Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the increasing number of migrant deaths when attempting to cross the English Channel.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
Channel crossing attempts by migrants in small boats have always been lethally dangerous, with the Channel being a very busy shipping lane. The first recorded fatalities occurred in August 2019. Since the start of 2024, there have been 12 fatal incidents involving the deaths of 37 people. Crossings are getting more and more dangerous as time goes on, with the danger and the risk rising as quality of boats deteriorates and more people are crammed on board.
The ‘vessels’ used to make these crossings are not of commercial manufacture. They are poorly constructed, from cheap and flimsy materials, are unseaworthy, underpowered, and lack safety equipment. They founder frequently, and for each fatal incident there are plenty of other near misses where boats have begun to deflate and people have gone in the water.
The criminal gangs who facilitate these crossings have no interest in the welfare of their clients, only in the pursuit of profit. It is for this reason that boats are increasingly seen to be overcrowded, with the most vulnerable packed into the middle of the boat where crushing and other injuries, such as fuel burns, become more likely.
We are working closely with the French to reduce the risk to life from these crossings and with partners across Europe to bring the evil people smuggling gangs to justice.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have absconded from immigration detention in each year since 2004.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on escapes from immigration detention in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on escapes from detention centres and absconds from escort is published by year in table Det_05a of the ‘Detention summary tables’. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The published data covers the period from 2017 to 2023. Data prior to 2017 is not published. Data for the year 2024 is due to be published in the August 2025 edition of the publication.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many positions in her Department included (a) diversity, (b) inclusion, (c) equity and (d) equality in their job title in each of the last five years; and what the total cost of the salaries of each such job was in each of those years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Home Office does not routinely collate information on specific words and collating this information would come at a disproportionate cost.
Information on spending and staffing can be found in the Department's annual report and accounts.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of former asylum applicants who have withdrawn their applications (a) have left the country and (b) her Department knew the location of in each year since 2015.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not routinely publish the information you have requested, we are unable to provide this information, as it could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost was to the public purse of (a) legal fees and (b) related costs incurred for the rejection of freedom of information requests between 30 March 2020 and 9 September 2024 seeking the publication of the report entitled, The Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We do not know the total legal fees incurred as we have not yet been billed for the complete period between 30 March 2020 to 9 September 2024, but we expect the final cost to be in the region of £20,000-£22,500. There was no awarding of costs in the First Tier Tribunal judgment that the Department must disclose the Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal report. The only other costs incurred were Home Office officials’ time.
Asked by: Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government which 10 local authorities in the UK had the most asylum seekers supported by the Home Office by proportion of population in the most recent year for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is determined to restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly and fairly. This includes our accommodation sites, as the Home Office continues to identify a range of options to minimise the use of expensive hotels and ensure better use of public money, whilst maintaining sufficient accommodation to meet demand.
The most recent data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation, including hotels, at: Asy_D11 Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Home Office has had various grants through which we provide funds to support local authorities housing asylum seekers.
Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of using the Accreditation UK scheme for institutions providing courses to students on a Sponsored Study visa.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
International students using the student and child student routes must be sponsored by an education provider that holds a Student sponsor licence.
Education providers wishing to sponsor international students must obtain and maintain a Home Office Sponsor licence to do so and must be assessed for educational quality by an Educational Oversight body. We keep our immigration policies and Student sponsorship system under constant review.
Asked by: Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government which 10 local authorities in the UK had the most asylum seekers in the most recent year for which figures are available, and how much funding each of those 10 local authorities received to support asylum seekers.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is determined to restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly and fairly. This includes our accommodation sites, as the Home Office continues to identify a range of options to minimise the use of expensive hotels and ensure better use of public money, whilst maintaining sufficient accommodation to meet demand.
The most recent data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation, including hotels, at: Asy_D11 Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Home Office has had various grants through which we provide funds to support local authorities housing asylum seekers.
Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether future funding for organisations tackling violence against women and girls will (a) support the full running costs of services, (b) make provision for cost of living increases over the funding period and (c) allow for the remuneration of staff.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
To make our streets safe, we must drastically reduce serious violent crimes and violence against women and girls; increase confidence in the police; stop young people falling into crime and make our criminal justice system work for victims.
We have set out our mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.
This Government will treat tackling violence against women and girls as a national emergency and will use every tool to target perpetrators and ensure survivors have access to the support they need.
All decisions on funding will be made in due course as part of the Spending Review. The Majority of funding in this space is from MoJ and MHCLG.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of trends in the level of reported incidents of anti-social behaviour in (a) Aldershot constituency and (b) Hampshire.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling anti-social behaviour is a top priority for this Government, and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission. We understand that anti-social behaviour causes great harm and misery to our communities, and, if left unchecked, can lead to more serious offending.
We will crack down on the adults making neighbourhoods feel unsafe and unwelcoming by introducing new powers, such as Respect Orders with tough sanctions and penalties, to tackle repeat offending.
The Office for National Statistics annually publishes anti-social behaviour incidents reported to the police by Police Force Area. The latest available data covering year to March 2024 can be found here: Crime in England and Wales: Police Force Area data tables - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). Data is also published at the Community Safety Partnership level. The latest available data covering year to March 2024 can be found here: Recorded crime data by Community Safety Partnership area - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
Monthly Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) police recorded incidents of anti-social behaviour are available through police.uk. The latest data covering incidents to end of July 2024 can be found here: Data downloads | data.police.uk