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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
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
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
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: 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, when the agreement with Rwanda to host individuals relocated from the UK under the voluntary departures scheme was made; how many individuals can be relocated under that scheme; and if he will publish a Memorandum of Understanding relating to the scheme.

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.


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.


Written Question
Visas: Equality
Monday 25th 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, with reference to his Oral Statement of 4 December 2023 on Legal Migration, Official Report, column 41, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the increase to the minimum income requirement on (a) equality of opportunity and (b) reducing negative disparities.

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

Any discussions that take place between Cabinet Ministers are confidential.

A full regulatory Impact Assessment will be developed, and the Government will publish an Equality Impact Assessment on this change, and both will be published in due course. We will continue to monitor the policy throughout its implementation.


Written Question
Immigration: Databases
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Kevin Brennan (Labour - Cardiff West)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate he has made of the number of individuals misidentified by the Home Office Person Centric Data Platform in the last 12 months.

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. Individuals have not been ‘misidentified’ by the PCDP. Rather, the Home Office has for some time been aware of issues around ‘merged identity’ - where a single ‘identity island’ has been formed with data belonging to two or more individuals.

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 detailed analysis to identify erroneous PCDP records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible.

Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre to enable this to be investigated and resolved.


Written Question
Immigration: Databases
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Kevin Brennan (Labour - Cardiff West)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to rectify the misidentification of individuals by the Home Office 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. Individuals have not been ‘misidentified’ by the PCDP. Rather, the Home Office has for some time been aware of issues around ‘merged identity’ - where a single ‘identity island’ has been formed with data belonging to two or more individuals.

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 detailed analysis to identify erroneous PCDP records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible.

Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre to enable this to be investigated and resolved.


Written Question
Police Stations: Chesterfield
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what improvements he plans to make to the Police estate in Chesterfield constituency until 2029.

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

Derbyshire’s funding will be up to £244.8m in 2024/25, an increase of up to £15.4m when compared to 2023/24.

It is up to Chief Constables and directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners to make decisions on local resourcing and estates, including police stations. They are best placed to make these decisions based on their local knowledge and experience.