Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the longest waiting time is for a decision on a British citizenship application as of 13 May 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not routinely comment on individual cases. Published data regarding naturalisation applications can be found in the migration statistics which are published quarterly: Visas and citizenship data: Q4 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many applications were received for transitioning from a student visa to a spousal visa each year from 2018 to 2022, and what percentage of the applicants were male.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on how people move through the immigration system in the Migrant Journey report. The report contains information on the number of people starting a journey each year broken down by immigration route (e.g. study) and how many extend into other categories (e.g. family) at the end of each year, following their initial leave. The latest report covers up to the end of 2022.
The Home Office publishes data on grants of extensions of stay in the UK, in the Immigration system statistics quarterly release.
Table Exe_D02 shows the number of grants of extensions of stay in the UK, by current and previous category of leave, available from Immigration system statistics data tables. Data on extensions by previous category is available for main applicants and calendar year 2020 only. This data will be updated for 2021 onwards in future Immigration system statistics publications.
Please note, the published statistics relate to the number of grants, not applications.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the success rate of applications for transitioning from a student visa to a spousal visa each year from 2018 to 2022.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on how people move through the immigration system in the Migrant Journey report. The report contains information on the number of people starting a journey each year broken down by immigration route (e.g. study) and how many extend into other categories (e.g. family) at the end of each year, following their initial leave. The latest report covers up to the end of 2022.
The Home Office publishes data on grants of extensions of stay in the UK, in the Immigration system statistics quarterly release.
Table Exe_D02 shows the number of grants of extensions of stay in the UK, by current and previous category of leave, available from Immigration system statistics data tables. Data on extensions by previous category is available for main applicants and calendar year 2020 only. This data will be updated for 2021 onwards in future Immigration system statistics publications.
Please note, the published statistics relate to the number of grants, not applications.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what training he plans to provide to staff responsible for assisting with the work of the upper tribunal in relocating asylum seekers to Rwanda; who will provide that training; what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of that training; and whether he plans to issue a contract for the recruitment of those staff.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
HM Courts & Tribunals Service is responsible for the administration of the Upper Tribunal (Immigration & Asylum Chamber) and has been working with the Ministry of Justice to increase capacity in the justice system in preparation for the commencement of the Illegal Migration Act.
An additional 25 hearing rooms have been prepared with remote hearing technology to allow for either in-person or remote hearings to maximise flexibility.
Approximately 100 additional staff have been recruited to support the Upper Tribunal’s work and are currently undertaking training ready for the commencement of the Illegal Migration Act. These staff have been recruited on Fixed Term Contracts following external campaigns on the basis of fair and open competition. This training is being delivered internally within HMCTS as part of existing programmes of operational training.
This training is in relation to HMCTS processing of applications and appeals pertaining to individuals under the IMA scheme and is separate to any training given to Home Office staff in support of the decision making or removals of illegal migrants.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the (a) average and (b) longest waiting times were for processing applications for certificates of sponsorship for skilled workers in each month from November 2023 to April 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not routinely publish data on these matters; however, we have recently deployed an IT change which introduces a new compulsory field for required mandatory information which enables defined certificate of sponsorship applications to move more expediently through the system.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to stop sham marriages and civil partnerships.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Government takes abuse of the spouse and partner immigration routes very seriously and is clear that family migration must be based on a genuine and subsisting marriage or relationship.
The Home Office focuses its efforts on disrupting facilitators as well as prosecuting individuals involved in sham marriages and civil partnerships and will consider refusal or cancellation of permission to stay, or removal, following any determination that a relationship is a sham.
The marriage referral and investigation scheme, introduced across the UK under the Immigration Act 2014, requires that all proposed marriages and civil partnerships where one or both parties could gain an immigration advantage from it are referred to the Home Office. Under this scheme, where we have reasonable grounds to suspect a sham relationship, the marriage notice period will be extended to allow for further investigation, and for enforcement or casework action to be taken where appropriate.
