Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of Hezbollah's Foreign Relations Department since its full proscription.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Government assesses proscription is a powerful tool within the counter-terrorism toolkit. In addition to the criminal offences associated with proscription, the tool can have a powerful impact on behaviour and disincentivise people from becoming members or supporters of a proscribed organisation, as well as supporting other forms of disruptive activity, including asset freezing and the take down of online content.
Since the extension of Hizballah’s proscription in 2019, the Government has also extended the UK’s domestic asset freeze to cover the group in its entirety.
Investigations into the activities of proscribed organisations, or individuals who may be members or supporters of proscribed organisations, are an operational matter for the police and intelligence agencies. It would not be appropriate to publish data on intelligence related matters.
The Government does not routinely comment on intelligence matters, including whether groups are, or are not, being considered for proscription.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether any secondary or corollary designations have been made since Hezbollah was fully proscribed.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Government assesses proscription is a powerful tool within the counter-terrorism toolkit. In addition to the criminal offences associated with proscription, the tool can have a powerful impact on behaviour and disincentivise people from becoming members or supporters of a proscribed organisation, as well as supporting other forms of disruptive activity, including asset freezing and the take down of online content.
Since the extension of Hizballah’s proscription in 2019, the Government has also extended the UK’s domestic asset freeze to cover the group in its entirety.
Investigations into the activities of proscribed organisations, or individuals who may be members or supporters of proscribed organisations, are an operational matter for the police and intelligence agencies. It would not be appropriate to publish data on intelligence related matters.
The Government does not routinely comment on intelligence matters, including whether groups are, or are not, being considered for proscription.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has taken steps to use the expanded law enforcement authority following Hezbollah's proscription.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Government assesses proscription is a powerful tool within the counter-terrorism toolkit. In addition to the criminal offences associated with proscription, the tool can have a powerful impact on behaviour and disincentivise people from becoming members or supporters of a proscribed organisation, as well as supporting other forms of disruptive activity, including asset freezing and the take down of online content.
Since the extension of Hizballah’s proscription in 2019, the Government has also extended the UK’s domestic asset freeze to cover the group in its entirety.
Investigations into the activities of proscribed organisations, or individuals who may be members or supporters of proscribed organisations, are an operational matter for the police and intelligence agencies. It would not be appropriate to publish data on intelligence related matters.
The Government does not routinely comment on intelligence matters, including whether groups are, or are not, being considered for proscription.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of fully proscribing Hezbollah in 2019.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Government assesses proscription is a powerful tool within the counter-terrorism toolkit. In addition to the criminal offences associated with proscription, the tool can have a powerful impact on behaviour and disincentivise people from becoming members or supporters of a proscribed organisation, as well as supporting other forms of disruptive activity, including asset freezing and the take down of online content.
Since the extension of Hizballah’s proscription in 2019, the Government has also extended the UK’s domestic asset freeze to cover the group in its entirety.
Investigations into the activities of proscribed organisations, or individuals who may be members or supporters of proscribed organisations, are an operational matter for the police and intelligence agencies. It would not be appropriate to publish data on intelligence related matters.
The Government does not routinely comment on intelligence matters, including whether groups are, or are not, being considered for proscription.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 17 June 2021 to question 15183 on General Register Office: Internet, what the evidential basis is for her assessment that the service issue has had no significant impact upon the public when registering life events; and what steps she plans to take in response to the letter from the National Panel for Registration detailing the negative effect on the mental health of registrars as a result of that service service disruption.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The General Register Office has acknowledged following introduction of new functionality in May, there has been performance issues around printing causing some disruption across the local registration service (as outlined in our response to PQ 15183).
However, this has not significantly impacted the public’s ability to register life events as evidenced by the numbers of registrations continuing to take place, helped considerably by some parts of the registration service amending their processes where required.
In response to the letter from the National Panel for Registration, a letter was sent to all Proper Officers in England and Wales on 18 June outlining the plans to stabilise and improve the performance of the registration online system (RON).
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to determine when the three-year-old daughter of Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei is planned to receive a (a) biometric identification card and (b) response to her citizenship application.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office does not comment on individual cases.
Applications received by the Home Office are considered in accordance with UKVI customer service standards which is 6 months for standard applications.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that the General Register Office’s registration website (RON) is fit for purpose.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Following the recent introduction of new functionality there has been some intermittent system disruption for local registrars. This will be resolved as soon as possible.
The majority of the system continues to work as expected, and this issue has had no significant impact upon the public when registering life events.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people seeking asylum were in employment in 2020.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Casework systems do not allow us to report on the number of permission to work requests received from asylum seekers or the number subsequently granted permission. Obtaining these figures would require a manual trawl of cases amounting to disproportionate time and cost.
The Home Office does not keep track of how many asylum seekers are in employment.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applicants were granted permission to work in the UK in 2020.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Casework systems do not allow us to report on the number of permission to work requests received from asylum seekers or the number subsequently granted permission. Obtaining these figures would require a manual trawl of cases amounting to disproportionate time and cost.
The Home Office does not keep track of how many asylum seekers are in employment.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on prioritising police officers in the rollout of the covid-19 vaccine.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government recognise that police officers are playing a vital role helping to control the spread of coronavirus while continuing to keep criminals off our streets. In protecting the public, they put themselves at risk to keep us all safe, and we have seen that courage and professionalism continue throughout the pandemic.
The current priority list, produced by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), targets those assessed to be at the greatest risk of dying from coronavirus. In line with this advice those being vaccinated first are people in care homes, the elderly, those with underlying health conditions and frontline health workers. Under phase 2 of the Vaccine Delivery Plan the JCVI may include key public services and occupations with a high-risk exposure to the virus like police officers who have frequent close contact with members of the public. Conversations are continuing in line with developments.
Those over 50, and all adults in an exposure risk group, will then also be eligible for vaccination in the early phase of the programme. This already includes members of the police.