Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the advice given to immigrants by care worker agencies on finding suitable accommodation in the UK.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Department of Health and Social Care have published guidance for people applying for health and social care jobs which can be found below: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/applying-for-health-and-social-care-jobs-in-the-uk-from-abroad.
The Legal Migration and Borders Minister has met regularly with his counterpart in DHSC to discuss care worker visas.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to reduce shoplifting in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) the East Midlands.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises the significant impact shoplifting has on businesses, communities and consumers. The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows neighbourhood crime is down 48% compared to findings from the year ending March 2010.
However, Police Recorded Crime figures show shoplifting offences increased by 37% in the 12 months to December 2023. Statistics also show the number of people charged with shoplifting offences has risen by 46% in the year ending December 2023, showing that police are taking action.
We have recently taken significant steps nationally to improve the police response to retail crime, including shoplifting, and these are being implemented in all police forces across England and Wales.
The Government’s plan – "Fighting retail crime: more action" was launched on 10 April, which highlights five areas of work this Government will drive forward to tackle retail crime:
We will bring forward legislative changes to introduce a presumption towards electronic monitoring as part of a sentence served in the community for those who repeatedly steal from shops. This legislative change will provide that on the third sentencing occasion, an offender would be electronically monitored as part of any community sentence or post-release for the duration of any licence period.
The Government’s plan builds on the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s (NPCC) Retail Crime Action Plan. Through this Plan, all forces across England and Wales have committed to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, and where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel. Additionally, where CCTV or other digital images are secured, police will run this through the Police National Database to aid efforts to identify prolific offenders or potentially dangerous individuals.
This builds on the NPCC commitment that police forces across England and Wales will follow up all crimes where there is actionable evidence and the chance of identifying an offender, including shoplifting.
October also saw the launch of Pegasus, a unique private-public partnership, which involves retailers providing data, intelligence and evidence to Opal, the national police intelligence unit on organised acquisitive crime, to develop a better strategic picture and help forces crack down on serious offenders.
We are continuing to work closely with retail businesses, security representatives, trade associations and policing through the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG), which meets on a quarterly basis, to ensure the response to retail crime, including shoplifting, is as robust as it can be.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers awaiting decisions has his Department been unable to locate or contact since January 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
This information is not routinely published and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of cannabis use on violent crime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
No recent assessment has been made. Cannabis is controlled as a Class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 as there is clear scientific and medical evidence that cannabis is a harmful drug which can damage people’s mental and physical health, and harms individuals and communities.
Cannabis continues to be the most commonly used drug and around 21% of adults starting treatment between 2021 and 2022 said they had a problem with cannabis. Cannabis poses a large number of serious health risks, including psychological disorders such as psychosis and respiratory illness, particularly given recent increases in potency.
We know from Dame Carol Black’s landmark review into drugs that there are clear links between the trade in illicit drugs and violence and exploitation.
Illicit drug use also makes our communities less safe, with links to anti-social behaviour in public spaces.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to stop sham marriages and civil partnerships.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Government takes abuse of the spouse and partner immigration routes very seriously and is clear that family migration must be based on a genuine and subsisting marriage or relationship.
The Home Office focuses its efforts on disrupting facilitators as well as prosecuting individuals involved in sham marriages and civil partnerships and will consider refusal or cancellation of permission to stay, or removal, following any determination that a relationship is a sham.
The marriage referral and investigation scheme, introduced across the UK under the Immigration Act 2014, requires that all proposed marriages and civil partnerships where one or both parties could gain an immigration advantage from it are referred to the Home Office. Under this scheme, where we have reasonable grounds to suspect a sham relationship, the marriage notice period will be extended to allow for further investigation, and for enforcement or casework action to be taken where appropriate.
Part 9 of the Immigration Rules provides specific grounds for the refusal or cancellation of permission to enter or stay on the basis of any involvement in a sham marriage or sham civil partnership, providing a more robust and consistent framework against which immigration applications are assessed, and reflecting the seriousness of this type of abuse.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken to mitigate potential delays in visa application processing for people affected by merged identities.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Person Centric Data Platform (PCDP) holds millions of identities that have been submitted, or otherwise provided, in support of immigration applications.
