement. Data for June 2022 will be published on 25 August 2022.
The Home Office publishes data on the number of asylum applications awaiting an initial decision by duration, for main applicants only, up to and including March 2022. This data can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-march-2022/list-of-tables#asylum-and-resettlement
The Homes for Ukraine Scheme is separate to the asylum process. All asylum claims, including those from nationals of Ukraine, are considered on a case-by-case basis, based on the facts presented by the claimant, regardless of the claimant’s country of origin and the prevailing situation.
Latest published immigration statistics show there has been an increase in the number of Ukrainian asylum claims. This data can be found in table Asy_D01:
The Home Office are also continuing to invest in a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives that will speed up and simplify decision making, reduce the time people spend in the asylum system and decrease the number of people who are awaiting an interview or decision.
The department also have extensive recruitment and training plans in place, including career progression options to aid the retention of staff.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of applications to her Department under the Homes for Ukraine scheme on the number of asylum applications awaiting decision; and what steps her Department is taking to mitigate any such impact.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office publishes data on how many asylum applications were waiting to be processed, but only up to and including March 2022. This data can be further broken down by nationality and is found in table Asy_D03 of the published immigration statistics:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-applications-decisions-and-resettlement. Data for June 2022 will be published on 25 August 2022.
The Home Office publishes data on the number of asylum applications awaiting an initial decision by duration, for main applicants only, up to and including March 2022. This data can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-march-2022/list-of-tables#asylum-and-resettlement
The Homes for Ukraine Scheme is separate to the asylum process. All asylum claims, including those from nationals of Ukraine, are considered on a case-by-case basis, based on the facts presented by the claimant, regardless of the claimant’s country of origin and the prevailing situation.
Latest published immigration statistics show there has been an increase in the number of Ukrainian asylum claims. This data can be found in table Asy_D01:
The Home Office are also continuing to invest in a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives that will speed up and simplify decision making, reduce the time people spend in the asylum system and decrease the number of people who are awaiting an interview or decision.
The department also have extensive recruitment and training plans in place, including career progression options to aid the retention of staff.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applications were waiting to be processed on 7 June 2022; and if she will make an estimate of the average time it took to process an asylum application in (a) the 12 months prior to and (b) since the introduction of the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office publishes data on how many asylum applications were waiting to be processed, but only up to and including March 2022. This data can be further broken down by nationality and is found in table Asy_D03 of the published immigration statistics:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-applications-decisions-and-resettlement. Data for June 2022 will be published on 25 August 2022.
The Home Office publishes data on the number of asylum applications awaiting an initial decision by duration, for main applicants only, up to and including March 2022. This data can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-march-2022/list-of-tables#asylum-and-resettlement
The Homes for Ukraine Scheme is separate to the asylum process. All asylum claims, including those from nationals of Ukraine, are considered on a case-by-case basis, based on the facts presented by the claimant, regardless of the claimant’s country of origin and the prevailing situation.
Latest published immigration statistics show there has been an increase in the number of Ukrainian asylum claims. This data can be found in table Asy_D01:
The Home Office are also continuing to invest in a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives that will speed up and simplify decision making, reduce the time people spend in the asylum system and decrease the number of people who are awaiting an interview or decision.
The department also have extensive recruitment and training plans in place, including career progression options to aid the retention of staff.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the (a) shortest, (b) longest and (c) average length of time is for additional security checks on sponsors to be completed under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Relevant security checks are undertaken on all applications.
We have robust safeguarding checks in place on the Homes for Ukraine scheme – this includes checks on accommodation by local authorities, checks on an individual’s immigration status to ensure they can fulfil the six month accommodation requirement, and checks on the Police National Computer and Warning Index.
Information on the number of visas granted under the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine Scheme can be found in our published data on the GOV.UK webpage: Ukraine Schemes: application data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of applications under the Homes for Ukraine scheme are on hold while their sponsors undergo further security checks.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Relevant security checks are undertaken on all applications.
We have robust safeguarding checks in place on the Homes for Ukraine scheme – this includes checks on accommodation by local authorities, checks on an individual’s immigration status to ensure they can fulfil the six month accommodation requirement, and checks on the Police National Computer and Warning Index.
Information on the number of visas granted under the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine Scheme can be found in our published data on the GOV.UK webpage: Ukraine Schemes: application data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of sponsors under the Homes for Ukraine scheme require additional security checks.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Relevant security checks are undertaken on all applications.
We have robust safeguarding checks in place on the Homes for Ukraine scheme – this includes checks on accommodation by local authorities, checks on an individual’s immigration status to ensure they can fulfil the six month accommodation requirement, and checks on the Police National Computer and Warning Index.
Information on the number of visas granted under the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine Scheme can be found in our published data on the GOV.UK webpage: Ukraine Schemes: application data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department has in place for family members in the Ukraine seeking to join family settled in the United Kingdom under the streamlined process announced on 10 March 2022; and how many applications have been made under that process.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The GOV.UK website is periodically revised with additional guidance and information for Ukrainian nationals and their families. The latest information can be found here: Apply for a Ukraine Family Scheme visa - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
General information on the number of applications currently being processed under the newly launched Ukraine Family Scheme can be found in our published data on the GOV.UK webpage: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukraine-family-scheme-application-data
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, further to oral contribution of 10 March 2022, if all outstanding visa applications from Ukrainian applicants seeking to join family in the United Kingdom will fall under the new scheme.
Answered by Kevin Foster
As set out in the Home Secretary’s statement to the House on 1 March, a fee free, bespoke Ukraine Family Scheme has been introduced. The route allows both immediate family (spouse, civil partner, durable partner, minor children) and extended family (parent, grandparent, adult children, grandchildren, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, in laws and their immediate family) to join qualifying family members in the UK. This route was launched on 4 March.
If an applicant has applied on another application form or under a different visa route and the decision maker feels the applicant would qualify under the Ukraine Family Scheme, the decision maker will write to the applicant and offer them the opportunity to be considered under the Scheme. The decision maker will consider the application on the evidence already provided unless there is insufficient information to make a decision. This will ensure an application can be assessed under the Ukraine Family Scheme without the need for a further application.