Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have arrived in the UK under the (a) Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy Scheme and (b) Afghan Resettlement Scheme as of 17 May; and how many people are currently in bridging hotels.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The UK Government undertook the biggest and fastest emergency evacuation in recent history. Over 15,000 people were supported to come to the UK directly following the evacuation of Afghanistan, and a further 3,000 have since arrived.
Due to the scale and pace of the evacuation we have had to use hotels as a temporary measure. There are currently over 12,000 individuals from Afghanistan in bridging hotels. This cohort is made up of British and Afghan Nationals who may be eligible for Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) or Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS).
We do not want to keep people in temporary accommodation for any longer than is necessary. We have moved – or are in the process of moving - over 6,000 people into homes since June 2021. There is a huge effort underway to support the families into permanent homes so they can settle and rebuild their lives, and to ensure those still temporarily accommodated in hotels are given the best start to their life in the 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 additional staff have been employed to process DBS checks for sponsors under the Homes for Ukraine scheme; and what estimate she has made of the likely processing time for those DBS checks.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) have assessed they will be able to deliver checks for the scheme using its current resources. They are operating a seven-day working week within its disclosure operations teams, to provide the capacity needed to process these checks and they will continue to review and flex resources as required. The DBS intends to undertake the checks in line with its published service standards, which state that 80% of Enhanced with Barred List Checks will be completed within 14 calendar days, and 80% of basic checks in 2 days.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to ensure that family members of Afghan interpreters are not separated into different bridging hotels upon arrival into the UK.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Our hotel teams work to place families together in the same bridging hotels, unless there are safeguarding concerns which indicate this is not appropriate.
When family members arrive at a later date, we strive to reunite them with those already here. If there is not sufficient space within a hotel to allow this immediately, the teams look to source an alternative hotel which can accommodate all immediate family members together as soon as possible. The teams will also try to accommodate extended family members together but limited capacity in the bridging estate means this is not always feasible.
We will continue to work across-government, with local authorities and the voluntary sector to provide the best possible service to families whilst in bridging hotels.
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 response time was for her Department to respond to an enquiry from an MP once an enquiry had been received by the MP (a) hotline and (b) account management team in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Members written correspondence within 20 working days.
Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan. Ministers and officials have also had to instigate a remote process for drafting and signing correspondence during the period of COVID-19 restrictions.
The Department recognises it has not been able to meet service standard in some cases but has implemented an action plan to clear backlogs and drive up performance. The Department has recruited additional resources and expects to return to answering Hon. Member’s correspondence within service standard by the end of March 2022.
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-q3-2021 and this includes data up to and including the end of quarter 3 - 2021.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of extending access to temporary visas to staff working in the hospitality sector.
Answered by Kevin Foster
I refer the honourable member to my response to question 71316 on 15 November 2021
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 waiting time was for an Asylum Registration Card application to be processed by UKVI in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021.
Answered by Kevin Foster
An Application Registration Card (ARC) is produced as a routine part of the registration process for asylum applicants, and is not an immigration product in its own right which people apply for.
The system will produce and deliver an ARC within three days of the asylum screening taking place.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what support is available through her Department to asylum seekers who (a) have never been issued an Asylum Registration Card and (b) have seen their Asylum Registration Card expire.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Advice and guidance is published on GOV.UK which sets out the purpose of an ARC card, which is not required to access asylum support, and guidance on how to raise and issue with an ARC card.
Application registration card (ARC) - 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, pursuant to the Answer of 17 November 2021 to Question 73790 on Migrant Workers: Employment, whether her Department collects data on the time taken to complete Employer Checking Service checks and (b) in what format that data is collated.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office holds management information collected as part of a daily census, which covers the total size of the Employer Checking Service work queue and the age of the oldest query awaiting unanswered. This information cannot be used to infer an average processing time for the queue as a whole.
More granular detail, and a reliable calculation of average processing time would require a case by case review, which would incur disproportionate cost.
The information is provisional internal management information and subject to change. It is not quality assured under National Statistics protocols and does not constitute part of National Statistics.
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 waiting time was for the completion of an Employer Checking Service check in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The information is not available in the format requested and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
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 waiting time was for a substantive response to be sent following an enquiry being made to her Department's MP Account Management team in (a) 2018, (b) 2019, (c) 2020 and (d) 2021.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Data about intake and performance in answering MP Correspondence are published quarterly with the latest quarter available at: Customer service operations data: Q2 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and this includes data up to and including the end of quarter 2 - 2021. We are proposing the release of data for quarter 3 in due course.
We do not publish average waiting times for substantive responses to correspondence