Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to comply with principle (d) of schedule 1 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office has a Health and Safety and Fire Management system within which risk assessments are conducted and reviewed appropriately for our buildings and people.
The Home Office complies with all UK Health, Safety and Fire Safety statutory provisions proportionate and relevant to its undertaking including principle (d) of schedule 1 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
The control measures in said risk assessments apply the principle of prevention using the hierarchy of controls e.g. elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, health surveillance and the issue of personal protective equipment.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether all (a) buildings and (b) workplaces staff from their Department occupy have a suitable and sufficient risk assessment under Section 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Yes, the Home Office has a Health and Safety and Fire Management system within which risk assessments are conducted and reviewed appropriately for our buildings and people.
The Home Office seeks to comply with all UK Health, Safety and Fire Safety statutory provisions proportionate and relevant to its undertaking.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information his Department holds on the number of asylum seekers that were affected by (a) mould and (b) other damp conditions in (i) social housing, (ii) the private rented sector and (iii) hotel accommodation in the last 12 months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office ensures that all asylum accommodation is safe, habitable, fit for purpose and meets all regulatory requirements.
Home Office accommodation providers are required to visit each property at least monthly, and assurance that contractual requirements are met is tested by the Home Office Contract Assurance Team, which inspects properties and undertakes other assurance activities on an intelligence-led basis.
All asylum seekers have access to a 24/7 Advice, Issue Reporting and Eligibility (AIRE) service provided for the Home Office by Migrant Help, where any concerns regarding accommodation standards can be raised. Issues will then be investigated and addressed in accordance with strict contractual target timeframes.
The information you have requested is not held in a readily reportable format and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases of (a) self-harm, (b) depression and (c) suicidal ideation have been reported by people living in government-provided asylum accommodation in (i) hotels, (ii) barges, (iii) former military sites and (iv) detention facilities and removal centres in each of the last 15 years.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Central records on the number of cases of self-harm and suicidal ideation that have been reported in immigration removal centres (IRCs) are not held as far back as 15 years. Additionally, no central records on the number of cases of depression reported in IRCs are held. This information relates to health conditions which are treated as medical in confidence and therefore the Home Office would not necessarily know if someone in detention was experiencing depression.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers there are in (a) Scotland, (b) England, (c) Wales and (d) Northern Ireland by ethnic group as of 25 January 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum applications received is published in table Asy_D01 of the ‘Asylum applications, decisions and resettlement detailed datasets’. This data is only at national level and includes nationality breakdowns, but not ethnic breakdown.
Data on asylum seekers in receipt of support by UK region is published in table Asy_D09 of the ‘Asylum support’ detailed datasets. Not all asylum seekers will require support. The data does not include location information for those who are not on support.
Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of each workbook. The latest data relates to 30 September 2023. Data up to the end of December 2023 will be published on 29 February 2024 and data up to the end of March 2023 will be published on 23 May 2024.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers per capita of the general population are accommodated in (a) Scotland, (b) England, (c) Wales and (d) Northern Ireland.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Data on immigration groups by devolved administration is published in table Reg_01 of the Regional and local authority data. The number of people under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, the Afghan resettlement programme and the supported asylum population and the per capita figure for these three pathways combined is published. Data on the supported population does not include people who are not receiving state support (such as unsupported asylum seekers).
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of (a) businesses and (b) workers in the hospitality sector that will be affected by proposed increases to the minimum salary requirements for a skilled worker visa in (i) the UK and (ii) Scotland.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Analytical work has been undertaken across Government to support decision making in this process, and an Impact Assessment will be developed in due course.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether an Access to Work scheme has been implemented in their Department.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Access to Work is a demand-led, personalised discretionary grant which contributes to the disability-related extra costs of working faced by disabled people and those with a health condition in the workplace that are beyond standard reasonable adjustments. It does not replace an employer’s duty under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments.
In 2006, DWP took over responsibility for providing adjustments that would previously have been funded through Access to Work, for civil servants working in their department. This removed the need for DWP staff to apply for Access to Work. In April 2022, all government departments followed suit and assumed responsibility for providing holistic assessments and adjustments for their staff.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications of the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling in the 2017 case of Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council v Willetts & Ors for the calculation of holiday pay entitlement for staff in her Department; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office is working to assess the implications of this judgment and will continue discussions on potential measures to address this issue with Departmental trade unions.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps they have taken in their Department to operate the Disability Confident employer scheme for those seeking a lateral transfer; and how many and what proportion of candidates who declared themselves as having a disability and who applied under that scheme where (a) interviewed and (b) laterally transferred in (i) 2021 and (ii) 2022.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Disability Confident scheme was formally launched by the Department for Work and Pensions in November 2016. It is designed to give employers the skills, techniques and confidence they need to recruit, retain and develop disabled staff.
The scheme has 3 levels. To reach Level 3, Disability Confident Leader, an employer must run through a self-assessment of their disabled employment policies and practices, put this self-assessment up for external validation, produce a plan for encouraging and supporting other employers to become Disability Confident, and undertake to use the Voluntary Reporting framework to publicly report on how they support their disabled staff. All of the main Government Departments are now signed up as Disability Confident Leaders.
Disability Confident employers must commit to offering an interview to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job. The aim of this commitment is to encourage positive action, encouraging disabled people to apply for jobs and provide an opportunity to demonstrate their skills, talent and abilities at the interview stage.
By offering an interview to an applicant who declares they have a disability this does not mean that all disabled people are entitled to an interview. They must meet the minimum criteria (sometimes otherwise described, for example sometimes shown as “desirable skills”) for a job as defined by the employer.
The Disability Confident scheme notes that there may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job. In certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. In these circumstances the employer could select the candidates who best meet the minimum criteria for the job rather than all of those that meet the minimum criteria, as they would do for non-disabled applicants.
Although this is the standard set out in the Disability Confident scheme, as the Civil Service aspires to be the UK’s most inclusive employer, we ask that Departments should, where possible, offer an interview to all disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job, in all their recruitment campaigns.
When deciding minimum criteria, consideration should be given to both essential job criteria and minimum performance standards in those criteria. We set the minimum criteria according to the role and the skills required.
Please find below the data regarding candidates who applied under the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) in 2021:
2021 | ||||
Promotion | Lateral Moves | |||
| Number | % of Applications | Number | % of Applications |
Applications | 1806 |
| 729 |
|
Completed Interview | 333 | 18.40% | 116 | 15.90% |
Formal Offer | 97 | 5.40% | 70 | 9.60% |
Please note the following: