Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the statement by the Home Secretary on 4 December (HC Deb cols 41–43), what are the specific components of the 300,000 per annum reduction in migration figure he provided, and whether this number refers to the future inflow of student migration or to the net inflow of migrants overall.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
Analytical work has been undertaken across Government to support decision making in this process, and an Impact Assessment will be developed in due course.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government who has held office since 1 October 1993 as (1) Home Secretary, and (2) minister responsible for immigration; and what were the dates of their appointment.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Home Office believes that this information is readily available to the Peer online.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Statement by the Minister of State for Immigration on 8 June (HCWS837), how many asylum applications there have been since 28 June 2022 from nationals of (1) Afghanistan, (2) Eritrea, (3) Libya, (4) Syria, (5) Yemen, and (6) Sudan, together with the number of accompanying dependants of each nationality.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Home Office publishes data on asylum applications in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’ on GOV.UK. Data on asylum applications by nationality and applicant type are published in table Asy_D01 of the Asylum and resettlement detailed datasets: found here. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the end of March 2023.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’ on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the to the Written Statement by the Minister of State for Immigration on 8 June (HCWS837), what are the reasons for their policy changes on the treatment of asylum seekers set out in that Written Statement.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Illegal Migration Bill represents a considerably stronger means of tackling the same issue that the differentiation policy sought to address: people making dangerous and unnecessary journeys through safe countries to claim asylum in the UK.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their objective for net migration in (1) three years' time, and (2) five years' time.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
As the Prime Minister has said, the Government remains committed to reducing net migration over time, while ensuring we have the skills our economy needs to grow. The Government continues to keep the immigration system under review.
Our immediate priority is getting a grip on illegal migration, to stop the abuse of our system and stop the boats making illegal, dangerous and unnecessary journeys across the Channel for the profits of criminal people smuggling gangs.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Sharpe of Epsom on 24 October (HL2526), why they do not routinely publish any data on numbers of individuals that have overstayed their visa expiry in the UK; and whether they will publish the numbers for India in each of the past five years.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Home Office publishes statistics relating to exit checks, which can be found on gov.uk, which provide statistics on the number/proportion of visas for which:
a) The individual was recorded as departing in time (before their leave expired)
b) The individual was recorded as departing late
c) The individual has no matched departure record
The statistics do not provide information on the number of overstayer due to known limitations in the data. For example, an individual travelling to or from the UK via the Common Travel Area will be included in the ‘no matched departure record’ category. Further information is provided in the published report and accompanying user guide on gov.uk.
The latest statistics are published in the Fifth report on statistics relating to exit checks and future plans for these statistics outlined in the recent publication on Developments in Exit Checks, also found on gov.uk.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many entry clearance visas grants they provided to main applicants under the (1) Skilled Worker, and (2) Skilled Worker - Health & Care, routes for each quarter of the year up to June; and for each route, how many were issued for jobs at (a) RQF Level 6, (b) RQF Levels 3 to 5, and (c) RQF Level 3.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
Applications granted to main applicants of the ‘Skilled Worker’ visa
Quarter | Grants |
2020 Q4 | 429 |
2021 Q1 | 4,553 |
2021 Q2 | 6,682 |
2021 Q3 | 11,762 |
2021 Q4 | 12,602 |
2022 Q1 | 12,701 |
2022 Q2 | 14,844 |
Total | 63,573 |
Applications granted to main applications of the ‘Skilled Worker – Health & Care’ visa
Quarter | Grants |
2020 Q4 | 689 |
2021 Q1 | 6,771 |
2021 Q2 | 5,815 |
2021 Q3 | 8,684 |
2021 Q4 | 10,530 |
2022 Q1 | 12,411 |
2022 Q2 | 15,646 |
Total | 60,546 |
There is no published data that links the entry clearance visas granted in these categories to the respective RQF classifications.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many work permits have been issued to Indian nationals in each of the past five years; and how many Indian nationals have overstayed their visas in each of the past five years.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The Home Office is committed to publishing data as part of the immigration statistics quarterly release. The transparency data provides outstanding applications by specific route and can be found featured in the ‘Migration Transparency Data’ on the GOV.UK website.
The immigration statistics Data Tables for Work can be found at Migration Statistics – Immigration Statistics, year ending June 2022, using the link ‘Why do people come to the UK? Work’ section 3 ‘Data Tables’. This table, at ‘Vis_03a’ tab, provides the numbers of work entry clearance visa cases applied for, issued, and refused for the year ending June 2022. There have been 117,446 applications for entry clearance for work purposes by Indian nationals from June 2021-June 2022, with 110,816 visas granted. Further details can be found on GOV.UK, including archived statistics.
The statistics relating to in-country work visa applications (extensions) is available on GOV.UK per annum, covering each year since the transparency data reporting began in 2010: however it is not broken down by nationality.
We do not routinely publish any data on numbers of individuals that have overstayed their visa expiry in the UK.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to section 16 of the Memorandum of Understanding between the UK and the government of Rwanda for the provision of an asylum partnership arrangement, how many refugees from Rwanda will be resettled in the UK; and over what time period they will be resettled.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
A small number of the most vulnerable refugees in Rwanda will be resettled in the UK as part of the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.
More details on the resettlement of vulnerable refugees will be set out in due course. The partnership between the UK and Rwanda is now underway and is expected to last for at least five years.
Asked by: Lord Green of Deddington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with P&O Ferries about the (1) immigration status, and (2) right to work in the UK, of the replacement workers they are reportedly hiring; what assessment they have made of the right to work in the UK of these workers; and, of the workers of foreign nationality hired by P&O Ferries, what were the immigration routes by which they have been admitted to the UK.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
There are ongoing discussions between P&O Ferries and HM Government.
It is the Government’s policy that all migrants coming to work in UK territorial waters (i.e., 12 nautical miles), or on the UK landmass, need permission to work unless exemptions apply. Conversely, if they are working outside of UK territorial waters then permission to work is not required.
Seafarers who earn a living by working on a ship such as seamen or crew members do not need permission to work if they are in transit (under contract) to join a ship or are in transit as part of a crew, subject to entry requirements.