Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what safe and legal routes exist for a Ugandan LGBT+ individual, who is under threat of imprisonment because of anti-homosexual laws in Uganda, and wishes to come to the UK to claim asylum as they have a family member living in the UK.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
Between December 2015 and 2022, the Government’s family reunion policy has granted more than 44,659 family reunion visas, bringing many families together.
This safe and legal route allows immediate family members, as defined in the Immigration Rules, of those granted protection in the UK to join them here, if they formed part of the family unit before the sponsor fled their country. Where somebody has a link to the UK, they may be eligible for our other family routes and can find more information on how to apply on gov.uk here: Indefinite leave to remain (permission to stay as a refugee, humanitarian protection or Discretionary Leave): Family reunion - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
There is no provision within our Immigration Rules for someone to be allowed to travel to the UK to seek asylum or temporary refuge, in keeping with almost all countries around the world. Whilst we sympathise with people in many difficult situations around the world, we are not bound to consider asylum claims from the very large numbers of people overseas who might like to come here.
Those who need international protection should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach – that is the fastest route to safety.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether people with Sudanese citizenship will be able to apply for asylum in the UK.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The UK has a proud history of providing protection to those who need it. Between 2015 and 2022, we have offered places to almost half a million (481,804) people from all over the world seeking safety with our country specific and resettlement schemes.
The UK’s resettlement approach will continue to work with the UNHCR and focus on those who are most vulnerable and will benefit most from our support. The UK is proud to have welcomed Sudanese nationals through both our UK Resettlement Scheme and Community Sponsorship in 2021 and 2022.
We also welcome eligible Sudanese nationals through our refugee family reunion route. This policy has reunited many refugees with their family members; more than 44,600 family reunion visas have been granted since 2015, with over half issued to children. This policy also makes clear the discretion to grant visas outside the Immigration Rules, which caters for extended family members in exceptional circumstances.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to provide more detailed guidance on when individuals can expect a decision on (a) immigration or (b) asylum applications where the Department has been unable to provide a full decision within the initial timeframe.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
UK Visas and Immigration are currently operating within their global customer service standards across all of the main legal migration routes for customers who make an entry clearance application from overseas and for applications made inside the UK.
Details of current performance against these customer service standards are updated regularly and can be found at:
Visa decision waiting times: applications outside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)(opens in a new tab).
Visa decision waiting times: applications inside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Prioritisation guidance is currently being developed and will be published in due course. This will include an explanation of the circumstances in which a case may be expedited.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 28 March 2023 to Question 166164 on Government Departments: Staff, what the overall rating out of 100 recorded was in the most recent Leesman office surveys undertaken by (a) the Asylum, Protection and Enforcement Directorate, (b) the Immigration Enforcement Directorate, (c) Border Force, (d) HM Passport Office and (e) UK Visas and Immigration.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Department | Date of participation of most recent Leesman survey | Leesman Index Score (out of 100) |
Asylum, Protection and Enforcement Directorate | July 2021 | 55.3 |
Immigration Enforcement Directorate | July 2021 | 55.9 |
Border Force | July 2021 | 44.7 |
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HM Passport Office | January 2021 | 56.7 |
GPA has launched 10 office based surveys with Leesman, starting in January 2021.
All the departments from the July 2021 survey were from 3 buildings the GPA were exiting as part of the Croydon hub. The buildings surveyed were: Apollo House, Lunar House, Metro Point.
The January 2021 survey (HMPO) was a survey of one of the buildings GPA surveyed to exit for the Peterborough hub. The building that score relates to is Aragon Court, Peterborough.
In both these surveys (Croydon and Peterborough) the surveys were pre-occupancy. GPA were surveying the old estate that the department was or is exiting. In these examples, low scores are helpful as they demonstrate the case for needing these new hubs which GPA is creating. GPA will survey the new hubs once people have moved in - Peterborough will be surveyed later in 2023.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the press release entitled The GPA rated best UK public sector workplace experience, published by the Government Property Agency on 15 March 2023, which (a) Departments and (b) executive agencies have undertaken Leesman Office surveys since 1 January 2020 to assess the views of their staff concerning the main offices in which they work.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
GPA has launched 9 office based surveys with Leesman, starting in January 2021. The full list of departments, agencies and bodies as listed as such on the UK Government Departments, agencies and public bodies website (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations) that have taken part in Leesman surveys through GPA can be found below:
Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service
Cabinet Office
Care Quality Commission
Companies House
Consumer Council For Water
Criminal Cases Review Commission
Crown Commercial Service
Crown Prosecution Service
Defence Equipment and Support
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Department for Education
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Department for International Trade
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Department for Work & Pensions
Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency
Environment Agency
Government Internal Audit Agency
Government Legal Department
Government Property Agency
Health and Safety Executive
Health Education England
Health Research Authority
HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS)
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS)
HM Treasury
Home Office
Homes England
Infrastructure and Projects Authority
Joint Nature Conservation Committee
Legal Aid Agency
Ministry of Defence (MOD)
Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Natural England
NHS
NHS England
Office for National Statistics
Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted)
Office of Rail and Road
Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman
Regulator of Social Housing
Serious Fraud Office
Small Business Commissioner
Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA)
Trade Remedies Authority
UK Health Security Agency
Other organisations/groups:
Asylum Protection
Border Force
Government Art collection
HM Passport Office
Immigration Enforcement (IE)
Office for Health Improvement and Disparities
Pubs Code Adjudicator
Single Competent Authority (SCA)
UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI)
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what legal asylum or immigration routes there are for Afghan academics who worked with visiting British academics under the Development Partnerships in Higher Education (DelPHE) scheme, and who have subsequently been threatened by the Taliban regime, but have had their application to come to the UK under Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) rejected.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The UK has made one of the largest commitments to support Afghanistan of any country and, so far, we have brought around 23,000 people affected by the situation in Afghanistan to safety. This includes more than 6,300 vulnerable Afghan nationals through the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS).
