Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the treatment of refused asylum seekers after their return to Zimbabwe.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not routinely monitor the treatment of people once they are removed from the UK. Returns are only undertaken when the Home Office and courts deem it is safe to do so.
The UK is under no obligation to monitor the treatment of unsuccessful asylum seekers who have returned to their country of origin. They are, by definition, foreign nationals who have been found as a matter of law not to need the UK’s protection, and who have no legal basis of stay in the UK. It would be inappropriate for the UK to assume any ongoing responsibility for them when they return to their own country.
Should the Home Office receive any specific allegations that a returnee has experienced ill-treatment on return to their country of origin, these would be investigated in partnership with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers have been returned to Zimbabwe in each of the last four calendar years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on returns from the UK in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release
Data on the number of returns, by year, type of return and asylum and non-asylum are published in table Ret_05 of the returns summary dataset. In addition, the top 10 nationalities being returned by whether an asylum or non-asylum related case, for the most recent period available are published in table Ret_04 .
Asylum-related returns relate to cases where there has been an asylum claim at some stage prior to the return. This will include asylum seekers whose asylum claims have been refused, and who have exhausted any rights of appeal, those returned under third country provisions, as well as those granted asylum/protection, but removed for other reasons (such as criminality).
The latest data relates to the year ending March 2020.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’. https://www.gov.uk/search/research-and-statistics?content_store_document_type=upcoming_statistics&organisations%5B%5D=home-office&order=release-date-oldest
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much of the £2 million in funding allocated to domestic abuse helplines and online support has been directly accessed by those support services to date.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Just under £1.2m of the funding has so far been allocated to thirteen organisations to help support helplines, web-based services and the production of additional guidance for victims. The organisations concerned have be notified of the awards and the Home Office is liaising with them on the necessary processes for transferring the funds.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that all people in immigration removal centres have access to soap and sanitiser during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The safety and health of people in the detention estate is of the utmost importance. The Home Office is following all Public Health England guidance on coronavirus and have robust contingency plans in place, including measures such as protective isolation and use of personal protective equipment.
Handwashing facilities are available in all immigration removal centres and we are working closely with suppliers to ensure we have a continuous supply of soap and cleaning materials. In addition, each centre has posters and leaflets to inform detainees about the importance of handwashing and social distancing to minimise the risk from Covid-19. Detainees are also able to speak to staff directly for advice on the measures in place.
The Home Office is working closely with NHS England health and justice teams and regional commissioning teams to support their planning and delivery of healthcare services in immigration removal centres during the COVID-19 outbreak, which includes testing.
On 26 March, the High Court ruled that our approach to detention and Coronavirus was sensible, with the appropriate precautionary measures in place.
There are currently no cases of Covid-19 in the immigration detention estate.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her policy is on testing (a) staff and (b) detainees in immigration removal centres for covid-19.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The safety and health of people in the detention estate is of the utmost importance. The Home Office is following all Public Health England guidance on coronavirus and have robust contingency plans in place, including measures such as protective isolation and use of personal protective equipment.
Handwashing facilities are available in all immigration removal centres and we are working closely with suppliers to ensure we have a continuous supply of soap and cleaning materials. In addition, each centre has posters and leaflets to inform detainees about the importance of handwashing and social distancing to minimise the risk from Covid-19. Detainees are also able to speak to staff directly for advice on the measures in place.
The Home Office is working closely with NHS England health and justice teams and regional commissioning teams to support their planning and delivery of healthcare services in immigration removal centres during the COVID-19 outbreak, which includes testing.
On 26 March, the High Court ruled that our approach to detention and Coronavirus was sensible, with the appropriate precautionary measures in place.
There are currently no cases of Covid-19 in the immigration detention estate.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress she has made on relaxing tax and pensions rules which could deter (a) police officers nearing retirement from retiring and (b) recently retired police officers from returning to serve during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
On 22 April, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury made a written statement confirming that the relevant tax rules are temporarily suspended. This means that that retired officers who re-join the police to support Government’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak will not be subject to punitive tax charges which may otherwise deter officers from returning to serve during this period.
The written ministerial statement is available at https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2020-04-22/HCWS196/
The Government is committed to ensuring that police forces and officers have the support and resources they need to meet the increased demands of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department has spent on communications for the (a) #YouAreNotAlone and (b) Stay Home Save Lives campaigns to date; and what her Department's total spend on covid-19-related communications has been to date.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office has committed £219,000 so far towards the #YouAreNotAlone campaign. Not all of this spend has yet been delivered in full as media advertising is still live. Campaign value has been maximised with adverts running across donated media, as well as paid media channels.
The Home Office has not contributed funding to the Stay Home Save Lives campaign but has been supporting the campaign by sharing materials through Home Office channels.
To date, the Home Office has spent a total of £260,000 on coronavirus-related communications. This includes spend on the #YouAreNotAlone campaign.
The key #YouAreNotAlone campaign materials are being made available in Welsh and will be translated into a number of other languages. We are in the process of scoping and translating priority languages with advice from key stakeholders including Karma Nirvana, Refuge, Women’s Aid, Southall Black Sisters, Imkaan and others.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what languages the #YouAreNotAlone campaign communications are available in.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office has committed £219,000 so far towards the #YouAreNotAlone campaign. Not all of this spend has yet been delivered in full as media advertising is still live. Campaign value has been maximised with adverts running across donated media, as well as paid media channels.
The Home Office has not contributed funding to the Stay Home Save Lives campaign but has been supporting the campaign by sharing materials through Home Office channels.
To date, the Home Office has spent a total of £260,000 on coronavirus-related communications. This includes spend on the #YouAreNotAlone campaign.
The key #YouAreNotAlone campaign materials are being made available in Welsh and will be translated into a number of other languages. We are in the process of scoping and translating priority languages with advice from key stakeholders including Karma Nirvana, Refuge, Women’s Aid, Southall Black Sisters, Imkaan and others.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of racially-motivated hate crimes recorded by the police in each week of 2020 to date were against people of Chinese ethnicity.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects and publishes statistics annually on the number of racially motivated hate crime offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. Information is not routinely collected on the ethnicity of victims.
The latest ‘Hate Crime, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2018-to-2019
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have entered detention under immigration legislation since 23 March 2020.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on people entering detention in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the year ending December 2019. Additionally, the Home Office publishes a high-level overview of the data in the 'summary tables'. The ‘contents’ sheet contains an overview of all available data on detention.
Figures covering the first quarter of 2020 will be released on 21st May 2020. Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.