Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the conformity of adding Georgia to the list of Safe States with the duties laid out in section 80AA(4) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 on LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
In order to inform ministerial decision making on whether to add India and Georgia to the list of Safe States in section 80AA of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (NIAA 2002), we made an assessment of the general situation in both countries, using evidence from a wide range of reliable sources in order to do so. This was in line with the requirements at section 80AA(3) and 80AA(4) of the NIAA 2002 (as inserted by section 59(3)(3) and 59(3)(4) of the Illegal Migration Act 2023).
Through considering country information and each country’s respect for the rule of law and human rights, we assessed that both countries met the criteria. Further information on the situation for LGBT people in Georgia and India is contained within our published Country Policy and Information Notes, available on Gov.Uk.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the conformity of adding India to the list of Safe States with the duties laid out in section 80AA(4) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 on LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
In order to inform ministerial decision making on whether to add India and Georgia to the list of Safe States in section 80AA of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (NIAA 2002), we made an assessment of the general situation in both countries, using evidence from a wide range of reliable sources in order to do so. This was in line with the requirements at section 80AA(3) and 80AA(4) of the NIAA 2002 (as inserted by section 59(3)(3) and 59(3)(4) of the Illegal Migration Act 2023).
Through considering country information and each country’s respect for the rule of law and human rights, we assessed that both countries met the criteria. Further information on the situation for LGBT people in Georgia and India is contained within our published Country Policy and Information Notes, available on Gov.Uk.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is her Department's policy to assess the age of every person that arrives in the UK illegally on a small boat.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office will only conduct an age assessment in circumstances where an individual who arrives does not have genuine documentary evidence of their age and where there is doubt about their claimed age.
An initial age assessment is conducted as a first step to prevent individuals who are clearly an adult or child from being subjected unnecessarily to a more substantive age assessment and ensure that new arrivals are routed into the correct accommodation and processes for assessing their asylum or immigration claim.
The Home Office will only treat an individual claiming to be a child as an adult, without conducting further enquiries, if two Home Office members of staff independently determine that the individual's physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggests they are significantly over 18 years of age. The lawfulness of this process was endorsed by the Supreme Court in the case of R (on the application of BF (Eritrea)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 38.
Where doubt remains and an individual cannot be assessed to be significantly over 18, they will be treated as a child for immigration purposes until further assessment of their age by a local authority or the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB) which launched in March 2023. This will usually entail a careful, holistic age assessment, known as a ‘Merton compliant age assessment’, which are undertaken by social workers and must adhere to principles set out in case law by the Courts.
Separately, secondary legislation laid by the Ministry of Justice will, once approved by Parliament, authorise the use of x-rays in scientific age assessments, paving the way for the Home Office to improve their ability to effectively determine the age of illegal entrants making disputed claims to be children. Age assessment is an important process to help to prevent asylum seeking adults posing as children as a way of accessing support they are not entitled to, and allow genuine children to access age-appropriate services.
Legislation will then be laid by the Home Office, taking forward powers under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which will specify that x-rays of teeth and bones of the hands and wrist and MRIs of knees and collar bones can be used as part of the age assessment process.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many Sudanese asylum seekers are awaiting a Home Office decision; and whether the Home Office considers Sudan a safe country to which asylum seekers will be returned if they fail to be given leave to remain.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’ (available on gov.uk). Data on asylum applications awaiting initial decision by nationality can be found in table Asy_D03 of the ‘Asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’.
Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relate to the year ending March 2023.
All asylum and human rights claims from Sudanese nationals are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with our international obligations, taking into account relevant refugee law and country information.
The Home Office’s assessment of the general security situation in Sudan for the use of officials handling protection claims is set out in our country policy and information note on this subject of June 2023. This note is available on gov.uk.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking (1) to address, and (2) to prevent, cases in the UK of (a) forced labour, (b) people trafficking, and (c) exploitation of domestic workers from overseas countries.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is committed to tackling all forms of modern slavery and through the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we have given law enforcement agencies the tools to tackle modern slavery, including maximum life sentences for perpetrators and enhanced protection for victims. Modern slavery is a complex crime that requires an end-to-end response both nationally and internationally – and that is why we are investing in a multi-agency approach across a range of activities, which include:
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment they have made of the impact of the UK's departure from the EU on their ability to deliver successful policy outcomes.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Leaving the EU has provided the UK with the freedom to conceive and implement laws and policies that put the UK first and the opportunity to think boldly about how it regulates its economy for the good of the country as a whole.
