Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many Rwandans have (1) applied for asylum, and (2) been granted asylum, in each year since 2010.

Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth

The Home Office publishes data on asylum applications and initial decisions, by nationality and year, in the Immigration System Statistics quarterly release on gov.uk. These statistics are published in tables Asy_D01 and Asy_D02 of the asylum & resettlement detailed datasets which can be downloaded via the table attached.

The latest data relates to the end of June 2023.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what caps are in place for work-related visas, and how they are enforced.

Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth

The UK’s Points Based system Skilled Worker and Temporary Worker routes are not capped, with the exception of the Seasonal Worker route which is specifically designed to support the UK horticulture sector. A sector in which growers typically require higher volumes of labour, for relatively short-term periods of time, in line with seasonal production peaks.

The Seasonal Worker route currently has 45,000 visas available. A further 10,000 places will be released if there is sufficient evidence of need, and contingent with improvements in worker welfare. A separate quota of 2,000 places is also available to support the poultry sector in the run up to Christmas. These allocations are divided amongst the licenced Scheme Operators, in line with published policy, and are managed via the Home Office’s Sponsor Management System.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Benyon on 27 November where he stated that they have "nearly completed the 2,700-mile King Charles III England Coast Path", by what date was the path completed, or will be completed.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

Work on the King Charles III England Coast Path is progressing with over 2600 miles approved and 1040 miles now open to the public. At 2,700 miles, when complete it will be the longest waymarked and maintained coastal walking route in the world.

We committed in the Environmental Improvement Plan, published in January 2023, for the path to be fully walkable by the end of 2024. We continue to work at pace towards this commitment.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is (1) the average compensation payment under the Windrush Compensation schemes for those wrongly deported, and (2) the compensation payment now being proposed for those sub-postmasters wrongly imprisoned as a result of Post Office action.

Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

Data on how much compensation has been paid by the Windrush Compensation Scheme is published as part of the regular transparency data release. The latest data release can be found here, covering the period up to end of November 2023: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-compensation-scheme-data-november-2023. Data on average payments made to individuals suffering specific losses is not reported on regularly.

Individuals who were wrongly imprisoned due to errors caused by the Horizon system will become eligible for a £600,000 up-front payment, or alternatively they can choose to have their claim fully assessed via the individual claim assessment process.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many data breaches have been reported by HM Passport Office's security team since 2020.

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

Between 1 January 2020 and 6 February 2024, His Majesty’s Passport Office reported 15,218 data breaches across passport and certificate services, which includes those resulting from a partner delivery error.

This figure is approximately 0.05% of the applications and orders handled by HM Passport Office and the General Register Office within the same period.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many community events have Immigration Enforcement's National Community Engagement Team annually (1) held, and (2) hosted; and what were the annual costs of these events.

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

The National Community Engagement Team have held and hosted two community events, both in this financial year. The annual costs for these are £20,707, which includes £3,451 VAT.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Home Office's Independent Examiner of Complaints service, and whether the Office of the Independent Examiner of Complaints will publish annual reports.

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

The Independent Examiner of Complaints (IEC) is operating within its terms of reference. The Memorandum of Understanding between the Home Office and the IEC states that the IEC will publish an annual report.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many complaints they have received about Teleperformance overseas helplines, and what compensation has been awarded to customers, in each month since 2022.

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

The number of complaints made to the UKVI international helpline, managed by Teleperformance, are found in the table below.

We do not hold the data relating to how much compensation has been issued in relation to contact made to the UKVI Contact Centre, as this is held by Teleperformance.

Teleperformance collect call and email charges on behalf of UKVI. Where any refunds are to be issued in relation to complaints made against the services, it is appropriate for Teleperformance to manage these refund transactions.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the current number of individuals who are in the United Kingdom illegally.

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

By its very nature, it is not possible to know the exact size of the illegal population, or the number of people who arrive illegally, and so we do not seek to make any official estimates of the illegal population. In June 2019, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a note on ‘measuring illegal migration’.

The Home Office does publish statistics on irregular arrivals to the UK as part of the ‘Irregular migration to the UK’ quarterly statistics release on gov.uk. However, this does not indicate the number of irregular migrants currently in the UK.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government when all Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration reports submitted to the Home Office will be published.

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

The department takes every inspection report seriously and considers the findings and recommendations carefully. This can sometimes mean the publication process is longer than expected. We will publish the reports in due course.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government when the Digital Services at the Border programme will be completed, and what estimate they have made of its total cost.

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

DSAB will complete in spring this year. The cost of bringing all the world leading, security features that it delivers will have been £177m since the programme reset in 2020.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many unannounced inspections of Life in the UK test centres have taken place each month since November 2022; whether any test centres have been closed since November 2022; and, if so, for what reason.

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

The information requested is not held in a reportable format.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much has been raised from the Immigration Health Surcharge has been received by (1) the NHS, and (2) by non-NHS bodies, in each year since 2015.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) income data is published annually in the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts. The income generated by the Home Office is distributed to the devolved health administrations for the purposes of health spending, under the Barnett Formula.

Please note that the IHS figure is made up of both Retained Income and Consolidated Funds. The IHS amounts for the financial years from 2015 to 2022 inclusive are as follows:

- £169,112,000 in 2015/16;

- £210,250,000 in 2016/17;

- £240,483,000 in 2017/18;

- £297,927,000 in 2018/19;

- £597,677,000 in 2019/20;

- £480,822,000 in 2020/21;

- £1,423,284,000 in 2021/22; and

- £1,706,112,000 in 2022/23.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the level of labour shortages in the farming sector; what measures they are taking to manage such shortages; and what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of such measures.

Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra is working closely with our food and farming sectors and across Government, to understand labour demand and supply, and help our world-leading growers, farmers and food producers access the labour they need, including both permanent and seasonal workforce requirements.

To reduce the risk of seasonal labour shortages in horticulture and the poultry sector, the Government announced last May that there would be 45,000 Seasonal Worker visas for the horticulture sector in 2024, with a further 2000 for seasonal poultry workers, ensuring these sectors can plan their workforce needs for the year ahead with confidence. This provides sufficient visas for growers to access all the workers they need, and if more visas are necessary within the year an additional 10,000 could be released. Reports on the Seasonal Worker visa route are available at GOV.UK.

To help support the issue of labour shortages and inform future decisions on labour across the sector, the Government commissioned John Shropshire to carry out an Independent Review into Labour Shortages in the Food Supply Chain throughout 2022 and 2023. John Shropshire’s Review considered how automation, domestic labour and migrant labour could contribute to tackling labour shortages in our sectors, including farming. This report was published on 30 June 2023 and the Government response – which will also be informed by the Review of Automation in Horticulture – is expected to be published in early 2024.

The Government response will consider all ten of the recommendations made in John Shropshire’s Review, covering the four themes of Recruitment & Retention, Skills, Data and Automation.

At the same time as the response, the Government will set out how it will support the sector to access the labour it needs alongside actions to reduce the sector’s reliance on migrant labour including via our work on automation and promoting domestic labour procurement and training.