Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether an assessment been made of the barriers preventing a Biometric Residence Permit from being issued at the same time as a letter granting refugee status.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The waiting times for biometric residence permits (BRP) are dictated by the BRP production and delivery processes.
The Home Office does not have published, verified data on delivery times.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the average time for a Biometric Residence Permit to be issued after refugee status has been granted to an individual.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The waiting times for biometric residence permits (BRP) are dictated by the BRP production and delivery processes.
The Home Office does not have published, verified data on delivery times.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government when, if at all, they intend to publish the operational processes and circumstances in which the Home Office will use the ‘vice versa’ power of child transfer from local authority care under the Illegal Migration Act 2023.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Illegal Migration Act received Royal Assent on 20 July 2023. The Act seeks to ensure the only way to come to the UK for protection will be through safe and legal routes and will take power out of the hands of the criminal gangs and protect vulnerable people, including children.
In light of Mr Justice Chamberlain’s High Court judgment of 27 July 2023 in ECPAT UK, R (On the Application Of) v Kent County Council & Anor [2023] EWHC 1953 (Admin), we are reflecting on our use of powers in the Illegal Migration Act relating to the accommodation and transfer of unaccompanied children. This includes the vice versa transfer power in Section 17. These powers have not yet been commenced; a decision will be made on this matter in due course.
We will continue to work with local authorities across the UK to ensure suitable local authority placements are provided for unaccompanied children, in line with their statutory duties.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, for Home Office accommodation for unaccompanied asylum seeking children to be subject to regulation and inspection by Ofsted.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Government continues to take steps to support local authorities to provide timely placements to unaccompanied children through the National Transfer Scheme (NTS). We remain committed to working with the local authority sector to ensure the system continues to operate effectively and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children move out of Home Office hotels quickly in light of the ECPAT judgment in the High Court.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children aged (1) 16–17, and (2) under 16, who are likely to arrive in the UK in the next 12 months.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The data requested cannot be provided as it depends on live operational databases that have not been quality assured. The Home Office uses this data alongside historical trends, expert opinion and other data sources to plan for a range of possible future asylum application demand, reflecting the unpredictability of world events and other drivers of immigration a range of projections are produced.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether, in the instance a child is found after going missing from Home Office accommodation, they are initially returned to hotel accommodation or the care of the local authority.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
When a missing child is found, a referral to the local authority is made with a clear expectation that they are taken into local authority care.
Hotel accommodation is a temporary means to accommodate the increased number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) arriving and is only ever a contingency option, not a long-term solution. Out of necessity we accommodated UASC on an emergency and temporary basis in hotels while placements with local authorities have been vigorously pursued.
Ending the use of hotels for UASC is an absolute priority and we will continue to work around the clock with councils to increase the number of care placements available.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government from what date asylum applications were first treated as withdrawn on the basis that the claimant failed to report or to inform the Home Office of a change of address.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
We do not currently publish data on the date asylum claims were first treated as withdrawn on the basis that the claimant failed to report or to inform the Home Office of a change of address. However, official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the code of practice for statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, as well as quality and availability of data.
Changes to the Immigration Rules were laid on 17 July 2023 and implemented on 7 August 2023 which included amending paragraph 333C to provide clarification on the circumstances in which an asylum claim can be treated as withdrawn.
The withdrawal of asylum claims is not a new process. It is a longstanding principle that claims that are explicitly or implicitly withdrawn will have their consideration discontinued. At each step of the asylum process, claimants are warned about the importance of complying with the asylum process and the prospect of withdrawal of their asylum claim should they fail to do so.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions have taken place among (1) the Home Office, (2) the Department for Work and Pensions, and (3) the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, on extending the move-on period for newly recognised refugees to at least 56 days, in line with the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and applications for Universal Credit.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Home Office only has a legal obligation to support someone until the end of the prescribed move-on period. Where someone is given notice that their asylum claim has been granted, their appeal has been allowed or their asylum claim has been refused but they have been given leave to enter or remain, the prescribed period is 28 days.
We are engaging the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on ensuring individuals can move on from asylum support as smoothly as possible.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, beyond the school gates, to provide support to children who have interacted with the children’s social care system.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Our analysis for reporting year ending March 2022 for children in social care shows:
After accounting for a wide range of factors such as rates of special educational need in these cohorts, children who have interacted with the social care system were around 25-50% less likely to achieve grades 5-9 in GCSE English and Maths, compared to pupils who were not in social care.
The government has put in place a number of measures to support the educational attainment of looked-after children. Every local authority in England must appoint a Virtual School Head, who has a statutory duty to promote the educational achievement of all children in their care, wherever they live or are educated. Looked-after children attract Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,530 per child up to age 16, which is managed by the Virtual School Head, working with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in their individual Personal Education Plans.
‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ sets out our strategy to reform the children’s social care system, including improving the education, employment, and training outcomes of children in care and care leavers. The department will introduce a gold standard accreditation scheme for further and higher education institutions supporting care leavers, consult on plans to expand the Virtual School Head role to include children in care and care leavers up to age 25, and roll out a further £24 million in Pupil Premium Plus style funding between 2023 and 2025 to bolster educational support available to children in care and care leavers in 16-19 education.
The Children in Need Review, which concluded in June 2019, identified for the first time that 1.6 million children needed a social worker between 2012 and 2018, and that these children have worse educational outcomes at every stage, with children who need a social worker in their GCSE year being 50% as likely to achieve a strong pass in English and Maths as their peers.
To address this, in June 2021 the department extended Virtual School Head duties to include all children with a social worker, giving them a strategic leadership role to champion the educational attendance, attainment, and progress of children with a social worker. This means that they have a lead role in levelling up educational outcomes for children with a social worker and narrowing the attainment gap, so every child has the opportunity to reach their potential.
We recently announced over £1 billion for programmes to improve early help services from birth to adulthood, including delivering on Family Hubs and helping families facing multiple-disadvantage through the Supporting Families programme and Holiday Activities and Food programme. Investing in support for families helps children to have happy, healthy childhoods. It can stop issues escalating and help them to achieve better outcomes. The Supporting Families Programme has supported over half a million families, to make sustained improvements to their lives, and is projected to help a further 300,000.
In ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, we outlined our plans to build on the strengths of current early help services, through the creation of family help. These reforms are central to ensuring children growing up with loving relationships and stability. The department is creating a service which meets the whole needs of a family and works to their strengths, delivered by multi-disciplinary teams working collaboratively with their local partners. Through the £45 million Families First for Children Pathfinder programme, we will test implementation in up to 12 local areas over two years and help assess requirements to achieve meaningful change system-wide.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the educational attainment and GCSE results of children who interact with the children’s social care system.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Our analysis for reporting year ending March 2022 for children in social care shows:
After accounting for a wide range of factors such as rates of special educational need in these cohorts, children who have interacted with the social care system were around 25-50% less likely to achieve grades 5-9 in GCSE English and Maths, compared to pupils who were not in social care.
The government has put in place a number of measures to support the educational attainment of looked-after children. Every local authority in England must appoint a Virtual School Head, who has a statutory duty to promote the educational achievement of all children in their care, wherever they live or are educated. Looked-after children attract Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,530 per child up to age 16, which is managed by the Virtual School Head, working with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in their individual Personal Education Plans.
‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ sets out our strategy to reform the children’s social care system, including improving the education, employment, and training outcomes of children in care and care leavers. The department will introduce a gold standard accreditation scheme for further and higher education institutions supporting care leavers, consult on plans to expand the Virtual School Head role to include children in care and care leavers up to age 25, and roll out a further £24 million in Pupil Premium Plus style funding between 2023 and 2025 to bolster educational support available to children in care and care leavers in 16-19 education.
The Children in Need Review, which concluded in June 2019, identified for the first time that 1.6 million children needed a social worker between 2012 and 2018, and that these children have worse educational outcomes at every stage, with children who need a social worker in their GCSE year being 50% as likely to achieve a strong pass in English and Maths as their peers.
To address this, in June 2021 the department extended Virtual School Head duties to include all children with a social worker, giving them a strategic leadership role to champion the educational attendance, attainment, and progress of children with a social worker. This means that they have a lead role in levelling up educational outcomes for children with a social worker and narrowing the attainment gap, so every child has the opportunity to reach their potential.
We recently announced over £1 billion for programmes to improve early help services from birth to adulthood, including delivering on Family Hubs and helping families facing multiple-disadvantage through the Supporting Families programme and Holiday Activities and Food programme. Investing in support for families helps children to have happy, healthy childhoods. It can stop issues escalating and help them to achieve better outcomes. The Supporting Families Programme has supported over half a million families, to make sustained improvements to their lives, and is projected to help a further 300,000.
In ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, we outlined our plans to build on the strengths of current early help services, through the creation of family help. These reforms are central to ensuring children growing up with loving relationships and stability. The department is creating a service which meets the whole needs of a family and works to their strengths, delivered by multi-disciplinary teams working collaboratively with their local partners. Through the £45 million Families First for Children Pathfinder programme, we will test implementation in up to 12 local areas over two years and help assess requirements to achieve meaningful change system-wide.