Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied children are being housed in arranged hotel accommodation as of September 2023; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Under Part 6 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the Home Office has a legal obligation to support asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute.
The high number of UASC arrivals, particularly as a result of small boat crossings, has placed unprecedented pressure on the National Transfer Scheme. Out of necessity we accommodated UASC on an emergency and temporary basis in hotels while placements with local authorities have been vigorously pursued. The Home Office have put in place further funding throughout 2023-24 of £6,000 for every unaccompanied child moved from a UASC hotel to a local authority within five working days to encourage quicker transfers into local authority care.
We take the safety of those in our care seriously. We have robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure all young people in emergency interim hotels are safe and supported as we seek urgent placements with a local authority.
All local authorities are under a mandatory duty to comply with the National Transfer Scheme and significant work is underway to support them in fulfilling their statutory duty to accommodate unaccompanied children nationwide.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2023 to Question 195848 on Visas: Afghanistan, what approach she is taking to reviewing processes to streamline decision making for family reunion visa applications; whether she plans to consult MPs; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Government’s refugee family reunion policy provides a safe and legal route to bring families together.
We are committed to improving and speeding up processing times for family reunion applications to reduce the time separated families wait for a decision. This includes determining cases more swiftly where they are straightforward and meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules. We are also increasing decision making and other resource to support family reunion case processing. This is in addition to looking more broadly at how the end-to-end decision-making process can be simplified and streamlined.
Since 2015, 46,511 family reunion visas have been granted to family members of refugees as of the end of June 2023.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to recommendation 1 of the policy paper entitled The Home Office response to the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report: An inspection of asylum casework (August 2020 to May 2021), published 18 November 2021, when she plans to publish a service standard.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Reducing the backlog in asylum cases and establishing a more efficient and robust decision-making system is not in and of itself a strategy to stop illegal migration, but it is important for taxpayer value and we have prioritised it. We have transformed the productivity of asylum decision making by streamlining processes, creating focused interviews and instilling true accountability for performance. As of 1 September, we have met our commitment to have 2,500 decision makers, an increase of 174% from the same point last year. As a result, I am pleased to report to the House that we are on track to clear the legacy backlog by the end of the year, and that recently published provisional figures for July show that the overall backlog fell.
On 13 December 2022, the Prime Minister pledged to clear the backlog of the 92,601 initial asylum decisions relating to claims made before 28 June 2022 (“legacy claims”) by the end of 2023.
We have taken immediate action to accelerate decision-making and rapidly speed up processing times by streamlining guidance, accelerating decision-making procedures, including more focused and fewer interviews, as well as enhancing the use of technology.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department has issued on the criteria used to triage family reunion applications once biometrics have been submitted.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office published updated Family Reunion Casework Guidance in July 2023. This is viewable at Family reunion: caseworker guidance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and covers guidance on prioritisation for particularly vulnerable applicants.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the ongoing Ofcom investigation into Royal Mail’s compliance with its quality-of-service performance targets in 2022-23 was relevant to the decision to award Royal Mail the contract to collect and deliver passports and travel documents; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The contract for the secure delivery of passports and other mail services on behalf of the Home Office was awarded in October 2022, prior to the Ofcom investigation.
The contract was awarded following a fair and open competition and extensive due diligence, with Royal Mail best demonstrating that they could meet the requirements of the Home Office and its customers.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many family reunion applications have not been completed by her Department within (a) the 60 day service standard, (b) six months and (c) one year.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Information regarding processing times for family reunion applications is not routinely published and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost. We are working outside the 60 working day service standard, with the majority of applications being considered at over double the service standard timescale.
We remain committed to improving and speeding up processing times for family reunion applications.
The latest Immigration system statistics, year ending June 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) show that since 2015, 46,511 family reunion visas have been granted to family members of refugees.
We prioritise all applications where the application has been made by an unaccompanied child, under the age of 18. We will also prioritise applications where there is an evidenced urgent or compelling reason.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Pursuant to the Answer of 11 July 2023 to Question 192823 on Visas: Afghanistan, what her planned timescale is for concluding the review of processes to streamline decision-making for family reunion visa applications; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
For Afghan refugees already in the UK, we have rules in place for their close family members to apply to join them in the UK.
As previously said, we are committed to improving and speeding up processing times for family reunion applications. We are reviewing processes to streamline decision making.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Immigration of 20 February 2023 on the Knowsley Incident, Official Report, column 33, what criteria her Department is using to decide whether individual legal practitioners are monitored; how many legal practitioners are currently being monitored; what records are kept of the monitoring; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
People who make dangerous journeys by putting their lives at risk to reach the UK often seek immigration advice. When considering representations, the Home Office ensures that legal practitioners raising such immigration matters have the correct regulatory credentials. If evidence exists that obligations have been breached, we will refer legal practitioners to regulators or law enforcement where criminality is evident.
It would not be appropriate to comment further as this is operationally sensitive.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 28 April 2023 to Question 181937 on Asylum, how many legacy asylum claims submitted before 28 June 2022 have not yet received a decision.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes provisional data on the asylum backlog in the ‘Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Act’ release. Provisional data on asylum applications awaiting an initial decision, including a breakdown by legacy and flow cases, as at 31 March 2011 to 30 July 2023, can be found in table IMB_02 of the ‘Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Act: data tables to July 2023’.
The Home Office also publishes finalised data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on applications awaiting an initial decision under Section 12 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, including a breakdown by legacy and flow cases, is published in table Asy_10a of the ‘asylum and resettlement summary tables’. Data on the number of people awaiting a decision is published in table Asy_10b. The latest data relates to as at 30 June 2023. Data as at 30 September 2023 will be published on 23 November 2023.
Please note the provisional data in the ‘Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Act’ release is higher than the figures in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’ as the provisional data includes duplicates which have not been cleansed from the data; the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’ has been subject to additional quality assurance as cleansing.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Immigration of 20 February 2023 on the wider implications of the violent incident in Knowsley, Official Report, column 33, whether Melanie Strickland (a) has been and (b) is among the legal practitioners monitored by her Department.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office do not comment on individuals.