Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether UK Visas and Immigration is meeting its service standard for processing student visa applications as of November 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We have remained continually within service standard for straightforward standard, priority, and super priority Student visa applications. Where applications are complex and we require further information or checks, we may take to take longer to reach a decision. This is to ensure the applicant meets the requirements of the immigration rules and prevent abuse of our immigration system.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of student visa applications have not been renewed since 1 June 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Information on how many people extend their permission within the Student or Graduate route can be found at: Immigration system statistics, year ending June 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Where eligible, students may also apply to switch into an alternative appropriate category. We do not routinely publish data on how many students switch into other immigration categories.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the time taken to process (a) student visa and (b) student sponsor license applications.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office has continually remained within published service standard for straightforward applications within the Student route. We work closely with the education sector and through public communications campaigns to encourage students to apply as early as possible and to check they have submitted the right documents, to reduce delays. Customers applying to the Student route from overseas can apply up to six months ahead of the course start date, once their education sponsor has provided the Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS). We continue to review internal processes to identify opportunities to improve the customer journey.
Student Sponsor license applications have an eight-week service standard which includes a pre-licence visit. To reduce processing times, the pre-licence visits are now undertaken by dedicated Study Compliance officers. Applications may take longer to decide where further information is required from the prospective sponsor following the visit, to confirm the licence requirements are met.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of capacity in UKAS accredited forensic science police laboratories; and whether there is a backlog in cases as of 17 October 2023.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold data on capacity at police laboratories and the deployment of resources on forensic science activities is for individual forces and Police and Crime Commissioners to determine. However, the Forensics Reform Programme Board has oversight of strategic capacity issues. Through this Board we have assessed that there are capacity shortfalls in some areas of forensics, including digital.
The Home Office has invested £4.33m in 2022/23 and £3.2m for 2023/24 to the police-led Forensic Capability Network which provides ongoing support to over 4,000 forensics professionals by coordinating a wide range of national activities. BlueLight Commercial works with the National Police Chief’s Council and the Forensics Capability Network to manages forensic science contracts and other commercial functions in England and Wales.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applications were rejected on the grounds of a false claim of LGB in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on LGB asylum claims in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on initial decisions (including refusals) on asylum applications where sexual orientation formed part of the basis for the claim is published in table SOC_02 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Please note that information on the reason for refusal is not published and therefore the statistics do not separately identify refusals on the grounds of false claims from refusals for other reasons.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to 2022. Data prior to 2015 is not published.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many UK Border Force staff have been posted to (a) Belgium, (b) Germany, (c) the Netherlands and (d) France in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
For security reasons, the Home Office does not provide figures of how many staff have worked or are currently working at overseas deployments.
The Home Office continues to ensure appropriate overseas staff resourcing deployments are maintained.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people left employment in the Border Force in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Border Force has grown over this time, so it does mean the percentage has decreased. For example, FTE in 2015/16 was c7400 and is currently 11918.
"Headcount of Border Force Leavers who have also left the Home Office (only available from 2014)"
Person Type | 2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 |
Total | Information not available | 351 | 693 | 709 | 547 | 398 | 330 | 360 | 403 | ||
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police (a) officers and (b) staff are suspended from duties in Lancashire Constabulary.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collect and publish information on the number of police officers on long-term leave due to suspension as at 31 March each year as part of the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ publication.
Information on the number of police officers, in Lancashire Constabulary, as at 31 March each year from 2007 to 2023, can be found in the ‘Absences Open Data Table’ here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1172880/open-data-table-police-workforce-absence-260723.ods
The Home Office do not hold information on the number of police staff that are suspended from their duties.
These data should not be used to infer the total number of police officers suspended throughout a financial year as the data only cover instances where a police officer has been suspended for more than 28 calendar days. Furthermore, these data only cover officers on long-term leave due to suspension as a snapshot as at 31 March each year and does not include those suspended during the financial year where the suspension ends before 31 March. Moreover, an officer may appear in the data more than once if their suspension spans several years.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police(a) officers and (b) staff have been dismissed from Lancashire constabulary in the last three years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes data annually on the number of police officers and staff leaving the police service due to dismissal in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales
Information on the number of police officers and staff leaving the police service due to dismissal, in Lancashire Constabulary, between the years ending March 2007 to 2023 can be found in the ‘Leavers Open Data Table’ here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1172932/open-data-table-police-workforce-leavers-260723.ods
Dismissals includes individuals who have been required to resign, made compulsorily redundant, or have had their contract terminated. While these figures will include dismissals for misconduct, they are not exclusively misconduct or performance cases, as they also include redundancies and contract terminations.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the launch of the National Age Assessment Board on 31 March, what assessment criteria will be used to determine whether the work of the Board has been effective during its first phase in London and the West Midlands prior to any decision to roll out that work nationwide.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The National Age Assessment Board (NAAB) is in the process of recruiting and training suitably experienced social workers who can carry out age assessments on behalf of the Home Office and will expand into wider regions as social worker capacity builds up. We will continue to review and monitor the impact of this Board.