Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his Department's publication entitled Home Office procurement card spend over £500: February 2024, published on 23 April 2024, which Honourable Society was paid £10,112.40 on 27 February 2024; and what the publication launch was for which that venue was booked.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
a) Honourable Society
These costs were incurred for the procurement of a venue for publication day launch of the Angiolini Inquiry Part 1 report.
b) Cinnamon Club
These costs were incurred for the Permanent Secretary’s hosting of US Department of Justice officials in the UK, as part of the HO-DoJ Strategic Dialogue.
c) Fletcher Gallery Services
These costs (none overseas) were incurred for the purchase of departmental furnishings.
d) Cloveride
These costs were incurred for the hire of two chauffeured vehicles for the Home Secretary’s official visit to New York in February 2024.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his Department's publication entitled Home Office procurement card spend over £500: February 2024, published on 23 April 2024, what the overseas costs linked to his visit were for the £636.48 paid to Fletcher Gallery Services Ltd on 20 February 2024.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
a) Honourable Society
These costs were incurred for the procurement of a venue for publication day launch of the Angiolini Inquiry Part 1 report.
b) Cinnamon Club
These costs were incurred for the Permanent Secretary’s hosting of US Department of Justice officials in the UK, as part of the HO-DoJ Strategic Dialogue.
c) Fletcher Gallery Services
These costs (none overseas) were incurred for the purchase of departmental furnishings.
d) Cloveride
These costs were incurred for the hire of two chauffeured vehicles for the Home Secretary’s official visit to New York in February 2024.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his Department's publication entitled Home Office procurement card spend over £500: February 2024, published on 23 April 2024, what the overseas costs linked to his visit were for the £4,409.66 paid to Cloveride Inc on 28 February 2024.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
a) Honourable Society
These costs were incurred for the procurement of a venue for publication day launch of the Angiolini Inquiry Part 1 report.
b) Cinnamon Club
These costs were incurred for the Permanent Secretary’s hosting of US Department of Justice officials in the UK, as part of the HO-DoJ Strategic Dialogue.
c) Fletcher Gallery Services
These costs (none overseas) were incurred for the purchase of departmental furnishings.
d) Cloveride
These costs were incurred for the hire of two chauffeured vehicles for the Home Secretary’s official visit to New York in February 2024.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment with the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the potential impact of crime on the economy in rural areas.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government recognises the importance of tackling wildlife crime, which is why, along with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Home Office directly funds the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) to help tackle these crimes.
The NWCU provides intelligence, analysis and investigative assistance to the police and other law enforcement agencies across the UK to support them in investigating wildlife crime. This includes supporting cases referred by Border Force to the National Crime Agency or to individual forces.
The NWCU is also the UK policing focal point for EUROPOL and INTERPOL wildlife crime activity. In addition, the National Police Chiefs’ Council Wildlife and Rural Crime Strategy 2022-2025 provides a framework through which policing, and its partners, can work together to tackle the most prevalent threats and emerging issues which predominantly affect rural communities.
Training standards and the national policing curriculum (covering initial training for all officers) are set by the College of Policing to ensure all officers benefit from the same high standard of initial training, regardless of which force they join. Officers undertake further training and development during their career, which may be tailored to their specific role.
We have not recently held discussions with policing on the potential merit to incorporate wildlife crime into the Policing Education Qualification Framework and there are currently no plans to undertake an assessment of the impact of crime on the economy in rural areas.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on how many occasions a person (a) was interviewed and (b) had charges brought against them in connection with controlling drones above an ongoing crime scene in 2023.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold information on the number of interviews or charges in connection with controlling drones above ongoing crime scenes.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he plans to (a) review and (b) increase the number of staff recruited to his Department's Family and Human Rights Unit in the context of trends in the proportion of people relying on their rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights in applications for family visas.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Yes, we have both recruited new staff and redeployed existing staff to this area of work.
Asked by: Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many Afghans currently in the UK and awaiting implementation of the family reunion scheme for those who supported British personnel in Afghanistan have wives and children in Pakistan who are in danger of being returned to Afghanistan.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government remains committed to providing protection for vulnerable and at-risk people fleeing Afghanistan. This includes eligible immediate family members of those being resettled under both the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS).
Data on the number of Afghans in the UK who are awaiting a route for separated families to be reunited is unavailable at this time.
Public data on the number of Afghans in Pakistan who are eligible to join family members already resettled under both the ARAP and ACRS is unavailable. However; the latest published statistics, summarised at Afghan Resettlement Programme: operational data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), show that, at the end of December 2023, 14,423 people have been relocated to the UK under the ARAP so far, and a further 10,520 have been relocated under ACRS.
The Government is aiming to bring eligible persons (EPs) to the UK from Pakistan and other third countries as soon as reasonably practicable and has so far relocated over 3000 people since October.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the border between the UK and Republic of Ireland is secure against the passage malign foreign actors.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
We continue a high level of cooperation on border security with Ireland; working closely together to identify and tackle those who seek to abuse arrangements from entering the Common Travel Area.
Schedule 3 to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 allows a Counter-Terrorism Police Officer to stop, question and, when necessary, detain and search, individuals and goods travelling through UK ports and the “border area” for the purpose of determining whether the person (or the goods) appears to be someone who is, or has been, engaged in hostile activity.
In Northern Ireland, a place is within the “border area” if it is no more than one mile from the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or it is the first place at which a train travelling from the Republic of Ireland stops to let passengers off.
Individuals who seek to abuse the Common Travel Area arrangements are liable to be detained, and if unlawfully entering the UK, removed.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when he plans to raise the minimum income threshold for the spouse/partner visa to (a) £34,500 and (b) £38,700.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The first increase to the MIR took effect from 11 April 2024 when it was raised to £29,000. The dates for further increases to £34,500 and £38,700 will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of applicants refused asylum did not appeal that decision in the last 12 months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The requested information cannot be accurately extracted from our internal systems. To provide this information would require a manual trawl of asylum refusal decisions and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
It might be helpful to explain that data on asylum outcomes is published as part of the Immigration Statistics at Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Tab Asy_D02 of the Asylum and Resettlement tables contains data on asylum refusal decisions. Data on appeal volumes is published by HM Courts and Tribunals Service on a quarterly basis. The latest publication can be found at Tribunals statistics quarterly: October to December 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Table FIA_1 of the Main Tables section shows asylum and protection appeal volumes data to 31 December 2023.