Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many refugees from (a) Ukraine and (b) Afghanistan have been settled in Bolton South East constituency since June 2020.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The UK has a long and proud history of welcoming those in need of protection, including recent arrivals from Ukraine and Afghanistan.
This government is working closely to provide those we welcome to our country with access to the support and services they need, including a place to live.
Data on the Homes for Ukraine and Ukraine Family Scheme, broken down by local authority, can be found at:
Data relating to local authorities who have pledged properties to Afghan families, through the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) is not currently available, but is expected to be included in future publications, in line with equivalent data for other resettlement schemes. The Home Office publishes data on resettlement at:
Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data cover up to the end of March 2022.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential risks to Kurdish asylum seekers of being deported to Iraq.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
All asylum and human rights claims are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with our international obligations. Each individual assessment is made against the background of any relevant caselaw and the latest available country information. Our position on Iraq is set out in the relevant country policy and information note on the gov.uk website.
Where someone establishes a well-founded fear of persecution or serious harm in their country, they are normally granted protection and are not expected to return there. The Home Office only seeks to return those whose asylum claim have been unsuccessful. By definition, they do not need protection and not at risk on return.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s travel advice to British nationals is not the correct legal test for determining whether or not a person qualifies for international protection or whether to remove a foreign national with no right to remain in UK.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to respond to Question 129103 tabled by the hon. Member for Bolton South East on 24 February 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The response for UIN 129103 was given on 21 March 2022.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of response times of police forces in providing disclosure and barring service checks; and what assessment she had made of the adequacy of provision of those services to service users.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
An Enhanced disclosure check shows full details of a person's criminal record such as cautions, reprimands, warnings, spent and unspent convictions. From the period April 2021 to December 2021, over 2.91m, enhanced checks were processed by the DBS of which 2.46m, (83%), were processed within 14 days. See link for published DBS performance information on Gov.uk:
DBS and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) have service level agreements in place with the 52 police forces that DBS work with to provide criminal record checks. This ensures service delivery against quality, output, cost, and timeliness measures. Individual forces are assessed monthly against these quantitative measures, with qualitative standards assessed through a Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) that provides a consistent approach to the quality of work done across all forces. See link below for information on the QAF:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/quality-assurance-framework-version-nine-qaf-v9
Performance against targets is monitored closely by the department.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she will take steps to ensure a fast track visa process for Ukrainians who have relatives resident in the UK.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Applications for the new Ukraine Family Scheme opened on Friday 4 March. Applications made under the Ukraine Family Scheme are being prioritised by UKVI, where further information is needed on an application, UKVI will contact the customer as a priority.
The Home Secretary announced that from Tuesday 15 March, Ukrainians with passports will no longer need to go to a Visa Application Centre to give their biometrics before they come to the UK.
Instead, once their application has been considered and the appropriate checks completed, they will receive direct notification that they are eligible for the scheme and can come to the UK.
Further information can be found on the GOV.UK webpage: Apply for a Ukraine Family Scheme visa - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the visa status is of Afghan staff who have worked, or currently work, for British non-governmental organisations.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Our Afghan relocation policy is one of the most generous in the world and has already supported over 8,000 directly employed former Afghan staff and their families to start new lives in the UK through the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP).
The Home Office is committed to providing protection for vulnerable people fleeing Afghanistan. The Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme will welcome up to 5,000 vulnerable Afghans to the UK, who have been forced to flee the country, in its first year, with up to a total of 20,000 in the long-term.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that students from Myanmar whose visas will soon expire will be able to temporarily stay into the UK until such time as it is safe for them to return to that country.
Answered by Kevin Foster
If an individual continues to meet the requirements of the Student route, they are open to apply to extend their permission. If they are no longer students, but wish to stay in the UK, they can apply for any alternative route for which they qualify.
For individuals who are unable to return to their home country due to the impact of the COVID pandemic they can apply under the Exceptional Assurance process which can be found at the following link;
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 29 June 2020 to Question 63287 on Home Office: Overseas Aid, how much her Department spent on the (a) End Violence against Children Programme, (b) modern slavery Victim Care Contract and (c) Modern Slavery Fund in each of the last three years; and what her Department's planned spending is for those projects in the next year.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office Official Development Assistance (ODA) spend in each of the last three years for the End Violence against Children Programme and Modern Slavery Fund are published to https://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk/department/HO.
The Department spend on the ODA element of the Victim Care Contract (VCC) in 2018/19 was £5.8m and £9.24m in 2019/20 – We began reporting the ODA eligible proportion of VCC expenditure in 2018/19.
Home Office planned ODA spend in the next year is dependent on the outcome of the Spending Review.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which Official Development Assistance programmes that her Department funds focus on supporting women and girls.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The UK’s Gender Equality Act 2014 (an amendment to 2002 International Development Act, IDA), legally requires all overseas development funding to ‘meaningfully consider’ the impact of how it will contribute to reducing gender inequality.
The programmes that the Home Office funds that focus on supporting women and girls are the End Violence against Children Programme, the modern slavery Victim Care Contract, and the Modern Slavery Fund.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to clause 20 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, whether a timetable has been agreed for the (a) application, (b) interview and (c) appointment process to appoint a reviewer for the Prevent programme in order to achieve the 18-month timeframe set by that statute.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Government is committed to the Independent Review of Prevent and launched a full and open recruitment competition to appoint the next Independent Reviewer of Prevent on 27 April 2020. Applications closed on 22 June 2020. Interviews are due to take place in July. The successful candidate will be announced in due course.
We have included in the Counter Terrorism and Sentencing Bill a measure to remove the existing statutory deadline for the Review set out in the Counter Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 while maintaining the legislative commitment to undertake it. This is to ensure that the new Reviewer has sufficient time to complete the Review. The Government aims for the Review to be completed by August 2021.