Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers under the age of 18 who were staying in hotels procured by her Department have gone missing since 1 July 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The rise in the number of small boat crossings has placed significant pressures on local authority care placements for young people.
The Home Office takes the wellbeing, welfare and security of children and minors in our care extremely seriously. Robust safeguarding procedures are in place to ensure all children and minors are safe and supported as we seek urgent placements with local authorities.
The National Transfer scheme (NTS) transferred 3,148 children to local authorities with children’s services between 1 July 2021 and 30 September 2022, which is over four times the number of transfers on the year before. To further expand the scheme, we are providing local authorities with children’s services with an additional £15,000 for every eligible young person they take into their care from a dedicated UASC hotel, or the Reception and Safe Care Service in Kent, by the end of February 2023.
When any young person goes missing the ‘missing persons protocol’ is followed and led by our directly engaged social workers. A multi-agency, missing persons protocol is mobilised involving the police and the local authority, who have a shared statutory responsibility to safeguard all children including missing migrant children in order to establish their whereabouts and to ensure that they are safe.
The MARS (Missing After Reasonable Steps) protocol is followed for any looked after child who goes missing from a care setting, including the UASC hotels.
The information below sets out numbers of young people who went missing from the hotels housing unaccompanied children:
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the number of non-UK passport holders employed in social care in the UK in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, (c) 2021 and (d) 2022.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Based on Skills for Care published estimates, the proportion of the adult social care workforce identifying as a non-British nationality is, 2019/20 (17%), 2020/21 (16%) and 2021/22 (17%). Data is not yet available for 2022/23.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the impact of salary constraints in the adult social care sector on levels of international recruitment for that sector.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
No specific assessment has been made. The Migration Advisory Committee is currently reviewing the Shortage Occupation List (SOL) and will report its findings by the end of March 2023. The inclusion of care workers on the SOL will be considered in this review therefore this will not automatically expire after February 2023.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans, if any, they have to end the practice of placing unaccompanied refugee, migrant, or trafficked children in hotels without supervision.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The UK is experiencing an unprecedented increase in the number of people making life-threatening journeys to cross the Channel. These boats are often carrying unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC), which have placed unprecedented pressure on the National Transfer Scheme. Out of necessity with the children’s best interests in mind, we have arranged for UASC to be accommodated on an emergency and temporary basis in hotels whilst placements with local authorities are being vigorously pursued.
The rise in dangerous small boats crossings means there are significant challenges on local authority care places. The Government has had no alternative but to urgently use hotels to give UASC arriving in the UK a roof over their heads. The Government wants to stop using these hotels but the Home Office cannot do this alone. We are working round the clock with councils to boost the number of long-term care spaces available, through the New Plan for Immigration, and are offering them additional funding in addition to existing monthly funding.
The National Transfer Scheme (NTS) enables a more equitable distribution of responsibility for UASC between local authorities across the UK. However, the high number of UASC arrivals, particularly as a result of small boat crossings, continues to place unprecedented pressure on the NTS.
In November 2021, we took the decision to move to a directed NTS, in addition to the package of NTS improvements implemented in July 2021. Since 15 February all local authorities with children’s services in the UK have been directed to participate in the NTS. However, intake remains very high, and the situation remains challenging.
We continue to take action to ensure the NTS works effectively so that children are transferred promptly and to end the use of hotels.
On 24 August 2022, we wrote to all UK local authorities and devolved equivalents with children’s services, announcing changes to the NTS. We have increased the threshold up to which councils have to accept UASC into their care from the previous level of 0.07% to 0.1% of their general child population, halved the transfer deadline to five working-days for all UASC not currently in the care of a local authority, and for UASC awaiting transfer into local authority care, we will provide councils with an additional £2000 per child per month for 3 months.
It is not the case that these children are unsupervised. UASC temporarily accommodated in hotels are supported with wrap-around care, including from professional care workers, social workers, and nurses.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which countries his Department is in negotiations with on Government-to-government agreements on health and social care workforce recruitment as of 12 July 2022.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are unable to provide the information requested as it would be likely to prejudice relations between the United Kingdom and other states.
When signed, Government-to-Government agreements are published to ensure transparency. All agreements on health worker migration are explicit in the commitment to ensure fair, ethical, and sustainable recruitment and employment of healthcare professionals pursuant to existing laws and regulations in each partner country. The Government has agreed and published agreements with Philippines, Malaysia, Kenya and Sri Lanka.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has received reports of activities by recruitment agencies supplying workers to the UK health and social care sector from overseas in breach of his Department’s code of practice on the recruitment of such workers.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Where concerns have been raised with officials on compliance with the code, these cases have been referred to NHS Employers or other relevant regulatory bodies.
NHS Employers hosts a list of agencies which adhere to the code to assist employers during the selection process. It undertakes routine checks of agencies’ compliance with the code, responds to complaints or breaches and takes necessary action where the code is contravened.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many employment agencies supply workers to the social care sector in England from overseas as of 12 July 2022; and if he will make an assessment of how many and what proportion of those agencies fully adhere to the Code of practice for the international recruitment of health and social care personnel, published on 25 February 2021.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many social care workers earning more than £20,480 they estimate will be recruited from overseas as a result of the new immigration visa rules; and what proportion of staff vacancies are expected to be filled further to those rules.
Answered by Lord Kamall
No specific estimate has been made. However, we are working with Skills for Care and the Home Office to produce guidance and seminars to equip adult social care providers with necessary tools and information to recruit successfully from overseas.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many of the total number of Health and Care Worker visas issued in Q1 2022 were issued to people due to work in (1) the health sector, and (2) the social care sector.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office publishes data on Health and Care Worker visas in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on the number of Health and Care visas issued are published in table Vis_D02 of the ‘entry clearance visa applications and outcomes detailed datasets’. Data on work sectors can be found in table CoS_D01 of the ‘Work sponsorship (Certificate of Sponsorship)’ dataset. Information on how to use these datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to year ending March 2022.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
The Home Office does not publish the number of Health and Care worker visas granted by sector.
The published sector (industry) data show visa applications where a certificate of sponsorship was used. The ‘Human Health and Social Work Activities’ sector cannot be disaggregated to differentiate social care from health.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 15 November 2021 to Question 70322 on NHS and Social Services: Migrant Workers, if he will publish in any format available how many overseas NHS and care workers have received a reimbursement for the immigration health surcharge since the Government announced the policy in 2020.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
While the Home Office, UK Visas and Immigration Services and the NHS Business Services Authority manage the system of reimbursement and collect management information on the number of refunds that have been made, this information is currently unvalidated. The Home Office is considering whether this information can be verified and released in line with data standards.