Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of changes to immigration rules on people on current settlement pathways.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The earned settlement model, proposed in A Fairer Pathway to Settlement, is currently subject to a public consultation, running until 12 February 2026.
Details of the earned settlement scheme, including any transitional arrangements for those already in the UK, will be finalised following that consultation.
The final model will also be subject to economic and equality impact assessment, which we have committed to publish in due course.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Immigration White Paper S.221, what specific measures are in place or being developed to tackle sponsors who fall short of their responsibilities.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The current measures to tackle sponsors who fall short of their sponsorship duties can be found on Gov.uk in Part 3 of the guidance for sponsors:
These range from reducing a sponsor’s allocation of certificates of sponsorship to revoking their licence and, if necessary, reporting them to the relevant authorities for further investigation.
The sponsor guidance is kept under close ongoing review, with enhancements to the relevant criteria made on an iterative basis.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of not resolving the immigration status of children in care before they turn 18.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Secretary set out in the Immigration White Paper published on 12 May that the Home Office will ensure children who have been in the UK for some time, turn 18 and discover they do not have status, are fully supported and able to regularise their status and settle where appropriate. This will also include a clear pathway for those children in care and care leavers.
As part of this, separate targeted engagement will take place with external stakeholders to help us to understand the challenges in this area and develop a policy solution which supports children in care without status while upholding the need to have a robust and coherent migration system. Children who have claimed asylum are dealt with under separate provisions.
A range of reforms are underway across the immigration and asylum system, and the development of a clear pathway to settlement for children in care and care leavers must be considered alongside these changes.
Further detail on this will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that every child in care has their immigration status resolved before turning 18.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Secretary set out in the Immigration White Paper published on 12 May that the Home Office will ensure children who have been in the UK for some time, turn 18 and discover they do not have status, are fully supported and able to regularise their status and settle where appropriate. This will also include a clear pathway for those children in care and care leavers.
As part of this, separate targeted engagement will take place with external stakeholders to help us to understand the challenges in this area and develop a policy solution which supports children in care without status while upholding the need to have a robust and coherent migration system. Children who have claimed asylum are dealt with under separate provisions.
A range of reforms are underway across the immigration and asylum system, and the development of a clear pathway to settlement for children in care and care leavers must be considered alongside these changes.
Further detail on this will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many civil penalties have been issued to employers sponsoring workers under work‑related visa routes since 4 July 2024 by a) visa route and b) sector.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Information on illegal working civil penalty statistics has been published since 2016 as part of the Home Office Immigration Transparency Data. This can be found at immigration-enforcement-data-jul-sep-2025 on tab CP02.
To identify specific employers sponsoring workers under work‑related visa routes would require collating and verifying individual data from different records, which could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases of (a) suspected and (b) confirmed exploitation involving holders of work‑related visas have been recorded since 4 July 2024 by (i) visa route and (ii) month.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on Visa Sponsors that are B rated in the ‘Register of licensed sponsors: workers - GOV.UK’.
Please note - published data shows the number of licensed sponsors over time but does not include the number of visas associated with each organisation.
The Home Office publishes data on the number of visas sponsored by organisations over the past 10 years, as well as data since 4 July 2024, in the ‘Migration transparency data - GOV.UK’.
Data on the number of visas sponsored by licensed organisations is published in table SP_01 of the ‘Sponsorship transparency data: July to September 2025’.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data is from 2014 Q1 up to the end of 2025 Q3.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of organisations on the register of licensed sponsors have sponsored visas a) in the last 10 years and b) since 4 July 2024.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on Visa Sponsors that are B rated in the ‘Register of licensed sponsors: workers - GOV.UK’.
Please note - published data shows the number of licensed sponsors over time but does not include the number of visas associated with each organisation.
The Home Office publishes data on the number of visas sponsored by organisations over the past 10 years, as well as data since 4 July 2024, in the ‘Migration transparency data - GOV.UK’.
Data on the number of visas sponsored by licensed organisations is published in table SP_01 of the ‘Sponsorship transparency data: July to September 2025’.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data is from 2014 Q1 up to the end of 2025 Q3.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many visa-sponsoring organisations are B-rated; and how many visas those organisations sponsored as of October 2025.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on Visa Sponsors that are B rated in the ‘Register of licensed sponsors: workers - GOV.UK’.
Please note - published data shows the number of licensed sponsors over time but does not include the number of visas associated with each organisation.
The Home Office publishes data on the number of visas sponsored by organisations over the past 10 years, as well as data since 4 July 2024, in the ‘Migration transparency data - GOV.UK’.
Data on the number of visas sponsored by licensed organisations is published in table SP_01 of the ‘Sponsorship transparency data: July to September 2025’.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data is from 2014 Q1 up to the end of 2025 Q3.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether digital ID was discussed at the Citizens’ Rights Specialised Committee meeting on 18 December 2025.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Information on matters discussed at the Specialised Committee on Citizens’ Rights is available here: Citizens’ Rights Specialised Committee meeting, 18 December 2025: joint statement - GOV.UK. The UK and the EU are committed to working cooperatively to ensure full and faithful implementation of the citizens’ rights part of the Withdrawal Agreement.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the backlog is for EU Settlement Scheme applications and reviews.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Processing times for the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) are available on EU Settlement Scheme: current estimated processing times for applications - GOV.UK
The latest published data on EUSS applications is contained within the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’
The most recent statistics relate to the year ending 30 September 2025.
A total of 8,662,309 EUSS applications had been submitted, and 8,550,572 applications had been concluded. This equates to 98.7% of all EUSS applications submitted by the end of September 2025 having been concluded.
The information requested for administrative reviews made against EUSS application decisions is not currently available from published statistics and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.