Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications for project licences to conduct experiments on animals under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 were refused permission between January and December 2021.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
No applications for a project licence to conduct experiments on animals under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 were refused between 01 January and 31 December 2021.
The Government publishes extensive Guidance on applying for licences. Applications are internally reviewed by an establishment’s Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body before being submitted to the regulator for assessment. During the application process applicants have the opportunity to amend or withdraw an application in response to feedback from the regulator.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many immigration (a) caseworkers and (b) entry clearance workers were recruited in each month between August 2021 and March 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Russian nationals who are holders of tier 1 visas have been identified as having previously been in the Russian armed forces.
Answered by Kevin Foster
For all Tier 1 entry clearance applications, applicants were required to confirm if they have had previous employment in the Armed Forces.
This data is only captured in a free text field, which would entail a manual trawl of individual records to capture the information requested.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to add butchers to the shortage occupation list.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Thanks to our expansion of the Skilled Worker route, occupations including butcher, butcher’s assistant, butchery manager, master butcher and slaughterman can now be sponsored to work in the UK.
A job does not have to be on the Shortage Occupation List (SOL) to qualify for the Skilled Worker visa. Being on the SOL also does not exempt a job from other requirements including English Language and skill thresholds, although it does allow an employer to pay a salary lower than the General Threshold for the route.
The Government intends to commission the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to undertake another review of the SOL this year and we will consider any recommendations following such a report. The meat sector, along with other economic sectors, are encouraged to provide their evidence to the MAC when their call for evidence opens.
We will continue to monitor the labour needs of other sectors, however we want to see employers make long-term investments in the UK domestic workforce, including offering competitive salary packages, instead of relying on labour from abroad. Beyond the Points Based System, there is the resident labour market which includes UK workers and non-UK citizens with general work rights.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the proposed number of 20,000 people for the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme will include those already evacuated to the UK.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The first to be resettled through the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) will be some of those who arrived in the UK under the evacuation programme, which included individuals who were considered to be at particular risk.
We are working across Government and with partners such as UNHCR to design and open the ACRS amidst a complex and changing picture. We are committed to working in step with the international community to get this right, and we will set out more details soon.
Information on the eligibility, prioritisation and referral of people for the ACRS is set out in the policy statement published on gov.uk on 13 September, available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghanistan-resettlement-and-immigration-policy-statement.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 2 December 2021 to Question 81016 on Refugees: Afghanistan, what criteria her Department will use to identify eligible people to be prioritised and referred for resettlement to the UK.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The first to be resettled through the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) will be some of those who arrived in the UK under the evacuation programme, which included individuals who were considered to be at particular risk.
We are working across Government and with partners such as UNHCR to design and open the ACRS amidst a complex and changing picture. We are committed to working in step with the international community to get this right, and we will set out more details soon.
Information on the eligibility, prioritisation and referral of people for the ACRS is set out in the policy statement published on gov.uk on 13 September, available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghanistan-resettlement-and-immigration-policy-statement.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to protect women from drink spiking in (a) bars and (b) other venues in England and Wales.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The reports of the spiking of drinks with illegal substances are of course concerning. This is an ongoing matter which the police are investigating.
The Government is supporting the rollout of pilot initiatives to improve the safety of women in public spaces at night, including in the night-time economy. We have committed to delivering a £5 million ‘Safety of Women at Night’ fund, in addition to the £25 million Safer Streets Fund Round 3. These funds will support projects that target potential perpetrators, seek to protect potential victims, or deliver programmes intended to address offending behaviour.
Licensing authorities have a number of options available to them to manage the night-time economy through a range of powers to tackle existing individual premises including the use of conditions, licence reviews and closure powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
The police are working at pace to gather intelligence on these crimes and identify perpetrators. It is a changing and evolving picture. We have been gathering reports from forces across the country, and currently, we have 218 reports of needle assaults and injections since September. Over the same period, the police are aware of 250 incidents of drink spiking. Those numbers are subject to change as the police continue to gather information. This is a crime in which not all instances are reported. We strongly encourage anyone who has been a victim to report it to the police but it does mean that it is difficult to make comparisons with the past, and we will continue to strive to understand more about this crime.
The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) has convened to discuss this issue with the NCA and the NPCC has committed to report back on the needle issue specifically (rather than drink spiking), and the results will be published in due course.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the number of drink spiking incidents in England and Wales.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The reports of the spiking of drinks with illegal substances are of course concerning. This is an ongoing matter which the police are investigating.
The Government is supporting the rollout of pilot initiatives to improve the safety of women in public spaces at night, including in the night-time economy. We have committed to delivering a £5 million ‘Safety of Women at Night’ fund, in addition to the £25 million Safer Streets Fund Round 3. These funds will support projects that target potential perpetrators, seek to protect potential victims, or deliver programmes intended to address offending behaviour.
Licensing authorities have a number of options available to them to manage the night-time economy through a range of powers to tackle existing individual premises including the use of conditions, licence reviews and closure powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
The police are working at pace to gather intelligence on these crimes and identify perpetrators. It is a changing and evolving picture. We have been gathering reports from forces across the country, and currently, we have 218 reports of needle assaults and injections since September. Over the same period, the police are aware of 250 incidents of drink spiking. Those numbers are subject to change as the police continue to gather information. This is a crime in which not all instances are reported. We strongly encourage anyone who has been a victim to report it to the police but it does mean that it is difficult to make comparisons with the past, and we will continue to strive to understand more about this crime.
The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) has convened to discuss this issue with the NCA and the NPCC has committed to report back on the needle issue specifically (rather than drink spiking), and the results will be published in due course.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment criteria were used for the procurement of the UK’s Passenger Locator Form contract.
Answered by Kevin Foster
When the requirements for a Passenger Locator Form were established, it was identified it could be delivered within the existing contracts and infrastructure of the Home Office’s online immigration application service, Access UK.
As such, the form was established reusing the architecture and components already available, allowing for it to be delivered at pace to help combat the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Government plans to accept any request to extradite Carles Puidgemont to Spain in the event that he visits the UK in response to invitations from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
As a matter of long-standing policy and practice, the UK will neither confirm nor deny that an extradition request has been made or received unless an arrest has been made in relation to that request
Extradition cooperation with Spain operates under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (the ‘TCA’).