Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many suppliers to government departments have been excluded from subsequent procurement processes on the grounds of either fraud or corruption.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The grounds for the exclusion of bidders from public procurement procedures are set out in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. These rules set out the circumstances in which bidders must, or may, be excluded from a public procurement process.
In all cases, individual departments and other public sector bodies are responsible for their own decisions on these matters, and will hold their own records. This information is not held centrally.
Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of disabled people affected by changes to the eligibility criteria for the Warm Home Discount Scheme between 2022—23.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
As a result of expanding and reforming the scheme in England and Wales, the Government estimated in the final impact assessment that 160,000 more households, where a person has a disability or long-term illness, will receive a rebate.
These changes do not apply in Scotland, where customers apply for a Broader Group rebate through their energy suppliers, who can set their own eligibility criteria.
Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government where the nuclear reactors for the SSN–AUKUS submarines will be built.
Answered by Baroness Goldie
As the Minister for Defence Procurement (Alex Chalk) highlighted in his Oral Statement to the Commons on 14 March, all nuclear reactors for the SSN-AUKUS Class submarines will be built by Rolls Royce in Derby.
Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Windsor Framework will allow the establishment of freeports in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We are committed to extending the benefits of our Freeports programme across the UK and to working with stakeholders from sectors and places across Northern Ireland on how best to do so. Of course we need to see a restored Northern Ireland Executive before those discussions can be progressed further, similar to our engagements with Scottish and Welsh governments on proposals there.
Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the attrition rate for caseworkers at the Passport Office in 2022.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The attrition rate for case-working staff only is not held in a reportable format.
Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the average waiting period for an individual entering the National Referral Mechanism awaiting a reasonable grounds decision (1) before, and (2) after, the introduction of the updated guidance that came into effect this year.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
Reasonable Grounds decisions will be made as soon as possible following referral. Statistics on the timescales of Reasonable Grounds decisions for victims of modern slavery are not currently published.
Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what evidence they have regarding unaccompanied children seeking asylum that have gone missing while in temporary hotel accommodation; and what assessment they have made of any evidence of organised crime involvement in those disappearances.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The safety and wellbeing of those in our care is our primary concern. We have robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure all unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) in emergency interim hotels are safe and supported whilst we seek urgent placements with a local authority. Young people are supported by team leaders and support workers who are on site 24 hours a day. Further care is provided in hotels by teams of specialist social workers and nurses.
We have no power to detain UASC in hotels and we know some do go missing. Many of those who have gone missing are subsequently traced and located. Children’s movements in and out of hotels are monitored and recorded and they are accompanied by support workers when attending organised activities and social excursions off-site, or where specific vulnerabilities are identified.
There are many reasons why children go missing from care. This is also true of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. It would be wrong to make generalisations regarding the reasons for this.
Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have signed agreements with any countries, other than Rwanda, to remove those seeking asylum in the UK and to process their asylum applications; and if so, what are those countries.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
We have not yet entered into any Third Country Asylum Processing (TCAP) agreements with any other countries.
Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the expected impact of their Illegal Migration Bill on victims of modern slavery and human trafficking.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The UK government remains committed to tackling the heinous crime of modern slavery and supporting victims. The Illegal Migration Bill will prevent people who come to the UK through illegal and dangerous journeys from accessing the provisions of the National Referral Mechanism.
It is right that the government takes steps to address the threat to public order posed by individuals making dangerous journeys that cause loss of life and are inherently unsafe, both for themselves and First Responders.
We support thousands of victims each year and will continue to do so following the implementation of the Illegal Migration Bill.
We are working on developing guidance regarding the operation of these measures, including any potential impacts and how they relate to victims of Modern Slavery, to be introduced when it is appropriate to do so once the Illegal Migration Bill has progressed through Parliament.
Asked by: Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many asylum caseworkers were employed (1) 2021, (2) 2022, and (3) 2023; and what was the attrition rate of asylum caseworkers in each of those years.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The number of asylum decision makers employed by the Home Office each month from January 2020 to December 2022 can be found in the ASY_05 (M) tab of the published migration transparency data located here: Immigration and protection data: Q4 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Data for 2023 will be published in future releases.
The attrition rate of decision makers is not routinely published but have been released to the Home Affairs Select Committee. The response can be found here: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/31774/documents/178754/default/
To reduce attrition rates and help maintain our decision-making experience we have also implemented a recruitment and retention allowance. We have already doubled our decision makers over the last 2 years, and we are continuing to recruit more. This will take our expected number of decision makers to 1,800 by summer 2023 and 2,500 by September 2023.