At the start of this year, the Government set out its plans to maximise the benefits of Brexit across each major sector of the economy and transform the UK into the best regulated country in the world.
So much progress has been made, whether that be removing red tape to encourage investment in new technologies and infrastructure, taking back control of alcohol duties to simplify the system or establishing freeports across the country—but there remains a lot more to do.
To seize the benefits of Brexit more quickly we are introducing the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which will enable the Government, via parliament, to remove years of burdensome EU regulation in favour of a more agile, home-grown regulatory approach that benefits the UK—to stimulate economic growth, innovation and job creation. Departments will be able to use the powers within the Bill, to repeal, reform or preserve REUL, in the best interests of the UK.
The Home Office is working to maximise the opportunities of Brexit by removing outdated regulation whilst maintaining public safety and national security. In addition, as a result of leaving the EU, the Government ended free movement and launched a points-based immigration system which is tailored to work in the UK’s national interests. It allows us to exercise control and flex the system as we choose, giving us access to the talent and skills we need from across the world.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to publish quarterly lists of the identified benefits arising from the UK’s departure from the EU.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
We will not be publishing quarterly lists of the identified benefits. Outside the European Union, Parliament is now able to take advantage of a whole host of regulatory opportunities, spanning from agriculture to financial services, and immigration reform to improved medical regulations. The government has legislated to deliver many of these benefits already.
On 22 June 2022, we published an interactive dashboard cataloguing over 2,400 pieces of retained EU law (REUL), spanning across 300 unique policy areas. The Brexit Freedoms Bill, announced in the Queen’s Speech, will strengthen the Government’s ability to amend, repeal and replace REUL and will support the Government’s ambition to ensure that, now that we have left the EU, the UK can be the “best regulated economy in the world” and move away from the EU’s obsolete “one size fits all” regulatory model.
To ensure that the public knows how much EU-derived law there is on the UK statute book and how much progress the Government is making to reform it, we will be updating the catalogue of REUL on a quarterly basis.
Asked by: Lord Rosser (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people who are (1) survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, and (2) otherwise recognised as vulnerable under the Adults at Risk policy, were brought to an immigration detention centre in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, and (c) 2021.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The requested information cannot be accurately extracted from our internal systems. To provide this information would require a manual trawl of case records and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
The Adults at Risk in Immigration Detention (AAR) policy strengthens the presumption against the detention of those who are particularly vulnerable to harm in detention. Under the AAR policy, vulnerable individuals will be detained only when the evidence of vulnerability in their particular case is outweighed by the immigration considerations, including expected date of removal, compliance with immigration law, and public protection. Where a decision is taken to maintain the detention of a vulnerable person, safeguards are in place including regular reviews to ensure detention remains lawful, appropriate and proportionate.
All Home Office staff working in the detention system are given training and support to identify and act upon indicators of vulnerability.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she will take to measure the effectiveness of the UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership.
Answered by Simon Baynes
The Migration and Economic Development Partnership will address the shared international challenge of illegal migration and is part of a suite of measures in the New Plan for Immigration to break the business model of people smugglers while maintaining a fair and robust immigration and borders system.
Recognising that the policy is still at an early stage, we are currently working on a monitoring and evaluation plan which will measure the effectiveness of this innovative arrangement . We will be able to set out more details on this in due course.
The European Court of Human Rights granted last-minute interim measures which prohibited the removal of three individuals set to be relocated to Rwanda on 14 June 2022. The European Court of Human Rights did not rule that the policy or removals were unlawful.. Therefore, no individual has yet been relocated to Rwanda under this partnership however as with all policies its impact will be kept under review.
We strongly believe that this project meets our obligations under both national and international law. We cannot comment on ongoing legal proceedings, however we have been clear from the start that we expect people to make legal challenges or barriers to removal. However, we will do what it takes to deliver this new partnership.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish the legal advice her Department has received on its policy to process asylum applicants in Rwanda.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
It is the Government’s long-standing position never to publish confidential and privileged legal advice.
Rwanda’s constitution includes a broad prohibition on discrimination. It is a fundamentally safe and secure country with respect for the rule of law. Rwanda will treat each relocated individual in accordance with the Refugee Convention, Rwandan immigration laws and international and Rwandan standards, including under international and Rwandan human rights law.