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Written Question
Delivery Services: Undocumented Migrants
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has had discussions with representatives of food delivery companies on the use of rented profiles on food delivery apps.

Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)

The Government is engaging constructively with food delivery platforms, calling on them to end the use of unverified substitution. Unchecked account sharing places the public at risk, enables – and therefore encourages – illegal migration and leads to the exploitation of workers.

In November 2023, the Home Office secured agreement from the firms to strengthen their recruitment and on-boarding processes, in order to prevent unchecked sharing of accounts.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/food-delivery-companies-urged-to-end-unchecked-account-sharing.


Written Question
Delivery Services: Undocumented Migrants
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he is taking steps to regulate the use of rented profiles on food delivery apps.

Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)

The Government is engaging constructively with food delivery platforms, calling on them to end the use of unverified substitution. Unchecked account sharing places the public at risk, enables – and therefore encourages – illegal migration and leads to the exploitation of workers.

In November 2023, the Home Office secured agreement from the firms to strengthen their recruitment and on-boarding processes, in order to prevent unchecked sharing of accounts.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/food-delivery-companies-urged-to-end-unchecked-account-sharing.


Written Question
Edward Heath
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Lord Lexden (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks of Lord Sharpe of Epsom on 11 March (HL Deb col 1806) when, and in what form, he will “report back” to the House about inquiries that are to be made by Home Office officials.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

I will return to the House in due course after receiving advice from officials on the considerations of whether the type of review of Operation Conifer the noble Lord calls for is necessary, possible and/or viable.


Written Question
Motor Vehicles: Crime
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle car crime in north London.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Government is committed to tackling vehicle crime. The latest estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows there were 726,000 incidents of vehicle-related theft in the year ending September 2023. This represents a 39% fall, when compared with the year ending March 2010, when there was an estimated 1,198,000 such incidents.

The Government is working closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group, chaired by ACC Jennifer Sims, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime, to take forward a programme of work to prevent and reduce vehicle crime nationally. This includes training police officers on methods used to steal vehicles, encouraging vehicle owners to secure their vehicles and working with industry to prevent theft. A network of vehicle crime leads has been established in every police force in England and Wales, ensuring forces share information about emerging trends in vehicle crime and are better able to tackle regional issues. The Metropolitan Police Service are represented on the Working Group and have an established vehicle crime lead.

We are also legislating through the Criminal Justice Bill to create two new offences where a person possesses, makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply electronic devices where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they will be used in vehicle theft. The legislation will make it easier for police to prosecute criminals making and supplying these devices, as well as vehicle thieves.


Written Question
Home Office: Standards
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many investigations have been undertaken by his Department's professional standards unit in each year since 2015, broken down into the categories of (a) immigration, borders and citizenship, (b) policing and (c) counter-terrorism.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The requested information is not centrally held, and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the department.


Written Question
Asylum: Hotels
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West and Royton)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of hotel use for asylum seekers on community cohesion in Oldham; and when he plans to end the use of temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

Asylum hotels were only ever a temporary measure, in response to an unprecedented spike in small boat arrivals and the statutory requirement to accommodate asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute. The Government has always been clear that they are an inappropriate form of accommodation and that we must stop using them as soon as possible.

Wherever hotels are used, the Home Office works in partnership with local authorities and other statutory partners, including through multi-agency forum (MAF) meetings. These consider, amongst other things, community cohesion issues.

We will have closed 100 hotels by the end of March. We continue to work with our providers on closing further hotels across the estate and will write to local authorities and MPs when a decision to close a site has been made.


Written Question
Immigration: Appeals
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many allowed appeals from (a) First and (b) Upper Tribunal are awaiting implementation; and what the average time taken to implement allowed appeal decisions was in each year between 2019 and 2023.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The requested information cannot be accurately extracted from our internal systems. To provide this information would require a manual trawl of successful appeals and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.

Where an appeal has been allowed in favour of the appellant, and is not subject to onward appeal, we take all reasonable steps to implement the allowed appeal in a timely manner.


Written Question
Asylum: Employment
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of replacing the Shortage Occupation List with the Immigration Salary List on employment opportunities for asylum seekers who are eligible to work.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The Home Secretary commissioned the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to carry out a rapid review of the new Immigration Salary List (ISL) ahead of the Spring Immigration Rules. Appendix Immigration Salary List can be found in the Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules: HC 590, published on 14 March 2024. We will keep the list under review and the MAC will carry out a fuller review later in the year.

Replacing the new ISL will maintain the important principles that underpin our approach to permission to work by an individual’s asylum claim still being outstanding for 12 months or more, through no fault of their own. This includes the need to avoid creating perverse incentives for people to make dangerous journeys to the UK and to not undercut the resident labour market.


Written Question
UK Border Force: Corruption
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 6 March 2024 to Question 15819 on UK Border Force: Corruption, if he will provide a breakdown of the allegations and referrals received by the Border Force Joint Anti-Corruption Intelligence Team by type in 2023.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

As the public rightly expect, we demand the highest standards from our Border Force officers and have measures in place to prevent and tackle corruption. There were 204 allegations and referrals received by Border Force Joint Anti-Corruption Intelligence Team in 2023, broken down as follows:

Type of allegation/referral

Number of allegations/referrals

Conspiracy Cross Border Offences

54

Crime

42

Vulnerable

22

Risk from associates

21

Local management issues

44

Not Border Force

6

Assist key partner

15


Written Question
Asylum: Rwanda
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what form of immigration status people relocated to Rwanda under the voluntary departures scheme will receive once in Rwanda; and whether that status will be (a) permanent or (b) time-limited.

Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)

The option of voluntary relocation will be given to failed asylum seekers. It would be inappropriate to provide a running commentary on individual cases or numbers.

A Memorandum of Understanding has been agreed for the voluntary relocation of individuals and will be published in due course.

People who voluntarily decide to relocate to Rwanda, if they are relocated, will be entitled to permanent residence in Rwanda.