Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of (a) ordinary and (b) named-day written questions their Department answered on time in 2022.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The procedure committee regularly publish reports on parliamentary written question performance. The most recent report, covering departmental performance in Session 2021-22, can be found here: Written parliamentary questions: Departmental performance in Session 2021–22 - Committees - UK Parliament.
The Home Office is working to improve our performance in answering written parliamentary questions, for details on this continuous improvement I refer the Hon Member to the letter sent from the Home Office to the Procedure Committee dated 21 June 2022 https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/23223/documents/169558/default/.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken to respond to (a) written parliamentary questions and (b) correspondence from Members of Parliament.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office is working to improve our performance in answering written parliamentary questions. For details on this continuous improvement I refer the Hon Member to the letter sent from Home Office to the Procedure Committee dated 21 June 2022 https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/23223/documents/169558/default/.
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Member’s written correspondence within 20 working days.
Performance against target has been impacted by an unprecedented increase in MPs queries prompted by successive global cases and a surge in HM Passport Office applications following the pandemic.
The Home Office has since implemented a correspondence recovery plan and as a result, the Home Office is due to return to its 20-day service standard in the week commencing 16 January 2023.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of applications for asylum that were submitted in (a) the UK and (b) Newport East constituency in (i) 2019, (ii) 2020 and (iii) 2021 are outstanding as of 2 November 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum applications are published in table Asy_D01, data on initial decisions on asylum applications are published in table Asy_D02, and data on asylum applications awaiting an initial decision are published in table Asy_D03 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relates to the year ending June 2022. Data for July 2022 to the end of September 2022 is set to be published on 24 November 2022.
Data on outcome analysis on asylum applications raised in a specific period are published in table Asy_D04 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relates to 2021. Data for 2022 will be published in 2023.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Whilst we hold data on the current addresses of asylum claimants, the Home Office is unable to state how many asylum claims from people in Newport East constituency have been submitted and are outstanding as of 02 November 2022 or what the average wait time is for an asylum interview or decision in Newport East constituency, or the UK as this information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost because it would require a manual search through individual records.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) applications for asylum were submitted and (b) decisions on asylum applications were made in (i) 2019, (ii) 2020, (iii) 2021 and (iv) 2022 to date.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum applications are published in table Asy_D01, data on initial decisions on asylum applications are published in table Asy_D02, and data on asylum applications awaiting an initial decision are published in table Asy_D03 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relates to the year ending June 2022. Data for July 2022 to the end of September 2022 is set to be published on 24 November 2022.
Data on outcome analysis on asylum applications raised in a specific period are published in table Asy_D04 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relates to 2021. Data for 2022 will be published in 2023.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Whilst we hold data on the current addresses of asylum claimants, the Home Office is unable to state how many asylum claims from people in Newport East constituency have been submitted and are outstanding as of 02 November 2022 or what the average wait time is for an asylum interview or decision in Newport East constituency, or the UK as this information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost because it would require a manual search through individual records.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applications are outstanding in (a) Newport East constituency and (b) the UK; and what is the average wait time for an asylum (i) interview and (ii) decision in (A) Newport East constituency and (B) the UK.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum applications are published in table Asy_D01, data on initial decisions on asylum applications are published in table Asy_D02, and data on asylum applications awaiting an initial decision are published in table Asy_D03 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relates to the year ending June 2022. Data for July 2022 to the end of September 2022 is set to be published on 24 November 2022.
Data on outcome analysis on asylum applications raised in a specific period are published in table Asy_D04 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relates to 2021. Data for 2022 will be published in 2023.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Whilst we hold data on the current addresses of asylum claimants, the Home Office is unable to state how many asylum claims from people in Newport East constituency have been submitted and are outstanding as of 02 November 2022 or what the average wait time is for an asylum interview or decision in Newport East constituency, or the UK as this information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost because it would require a manual search through individual records.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her policy is on procuring stab vests for police forces; what steps she is taking to increase supply of those vests; and if she will make a statement..
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Decisions around the procurement of stab vests are operational issues for Chief Officers to determine in line with their strategic threat and risk assessments.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken by her Department was to process a Standard Visitor visa in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, (c) 2021 and (d) January to August 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Average processing times for a Standard Visitor Visa are not captured in our published data. To capture the requested data would incur a disproportionate cost.
The current average processing times for Standard Visitor Visas can be found on the GOV.uk webpage: Visa decision waiting times: applications outside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Home Office’s published data on its performance against its service standard historically can be found in our transparency data: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many new enquiries her Department's MP Urgent Enquiries inbox handled in each month in from January 2021 to May 2022; what steps her Department is taking to manage the (a) performance and (b) case management of those teams; what steps she is taking to oversee the performance of the Urgent Enquiry inbox; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
There are multiple ways for Members to raise queries with the MP Account Management Team (MPAM) including submitting via the MP Urgent Enquiries inbox. Whilst the department collates detailed information regarding Member’s queries this cannot be broken down by the specific inbox used to raise a query.
Performance against target has been impacted by a significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan and more recently in Ukraine.
The Department continues to prioritise enquiries related to Ukraine and recognises it has not been able to meet service standard in other cases. Actions have been taken to clear backlogs and drive-up performance. MPs can also escalate urgent and compassionate cases via the team at Portcullis House.
The Department continues to recruit additional resources and has recently been loaned staff from non-operational areas to assist in clearing the backlogs. A detailed recovery plan to support a return to an acceptable service standard is being prepared.
Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest Quarter available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q1-2022
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many new enquiries her Department’s MP hotline teams have processed in each month of 2022 up to 20 June.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The volume of calls received, and enquiries handled in these calls on the MP Helpline in each month of 2022 is detailed below.
| Calls Answered | Total Enquiries handles through calls | |
| Jan-22 | 1327 | 1650 |
| Feb-22 | 1344 | 1659 |
| Mar-22 | 1808 | 2383 |
| Apr-22 | 1967 | 3632 |
| May-22 | 3716 | 7118 |
| Jun-22 | 2902 | 4884 |
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many new enquiries her Department’s MP hotline teams dealt with in each month in 2021; what steps her Department is taking to manage the (a) performance and (b) case management of those teams; what steps she is taking to oversee the performance of those MP hotlines; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The volume of individual calls handled in 2021, by month, detailed below.
| Calls answered |
| |
Jan-21 |
| 860 |
|
Feb-21 |
| 885 |
|
Mar-21 |
| 1042 |
|
Apr-21 |
| 919 |
|
May-21 |
| 808 |
|
Jun-21 |
| 1188 |
|
Jul-21 |
| 1103 |
|
Aug-21 |
| 1314 |
|
Sep-21 |
| 1590 |
|
Oct-21 |
| 1633 |
|
Nov-21 |
| 1611 |
|
Dec-21 |
| 1352 |
|
Totals | 14305 |
|
Average wait time for calls in this period was 24 seconds.
We have seen significant increase in call volumes to the MP enquiry line in recent months linked to the situation in Ukraine and to HMPO passport applications. This has resulted in lengthy average wait times.
We have now increased resources working on the MP Enquiry Line and call waiting times are now retuning to 2021 levels.
MP’s also can contact the Home Office via the MP’s Urgent Enquiries inbox or in person at the Portcullis House walk-in hub.