This is one of the most ambitious resettlement schemes in our country’s history and we are proud to offer a safe and legal route to those affected by events in Afghanistan.
Those who are not offered resettlement under the ACRS or ARAP including Afgan academics will need to apply to come to the UK under our existing economic or family migration rules. Further information can be found on the website at:
https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration
Whilst the UK has made a generous resettlement commitment, we must bear in mind the capacity of the UK to resettle people is not unlimited and therefore difficult decisions about who will be prioritised for resettlement have to be made.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he is taking steps to increase the (a) speed and (b) quality of (i) visa and (ii) asylum application decision-making for applications made by people from Iran.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
All Visa and asylum claims are considered on a case-by-case basis and in line with published policy.
In respect of overseas visa applications, UK Visas and Immigration operate within both global customer service standards and global decision quality practices for all of its customers who make an entry clearance application from overseas. Details of current performance against these customer service standards:
Latest processing times: Global average processing times for applications made outside the UK:
Visa decision waiting times: applications outside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Latest processing times: Global average processing times for applications made inside the UK
Visa decision waiting times: applications inside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asylum Claims by Iranian nationals will be considered in the same way as claims from any other nationality.
We are taking immediate action to rapidly speed up processing times and eliminate the backlog of people waiting for initial asylum decisions by the end of 2023.
To further accelerate decision making we will drive productivity improvements by simplifying and modernising our system. This includes measures like shorter, more focussed interviews; removing unnecessary interviews; making guidance simpler and more accessible; dealing with cases more swiftly where they can be certified as manifestly unfounded; recruiting extra decision makers; and allocating dedicated resources for different nationalities
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reasons the rates of approval for asylum claims made by people from Albania are different in the UK to those of other countries in Europe.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Other countries in Europe have legal migration routes that may impact the number of asylum claims lodged and subsequently granted. For example, Germany pursued a Western Balkan strategy which included issuing of 250,000 work visas from 2016-2020 and subsequently saw a 90% reduction in total asylum claims from the region across 2015-2017, from 120,882 first time applications in 2015 to 10,915 in 2017. Asylum grant rates can fluctuate for a number of different reasons, for example prioritisation of certain case types, including those more vulnerable for safeguarding or health-related reasons, and changes in country situations. Within a nationality, the grant rate can also vary. For example, despite the overall grant rate for Albanians in the year ending September 2022 being 51%, for Albanian adult men the grant rate was 13% and for Albanian women and children it was 88% (How many people do we grant protection to? - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)).
The domestic UK case law of TD and AD (Trafficked women) CG [2016] UKUT 92 (IAC) sets out the current approach to assess asylum claims from Albanian females who claim to be a victim of trafficking. It details the likelihood of risk on return, vulnerability factors that must be taken into account, and whether there is sufficiency of protection in Albania. Other European countries are not bound by this, or any other UK case law.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of trends in the number of people seeking asylum in the UK in the last five years; and what proportion of people seeking asylum in the UK in the last five years have done so through safe routes.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on asylum applications in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on the number of asylum applications received are published in table Asy_D01 of the asylum and resettlement detailed datasets. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the year ending June 2022. Additionally, the Home Office publishes a high-level overview of the data in the ‘summary tables’. The ‘contents’ sheet contains an overview of all available data on asylum and resettlement.
The publication does not include information on how asylum seekers travelled to the UK. Some, but not all, asylum seekers arrive via small boats. Information on small boat arrivals who claim asylum can be found in the ‘How many people do we grant asylum or protection to?’ chapter of the Immigration Statistics quarterly release.
Asylum is separate to the following ‘safe and legal entry routes’:
Ukraine Family, Sponsorship and Extension Scheme visas
Asked by: Scott Benton (Independent - Blackpool South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum claims her Department has yet to determine and in which year those claims were initially logged with the Home Office.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
There are 99,419 asylum applications awaiting an initial decision as at 30 June 2022.
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum applications awaiting a decision 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. Please note the data show a snapshot as at the last day of each quarter, rather than the number of asylum application awaiting a decision over the entire quarter. The latest data relates to as at 30 June 2022. Data as at 30 September 2022 will be published on 24 November 2022. Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
The Home Office are unable to state when these claims were initially lodged; however, published transparency data provides a detailed breakdown of initial asylum claims that have been outstanding for less than 3 months, 3-6 months, 6-12 months and 12months + and can be found at Asy_02 published transparency data: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).