The ‘merged identities’ issue affects around 0.02% of PCDP customer records; over 99.98% of records are not impacted by this issue. We have identified around 46,000 records with an identity issue, of which over 13,000 have already been resolved and we have a dedicated team working on the remainder.
The Home Office takes data security and accuracy very seriously. We continue pro-active analysis to identify potentially erroneous records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible, and ideally before the individual is even aware.
Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre so this can be investigated and resolved.
As part of the Identity Document Linking change, we pro-actively highlighted a small number of records which were sent for manual resolution through our existing processes. We expect that most of these records would have been corrected before the person themselves would become aware.
We do not hold information on how many people have contacted the Home Office due to a merged identity issue which is directly related to the document linking change.
We are not aware of any significant delays to visa application processing as a result of this issue. UKVI also have a triage process in place so that where there may be an outstanding application, cases can be escalated for immediate resolution.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been affected by merged identities created in the Identity Document Linking change.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Person Centric Data Platform (PCDP) holds millions of identities that have been submitted, or otherwise provided, in support of immigration applications.
The ‘merged identities’ issue affects around 0.02% of PCDP customer records; over 99.98% of records are not impacted by this issue. We have identified around 46,000 records with an identity issue, of which over 13,000 have already been resolved and we have a dedicated team working on the remainder.
The Home Office takes data security and accuracy very seriously. We continue pro-active analysis to identify potentially erroneous records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible, and ideally before the individual is even aware.
Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre so this can be investigated and resolved.
As part of the Identity Document Linking change, we pro-actively highlighted a small number of records which were sent for manual resolution through our existing processes. We expect that most of these records would have been corrected before the person themselves would become aware.
We do not hold information on how many people have contacted the Home Office due to a merged identity issue which is directly related to the document linking change.
We are not aware of any significant delays to visa application processing as a result of this issue. UKVI also have a triage process in place so that where there may be an outstanding application, cases can be escalated for immediate resolution.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been affected by merged identities in the Person Centric Data Platform.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Person Centric Data Platform (PCDP) holds millions of identities that have been submitted, or otherwise provided, in support of immigration applications.
The ‘merged identities’ issue affects around 0.02% of PCDP customer records; over 99.98% of records are not impacted by this issue. We have identified around 46,000 records with an identity issue, of which over 13,000 have already been resolved and we have a dedicated team working on the remainder.
The Home Office takes data security and accuracy very seriously. We continue pro-active analysis to identify potentially erroneous records so that appropriate remedial work can be undertaken as quickly, and as carefully, as possible, and ideally before the individual is even aware.
Where customers identify an issue with their data, we encourage them to contact the UK Visas and Immigration Contact Centre so this can be investigated and resolved.
As part of the Identity Document Linking change, we pro-actively highlighted a small number of records which were sent for manual resolution through our existing processes. We expect that most of these records would have been corrected before the person themselves would become aware.
We do not hold information on how many people have contacted the Home Office due to a merged identity issue which is directly related to the document linking change.
We are not aware of any significant delays to visa application processing as a result of this issue. UKVI also have a triage process in place so that where there may be an outstanding application, cases can be escalated for immediate resolution.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate he has made of the number of applications to stay in the UK that are made on the basis of a sham marriage or civil partnership.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The number of applications to stay in the UK that are made on the basis of a sham marriage or civil partnership does not form part of any current transparency data or migration statistics and is not published. The transparency data does, however, include a range of processing data and the latest data can be found at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#uk-visas-and-immigration.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been prosecuted in relation to sham marriages or civil partnerships that have taken place for the purpose of remaining in the UK since 2019.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
Between 14 November 2018 to 1 May 2024, 11 individuals who have entered into sham marriages or civil partnerships, or facilitated those arrangements, have been convicted by Home Office Criminal and Financial Investigation teams.