Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the devolved administrations on the scope of the inquiry into historical child sexual abuse commissioned by her Department.
Answered by Baroness Featherstone
The Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse will cover England and Wales. Child protection is a devolved matter so it is right for places outside England and Wales to conduct their own inquiries. Officials have already had
discussions with their counterparts in the devolved administrations to ensure all enquiries led by the devolved administrations feed into the Independent Inquiry and to ensure that no information falls through the gaps.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many EU students came to study in Northern Ireland in the last 12 months.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Statistics relating specifically to Northern Ireland are a matter for the devolved administration.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-EU students came to study in Northern Ireland in the last 12 months.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Statistics relating specifically to Northern Ireland are a matter for the devolved administration.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applicants for (a) indefinite leave to remain in the UK and (b) naturalisation as a British citizen have passed the Life in the UK test and have an intermediate level English Language speaking and listening qualification since the test was introduced.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Government strengthened the requirements for indefinite leave to remain and naturalisation as a British citizen in October 2013 to require adult applicants both to pass the Life in the UK test and to have an intermediate level speaking and listening qualification. There are some limited exceptions to this requirement, for example where applicants have a physical or mental condition which severely restricts their ability to learn English and it is possible for some applicants to demonstrate their level of English in a different way such as by being a national of an English speaking country or having a degree taught in English. In the period between October 2013 and September 2014, 107,565 applicants have
been granted indefinite leave and 149,357 have been naturalised as British citizens.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent representations she has received about the number of illegal immigrants entering the UK.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office regularly receives written questions and correspondence from Honourable Members and their constituents about this issue. Since 2010, we have clamped down on illegal immigration.
The Immigration Act 2014 is a landmark piece of legislation which builds on the Government’s ongoing reforms to our immigration system to ensure it works in our national interest.
The Act will have a major impact on the Home Office’s work to secure our borders, enforce our immigration laws and continue to attract the brightest and the best to the UK.
The Act puts the law firmly on the side of those who respect it, not those who break it.
Key measures from the Act which are now in force including the introduction of enhanced duties for registrars to report suspected sham marriages and civil partnerships; new powers to streamline the recovery of illegal working penalties; the ability to remove harmfulindividuals before their appeals are heard if there is no risk of serious irreversible harm.
The Act also Strengthens requirements for the courts to have regard to Parliament’s view of the public interest in immigration cases raising Article 8-making clear the right to a family life is not to be regarded as absolute and unqualified.
New powers to revoke the driving licences of known illegal immigrants are also included in the Act.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she met the Mayor of Calais during her visit to Westminster on 28 October 2014.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Home Office Ministers have meetings with a wide variety of international partners, as well as organisations and individuals in the public and private
sectors, as part of the process of policy development and delivery. Details of these meetings are passed to the Cabinet Office on a quarterly basis and are subsequently published on the Gov.uk website: http://data.gov.uk/dataset/ministerial-data-home-office.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will carry out an inquiry into personal protection for the Prime Minister.
Answered by James Brokenshire
As the Honourable Member is aware, the Metropolitan Police Service in conjunction with West Yorkshire Police are carrying out a review into the incident that occurred on Monday 27th October involving the Prime Minister in Leeds.
Protection arrangements are kept under constant review to ensure that they remain appropriate to threat and risk and delivered in an efficient and effective manner. It is however Home Office policy not to provide information on the policing operation or security arrangements for the Prime Minister as to do so would risk compromising the integrity of those arrangements.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many arrests have been made of suspects affiliated to ISIL in London during the last three months.
Answered by James Brokenshire
So far this year more than 100 people have been arrested across the country on suspicion of terrorist offences related to Syria.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to bring forward proposals to limit the free movement of people into the UK from other EU countries.
Answered by James Brokenshire
We have been clear that free movement is an important principle of the EU but it cannot be unqualified. Freedom of movement is not, and cannot be, a freedom to claim benefits. Across Government we have introduced a series of tough domestic reforms to tackle the abuse of free movement rights and to ensure that our controls on accessing benefits and services are amongst the tightest in Europe.
The Prime Minister has made clear that further steps are needed.