Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has plans to extend the Action Access pilot scheme in response to the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the numbers of women participating in that scheme.

Now in its second year, the Action Access pilot has provided women who would otherwise be detained with a programme of support in the community, including case management support. We are working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and they have appointed the National Centre for Social Research to independently evaluate this work, once the pilot concludes in March 2021. The evaluation is scheduled for publication Summer 2021. We will use the evaluation to inform our future approach to case-management focused alternatives to detention.