Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect on people detained in immigration removal centres of there being no time limit on immigration detention.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Although there is no formal time limit on detention for the purposes of immigration removal, individuals cannot be detained indefinitely. However, the Government commissioned Stephen Shaw to carry out a review of the welfare of vulnerable people in immigration detention and, as part of this, Mr Shaw commissioned Professor Mary Bosworth to assess the evidence in respect of the impact of immigration detention on mental health. The Government has been taking forward reforms of immigration detention in the light of Mr Shaw’s report.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what consultation her Department has undertaken on the draft adults at risk policy for vulnerable people detained under immigration powers.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Stephen Shaw carried out a comprehensive consultation in preparing his report of his review of the welfare of vulnerable people in immigration detention and the adults at risk policy, which will come into force on 12 September 2016, forms part of the Government’s response to Mr Shaw’s review. The Government has seen no reason to duplicate this in developing the adults at risk policy. However, when the draft policy was published on 26 May 2016, the Government wrote to a wide range of relevant non-governmental organisations and offered them the opportunity to discuss it. Subsequently Home Office officials held meetings with a number of interested organisations, and received written representations, and the views of these organisations have been taken into account as the policy has been developed further.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to introduce a maximum time limit on the length of time for which a person can be detained under immigration powers.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Government does not believe that it is appropriate for there to be a formal time limit on immigration detention. A statutory time limit would serve only to encourage individuals to frustrate asylum and immigration processes in order to reach a point at which they have to be released.
However, the Government is committed to ensuring that individuals are detained for the shortest period necessary and is introducing a range of reforms to the way in which immigration detention is managed, including greater judicial oversight of immigration detention through the Immigration Act 2016. Section 11 of Schedule 10 imposes a duty to arrange consideration of bail before the First-tier Tribunal at four months from the point of detention, or the most recent Tribunal consideration of bail, and every four months thereafter.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how her Department plans to measure the effect of the adults at risk policy for vulnerable people detained under immigration powers.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Consideration is being given to arrangements for measuring the impact of the adults at risk policy and other initiatives aimed at improving the safeguarding of vulnerable people in immigration detention. The expectation is that these initiatives will result in a reduction in the number of the most vulnerable who are detained. The Government intends to ask Stephen Shaw to carry out a short review next year in order to assess progress against the key actions from his previous report.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of the correspondence her Department has received from hon. Members has related to matters about visas in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Published data between April 2015 and March 2016 shows UKVI received a total of 32095 enquiries from hon. Members. Of these, management information shows that approximately 18% related to visas.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has service standards in place for considering fee waiver applications.
Answered by James Brokenshire
There are no service standards for fee waiver applications.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken was to decide fee waiver applications in the last 12 months.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The average time taken between January 2015 and December 2015 to consider whether an application meets the fee waiver requirements is 95 calendar days. These results represent the time taken with both asylum and non asylum based fee waiver considerations.
January 2015 – December 2015 was taken as the 12 month time frame to fall in line with data that is published.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has service standards for considering applications for the change of conditions of leave granted on the basis of family or private life.
Answered by James Brokenshire
There are no service standards for a change of conditions application.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken was to decide applications for the change of conditions of leave granted on the basis of family or private life during the last 12 months.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The average time taken between January 2015 and December 2015 to consider whether an application meets the requirements to change a condition code is 83 calendar days.
January 2015 – December 2015 was taken as the 12 month time frame to fall in line with data that is published.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the total number of visit visa applications was from Sri Lanka in 2015; and how many such applications were refused.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The information requested is as follows:
Applications: 16745
Issued : 10940
Refused : 5785
*These figures are based on Management Information, not published statistics, and are therefore liable to change.
*These figures relate to all visit visa applications made via the Visa Application Centre in Columbo, Sri Lanka, in 2015. It will therefore incorporate applicants other than Sri Lankan nationals.
*Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5.