Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will update the EU Settlement Scheme to ensure that people with pre-settled status do not have that status automatically removed from their online permit when they apply for settled status.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Anyone with pre-settled status who applied for settled status on or after 15 July 2021 will continue to see a pre-settled status profile on their eVisa.
For pre-settled status holders who applied for settled status before 15 July 2021 and whose eVisa was updated to show a Certificate of Application (CoA), work is underway to change their eVisas back to a pre-settled status profile automatically.
In the meantime, anyone in this position who would like their eVisa changed back to pre-settled status can contact the UKVI Resolution Centre, who can arrange to manually update their eVisa.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which of her Department's non-executive directors were appointed through open competition.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Seven Home Office Non-Executive Directors were recruited according to the guidance set out in the Corporate governance code for central government departments.
The Home Office announces the appointments (including reappointment dates) of Non-Executive Directors in the Annual Report and Accounts. Our current Non-Executives are covered in the following Annual Report and Accounts - HO annual report and accounts 2020-21 (publishing.service.gov.uk).
Further information about their experience can be found at Home Office - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she or any of the Ministers of her Department use personal email addresses to conduct Government business.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Home Office Ministers have confirmed they do not use personal accounts to conduct government business.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the performance and reliability of the View and Prove service for the EU Settlement Scheme.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We have designed our digital services to be highly resilient, with rigorous testing to build assurance, and deployed them across multiple data centres. This ensures customer data is backed up across those data centres, meaning if one fails another will take over, maintaining continuity of service.
Our digital services and their constituent parts are proactively monitored for failures, which will highlight any potential problems to allow support teams to triage and resolve as quickly as possible.
Our dedicated Resolution Centre is able to assist users who are experiencing technical issues with their online immigration status, and where necessary, enable individuals’ status to be verified through alternative means.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department operates a red, amber and green rating system for categorising Freedom of Information requests according to their presentational sensitivity.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office does not use a red, amber and green rating system for categorising FOI requests according to their presentational sensitivity.