Mar. 07 2024
Source Page: Visas for culture and creative sectors: Letter to Home SecretaryFound: Visas for culture and creative sectors: Letter to Home Secretary
Mentions:
1: Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab - Life peer) There have been multiple failures identified in the Home Office system for awarding care worker visas - Speech Link
2: Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con - Life peer) to the year ending December 2023, show that we have issued more than 146,000 health and care worker visas - Speech Link
3: Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con - Life peer) I reiterate that we will go after people who are abusing the visas and the individuals. - Speech Link
4: Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con - Life peer) The noble Baroness asks me about the care sector in general; I am obviously here to talk about visas. - Speech Link
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken was to process migrant visa applications in each of the last three years for which data is available.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Data relating the performance against visa service standards are produced as part of the Migration Transparency publication.
These can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#uk-visas-and-immigration.
Mentions:
1: Lord Young of Cookham (Con - Life peer) the framework within which they operate—freezing student fees for seven years and controlling student visas - Speech Link
2: Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab - Life peer) Minister seen that even the Foreign Secretary contacted the Prime Minister to say that a curb on graduate visas - Speech Link
3: Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con - Life peer) pushover—can my noble friend reassure us that the Government will allow recent changes to postgraduate visas - Speech Link
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many visas his Department has granted to applicants from North Macedonia in each year since 2020.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on visas granted, by nationality, are published in table Vis_D02 of the Entry clearance detailed dataset. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relate up to the end of 2023.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have worked under the poultry Seasonal Worker visa scheme in each year since 2021.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on the number of grants of Seasonal Worker visas is published in table Vis_D02 of the Entry clearance detailed dataset. Data on visa grants by occupation can be found in table Occ_D02, of the Sponsored work visas by occupation and industry dataset. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook.
The latest data relates up to the end of December 2023.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of applicants have secured a Seasonal Worker visa in each year since 2019.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on the number of grants of Seasonal Worker visas is published in table Vis_D02 of the Entry clearance detailed dataset. Data on visa grants by occupation can be found in table Occ_D02, of the Sponsored work visas by occupation and industry dataset. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook.
The latest data relates up to the end of December 2023.
Asked by: Dave Doogan (Scottish National Party - Angus and Perthshire Glens)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of granting a visa waiver for Ukrainians visiting relatives and friends (a) displaced by the war in Ukraine and (b) temporarily resident in the UK.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Visit visas are an important part of securing the UK’s border.
Waiving visa requirements for a specific cohort of Ukrainian nationals would not be consistent with the purpose of the visa requirement. There is no obvious mechanism for delivering the utility of a visa application and biometric enrolment, which underpin the role visas play in securing our border, whilst also distinguishing a cohort of Ukrainian nationals who have the requirements waived. Identifying those individuals and enrolling their biometrics would require a process which would be, in practice, nearly identical to a visa application.
Ukrainians who want to visit relatives and friends in the UK can apply for a standard visitor visa, including multiple-entry visas. The UK has a visa application centre (VAC) in Kyiv, and a VAC network in neighbouring countries, enabling Ukrainians to access these services and apply for visas.
This is in no way a reflection on our support for Ukraine which remains, and will always remain, steadfast. The Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme remains open for new applications from those wishing to come to the UK, seeking temporary sanctuary from the conflict.
To provide future certainty, we recently announced the new Ukraine Permission Extension scheme, which is a new visa scheme for existing Ukraine scheme visa holders who have made the UK their temporary home. It will provide permission to stay in the UK for an additional 18 months and is due to open early in 2025.
Mentions:
1: Lord Oates (LD - Life peer) However, they are repeatedly being refused visas for their children. - Speech Link
2: None The issue I want to dig into in my remarks is the question about visas that were issued for jobs that - Speech Link
3: Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab - Life peer) The changes the Government have made regarding access to and cost of visas, including family visas, have - Speech Link
4: Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con - Life peer) Building on that, we added care workers to the shortage occupation list and health and care visas on - Speech Link
Asked by: Sorcha Eastwood (Alliance - Lagan Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her policy is on changes to the level of the baseline minimum salary for family visas for spouses and partners.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The new Home Secretary will decide on the future of current Home Office policies in due course. Any changes will be announced to Parliament.