Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if it will establish an independent complaints mechanism for asylum seekers in contingency accommodation.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office introduced the Advice Issue Reporting and Eligibility (AIRE) service in September 2019, as operated by Migrant Help, to provide an independent resource for asylum seekers to request help, report issues and property defects, provide feedback or make complaints.
Asylum seekers are able to contact Migrant Help 24/7 by telephone, webchat or email, and there are strict service level agreements in place to resolving contacts, dependent on issue type. Accommodation providers are contractually obligated to respond to complaints within 5 working days of receipt. In the rare event that this timeframe is not honoured, or where an asylum seeker is dissatisfied with the response received, the complaint is escalated to the authority for comprehensive review and response. Where a complaint is upheld, the information is shared with the department’s Service Delivery Managers for discussion at contract management meetings with the providers to influence continuous improvement to the service. The complaints data is regularly monitored and analysed to identify trends in issues and feedback which can further enhance these conversations and maintain standards.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many pregnant women who are asylum seekers have left contingency accommodation in Northern Ireland in the last six months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not publish this data and such information although recorded across various systems on individual cases, it is not held in a readily available, extractable format. Furthermore, to provide data on known pregnancies only given that some expectant mothers may have not yet declared they are with child, would be to give an inaccurate response.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children who are asylum seekers have left contingency accommodation in Northern Ireland in the last six months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not publish this data and such information although recorded across various systems on individual cases, it is not held in a readily available, extractable format. Furthermore, to provide data on known pregnancies only given that some expectant mothers may have not yet declared they are with child, would be to give an inaccurate response.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many pregnant women who are asylum seekers have entered into contingency accommodation in Northern Ireland in the last six months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not publish this data and such information although recorded across various systems on individual cases, it is not held in a readily available, extractable format. Furthermore, to provide data on known pregnancies only given that some expectant mothers may have not yet declared they are with child, would be to give an inaccurate response.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers children have entered into contingency accommodation in Northern Ireland in the last six months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not publish this data and such information although recorded across various systems on individual cases, it is not held in a readily available, extractable format. Furthermore, to provide data on known pregnancies only given that some expectant mothers may have not yet declared they are with child, would be to give an inaccurate response.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people seeking asylum are residing in Northern Ireland and have an asylum claim that has been ongoing for 36 months or longer as of 6 June 2022, by parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office are unable to state how people seeking asylum are residing in Northern Ireland and have an asylum claim that has been ongoing for 36 months or longer as of 6 June 2022, by Parliamentary constituency as this information is not routinely reported.
The Home Office do report on the number of cases that have been open over 36 months and can be found at Asy_03: Immigration and protection data: Q1 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers who claimed asylum in Northern Ireland in the last 12 months have been moved to another region of the UK while their claim is processed.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Accommodation can be provided anywhere in the United Kingdom. The information requested is not routinely captured. To capture numbers would require a manual trawl of data and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to help ensure that specialist mandatory training for all police and other relevant government agencies is in place to support black women and girls affected by domestic abuse.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
This Government is committed to ensuring that all victims of violence against women and girls get the support they need. The Valerie’s Law petition calls for police and agency training to help them better understand the lived experiences, needs and barriers of black women affected by domestic abuse. We know that domestic abuse affects a disparate group and that a “one size fits all” approach is not appropriate, especially for ethnic minority victims. Training is an important part of tackling and responding to domestic abuse, but this needs to form part of a wider approach of guidance and support.
We recognise the aims of the Valerie’s Law petition and agree it is essential that police receive the right training to respond effectively, regardless of the victim’s background. The College of Policing’s foundation includes police ethics and self-understanding, hate crimes, ethics and equalities, and policing without bias. Specialist training for officers dealing routinely with public protection issues explores these issues in more depth and detail.
The College of Policing has also developed specialist training, the ‘Domestic Abuse Matters’ programme, which helps first responders dealing with an incident or report. This considers the needs of different victims, including those from a diverse black community and ethnic minority communities. This training is being delivered to the majority of forces already, and the Home Office will provide up to £3.3 million over three years to support further delivery.
The new full-time National Policing Lead for Violence Against Women and Girls, DCC Maggie Blyth, has included building trust and confidence as a key pillar for delivery: this includes working with charities supporting ethnic minority women and girls to avoid their specific needs being overlooked.
Finally, the Government committed during the Parliamentary debate to meeting with the College of Policing and with representative community organisations to ensure that police training continues to address these issues fully and effectively.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the position of Northern Ireland to accept and accommodate refugees from Ukraine in the context of the Republic of Ireland having lifted all visa requirements and the unique border position between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The UK Government meets regularly with the Devolved Administrations, including the Northern Ireland Executive, to discuss its humanitarian response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The UK Government remains committed to maintaining the Common Travel Area (CTA) arrangements, and this is an objective shared by all CTA members. There is a high level of cooperation on border security between both the UK and Irish Governments particularly in light of the war in Ukraine, to ensure we are taking all the necessary measures to protect and secure the CTA, this includes people travelling from Ireland to the UK.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment has her Department made of the human rights situation in Rwanda before the Government entered into a partnership agreement on the hosting of asylum seekers in that country.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We are confident that the Migration and Economic Development Partnership is fully compliant with domestic and international law, including human rights law.
Rwanda is a State Party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the seven core UN Human Rights Conventions. It is recognised globally for its record on welcoming and integrating migrants, including over 500 people evacuated from Libya under the EU’s Emergency Transit Mechanism working in partnership with the UN Refugee Agency, and 30,000 Burundian refugees. Under this agreement, they will process claims in accordance with the UN Refugee Convention, national and international human rights laws.
All those considered for relocation will be decided on a case by case basis.
. Nobody will be relocated if it is unsafe or inappropriate for them.