Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children her Department forecasts will be subject to the duty to remove under clause 2 of the Illegal Migration Bill in 2024.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
As set out in clause 1(1), the purpose of the Bill is to prevent and deter unlawful migration, and in particular migration by unsafe and illegal routes, by requiring the Home Secretary to return illegal migrants to their home country or remove them to a safe third country. The duty to make arrangements for removal in clause 2 does not apply to unaccompanied children, although there is a power to remove them under clause 3. An economic impact assessment will be published for the Bill in due course.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to her oral contribution to the second reading debate on the Illegal Migration Bill on 14 March 2023, Official Report, Column 580, what steps she is taking to ensure that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are removed from the UK only (a) for the purposes of family reunion and (b) in other limited circumstances.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Illegal Migration Bill provides the Home Secretary with a legal duty to remove people who have entered the UK illegally.
The Secretary of State is not required to make arrangements to remove an unaccompanied child from the UK until they turn 18 years old. As a matter of current policy, this power will only be exercised in very limited circumstances ahead of them reaching adulthood, such as for the purposes of family reunion or where removal is to a safe country of origin.
Unaccompanied children who arrive in the UK illegally will be provided with the necessary accommodation and support but they will not be able to settle in the UK.
Taking these measures will send a clear message that children cannot be exploited and forced into crossing the Channel in small boats for the purpose of starting a new life in the UK.
The only way to come to the UK for protection will be through safe and legal routes. This will take power out of the hands of the criminal gangs and protect vulnerable people, including children.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish her Department’s plans for ending the use of hotels to accommodate unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The rise in the number of small boat crossings has placed significant pressures on local authority care placements for young people.
We take the safety and welfare of those in our care seriously and the Home Office has robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure those in our accommodation are as safe and supported as possible as we seek urgent placements with a local authority.
Adult men are not accommodated with asylum seeking women and children in dispersal accommodation unless they are part of the same family group. Single adult men are not accommodated with female adults, families or unrelated children.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when her Department plans to respond to correspondence from the Rt Hon. Member for East Ham dated 29 November 2022, reference ST101757.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
A reply from the Minister for Immigration will be provided as soon as possible
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when her Department plans to respond to correspondence from the Rt Hon. Member for East Ham dated 29 November 2022, reference ST101757.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office will respond shortly.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of people aged under 25 making an application for limited leave to remain under the private life route were granted a fee waiver in (a) 2021 and (b) 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We do not capture data in a form that can link the age of a fee waiver applicant with their subsequent leave to remain application.
Providing the data would entail the manual scrutiny of each case within the scope of the question, incurring disproportionate cost.
Published data on fee waiver applications can be viewed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-and-protection-data-q3-2022
Refer to tab FW_01
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits to providing a fee waiver for indefinite leave to remain applications for young people aged under 25 who can demonstrate that they cannot afford the fee after meeting essential living costs.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office keeps the fees for immigration and nationality applications under review. However, no specific assessment on the potential merits of providing a fee waiver for Indefinite Leave to Remain for people aged under 25 has been undertaken.
The Home Office provides exceptions to the need to pay application fees in a number of specific circumstances. These exceptions ensure the Home Office’s immigration and nationality fee structure complies with international obligations and wider government policy.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of people who are eligible for the five-year route to settlement introduced in 2022 under the Appendix Private Life to the Immigration Rules.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Eligibility for the Private Life routes is set out in the Immigration Rules. Each application is considered on its merits and on a case by-case basis taking into account the individual circumstances.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to close any London hotels housing refugees from Afghanistan.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
While hotels do not provide a long-term solution, they do offer safe, secure and clean accommodation. We will continue to bring down the number of people in bridging hotels, moving people into more sustainable accommodation as quickly as possible so they can put down permanent roots.
To deliver value for money to the taxpayer, officials are working at pace to consolidate the number of bridging hotels being used, by maximising capacity in hotels which have available rooms and returning rooms back to hotels that are not being used or do not match family requirements.
Part of this work means families can, sometimes, be moved from a hotel scheduled for closure to another hotel. In these instances, families are given appropriate notice of a move and are supported by their Home Office Liaison Officer and Local Authority every step of the way.
We are working intensely across government to find permanent accommodation for these families.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's news story entitled Immigration enforcement surge since pledge to tackle illegal working, published on 23 January 2023, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential effect of that announcement on people with section 3 leave to remain status.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Immigration enforcement focuses its activity on those in the UK who are abusing our laws. Individuals with section 3c leave are lawfully in the UK and are not liable for enforcement action unless they breach the conditions of that leave.