Part 9 of the Immigration Rules provides specific grounds for the refusal or cancellation of permission to enter or stay on the basis of any involvement in a sham marriage or sham civil partnership, providing a more robust and consistent framework against which immigration applications are assessed, and reflecting the seriousness of this type of abuse.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken to mitigate potential delays in visa application processing for people affected by merged identities.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Person Centric Data Platform (PCDP) holds millions of identities that have been submitted, or otherwise provided, in support of immigration applications.
The ‘merged identities’ issue affects around 0.02% of PCDP customer records; over 99.98% of records are not impacted by this issue. We have identified around 46,000 records with an identity issue, of which over 13,000 have already been resolved and we have a dedicated team working on the remainder.
The Home Office takes data security and accuracy very seriously. We continue pro-active analysis to identify potentially erroneous records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible, and ideally before the individual is even aware.
Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre so this can be investigated and resolved.
As part of the Identity Document Linking change, we pro-actively highlighted a small number of records which were sent for manual resolution through our existing processes. We expect that most of these records would have been corrected before the person themselves would become aware.
We do not hold information on how many people have contacted the Home Office due to a merged identity issue which is directly related to the document linking change.
We are not aware of any significant delays to visa application processing as a result of this issue. UKVI also have a triage process in place so that where there may be an outstanding application, cases can be escalated for immediate resolution.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been affected by merged identities created in the Identity Document Linking change.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Person Centric Data Platform (PCDP) holds millions of identities that have been submitted, or otherwise provided, in support of immigration applications.
The ‘merged identities’ issue affects around 0.02% of PCDP customer records; over 99.98% of records are not impacted by this issue. We have identified around 46,000 records with an identity issue, of which over 13,000 have already been resolved and we have a dedicated team working on the remainder.
The Home Office takes data security and accuracy very seriously. We continue pro-active analysis to identify potentially erroneous records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible, and ideally before the individual is even aware.
Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre so this can be investigated and resolved.
As part of the Identity Document Linking change, we pro-actively highlighted a small number of records which were sent for manual resolution through our existing processes. We expect that most of these records would have been corrected before the person themselves would become aware.
We do not hold information on how many people have contacted the Home Office due to a merged identity issue which is directly related to the document linking change.
We are not aware of any significant delays to visa application processing as a result of this issue. UKVI also have a triage process in place so that where there may be an outstanding application, cases can be escalated for immediate resolution.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been affected by merged identities in the Person Centric Data Platform.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Person Centric Data Platform (PCDP) holds millions of identities that have been submitted, or otherwise provided, in support of immigration applications.
The ‘merged identities’ issue affects around 0.02% of PCDP customer records; over 99.98% of records are not impacted by this issue. We have identified around 46,000 records with an identity issue, of which over 13,000 have already been resolved and we have a dedicated team working on the remainder.
The Home Office takes data security and accuracy very seriously. We continue pro-active analysis to identify potentially erroneous records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible, and ideally before the individual is even aware.
Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre so this can be investigated and resolved.
As part of the Identity Document Linking change, we pro-actively highlighted a small number of records which were sent for manual resolution through our existing processes. We expect that most of these records would have been corrected before the person themselves would become aware.
We do not hold information on how many people have contacted the Home Office due to a merged identity issue which is directly related to the document linking change.
We are not aware of any significant delays to visa application processing as a result of this issue. UKVI also have a triage process in place so that where there may be an outstanding application, cases can be escalated for immediate resolution.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing time limits on asylum cases for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office takes our duty of care towards children and young people extremely seriously and we prioritise applications from children and young people.
The Home Office does not currently have a target time for processing applications for asylum, but is committed to ensuring claims are considered without unnecessary delay. We have already made progress in prioritising claims with acute vulnerability and those in receipt of the greatest level of support, including Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children.
Introducing a service standard for asylum claims is a complex consideration which needs to be balanced between the requirements of operational efficiency, the needs of service users and the integrity of asylum control measures, including the implementation of the Illegal Migration Act. A project to review these considerations, along with scope and potential implementation timescales, will be undertaken. Once the project is completed, a final decision will be taken on any potential asylum claim service standards.