Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he is taking steps to increase public awareness of the new EU entry passport requirements coming into force in 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government is engaging both the European Commission and French Government through officials holding routine technical meetings to understand and influence the implementation plans of the new system. This includes working with port owners and operators to understand and support their plans to mitigate EES and ETIAS impacts at the border. Whilst EES and ETIAS are EU schemes, we expect that government communications to the travelling public will focus on the Gov.UK and FCDO travel advice websites, with additional bespoke communications to trade groups and carriers to enable them to support their members and customers.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of encouraging the airline industry to alert passport holders at the time of booking about new EU exit passport requirements in 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We continue to work with port owners and operators to understand and support their plans to mitigate EES and ETIAS impacts at the border. Whilst EES and ETIAS are EU schemes, we expect that government communications to the travelling public will focus on the Gov.UK and FCDO travel advice websites, with additional bespoke communications to trade groups and carriers to enable them to support their members and customers.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Office, what progress has been made on (a) the review of Education Oversight bodies and (b) appointing new Education Oversight partners for English Language Centres; and will she make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We keep our immigration policies and processes under constant review, including any future appointment of educational oversight bodies. Any updates will be communicated by my officials in due course.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Office, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing licensed student sponsors who are not eligible to register with the Office for Students to achieve a track record of compliance in England; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Student sponsors which are eligible to register with the Office for Students (OfS) as higher education providers in England continue to gain track record sponsor status once they have passed an annual basic compliance assessment conducted by UKVI for four consecutive years as set out in the Student sponsor guidance which is published on gov.uk.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her oral statement on 1 March 2022 on Ukraine, Official Report, column 916, that Ukrainian nationals already in the UK have been given the option to switch, free of charge, to a points-based immigration route or a family visa route, , what plans she has to extend similar rights to Ukrainian students in the UK who are not eligible for this sponsored route, to extend their visa for a fixed period, and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Government will be launching a new Ukraine Extension Scheme on 3 May.
Under this route, Ukrainian nationals and their partner and children who had permission to stay in the UK on 18 March 2022 (or which has recently expired) will be able to stay in the UK under the Ukraine Extension Scheme. Eligibility for permission to stay will include those who were in the UK as Students.
Successful applicants will be granted permission to stay in the UK for 3 years with full access to work, study and public funds.
The Ukraine Extension Scheme will be free of charge with no requirement to pay any application fee or broader charges such as the Immigration Health Surcharge.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to improve police training and cross-border co-operation in cases of cyberstalking; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The law is clear that what is illegal off-line is also illegal online, and robust legislation is in place to deal with cyber-stalking. To support the police in investigating stalking effectively, in 2012 the College of Policing developed a training package which has been completed over 68,000 times. And to assist information sharing between forces we have introduced an ‘online flag’ allowing police forces to record instances of crimes such as stalking taking place online.
We are working with the College of Policing to drive further improvements in police capability to investigate and prosecute online offences. The Home Office has allocated £4.6m of the Police Transformation Fund specifically to begin the critical work of setting up a comprehensive and joined up programme of digital transformation across policing.
In addition, the College of Policing will shortly be publishing refreshed guidance for the police on investigating stalking and harassment, and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Inspectorate are carrying out a joint inspection on the police and CPS response to these crimes.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to ensure that 16 to 18 year olds are eligible to benefit from the additional £10 million funding for English language teaching for resettled (a) Syrian and (b) other Vulnerable Children's Resettlement Scheme refugees.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The additional £10 million funding package for those arriving under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement (VPR) and Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement (VCR) Schemes is for adults only (age 19+). This funding is coming jointly from the Department for Education’s (DfE) Adult Education budget and from the Syrian Resettlement Programme budget.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the additional £10 million funding for English language teaching announced in September 2016 for refugees from the Syrian Vulnerable Person's Resettlement Scheme and the Vulnerable Children's Resettlement Scheme will be made available to those groups.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The additional £10 million English language funding package for those who have been resettled under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement and Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement schemes is available to the local authorities who support adults (age 19+). This funding comes jointly from the Department for Education’s Adult Education budget and from the Syrian Resettlement Programme budget and guidance on how to claim is being issued through the Strategic Migration Partnerships.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what training her Department has provided to staff on the family test; what other steps she has taken to raise awareness of the family test among staff of her Department; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The Family Test has been integrated into the Department’s impact assessment process. Workshops are being scheduled to further assist staff in understanding how to apply the guidance introduced for the Family Test issued by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to implement the family test; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Family Test was announced by the Prime Minister in August 2014 and introduced in October 2014. The Department for Work and Pensions published guidance for Departments and officials on how the test should be applied when formulating policy and the Home Office follows that guidance. The guidance can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/368894/family-test-guidance.pdf
The Family Test is also being integrated within the Department’s impact assessment process to ensure it is addressed consistently.