Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when her Department plans to publish updated guidance for Seasonal Worker visa scheme operators where workers are at risk of exploitation.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office keeps all aspects of the Seasonal Worker route under close and ongoing review, including the welfare of participating overseas workers.
A key objective of the route is to ensure that migrant workers are protected against modern slavery and other labour abuses and the Home Office takes any allegations of mistreatment or abuse on this route extremely seriously.
The operators of the scheme are, and must remain, licensed by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA).
The Scheme Operators are responsible for managing all aspects of the recruitment and placement of workers on UK farms and ensuring their welfare in the UK.
The Home Office and Defra monitor the scheme closely to ensure operators adhere to the stringent requirements set for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the seasonal workers.
The Sponsor a Seasonal Worker guidance is kept under regular review and updated and published as required.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many allegations raised by seasonal workers during farm inspections conducted by her Department were formally investigated in (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We do not publish this data.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has a strategy for migrant worker welfare.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Migrant workers have the same employment rights and protections as resident workers, as supported by the relevant departments, agencies, regulatory bodies and trades unions. In addition, the Home Office ensures the design of immigration routes has regard to migrant welfare including by: requiring sponsors of migrant workers to keep records of pay and compliance with sponsorship obligations, alongside requiring people to have a specific job and be paid an appropriate salary; enabling migrants to apply for jobs with other sponsors, to ensure they are not trapped; and, applying an English language requirement to help workers to integrate, which provides assurance that they will not be overly-reliant on their sponsors, are able to seek help if needed and understand their rights.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 9 June 2023 to Question 186725 on Naturalisation: Applications, how many and what proportion of total naturalisation applications consisted of non-straightforward applications in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on the processing of applications for British citizenship on the Gov.uk website. This includes the total number of applications received and the number of those that were non-straightforward. The link to the latest Migration Transparency Data can be found here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/visas-and-citizenship-data-q2-2023
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of family reunion applications had not been processed within 60 days in each month of the last three years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Government’s refugee family reunion policy provides a safe and legal route to bring families together.
We prioritise all applications where the application has been made by an unaccompanied child under the age of 18. We will also prioritise applications where there is an evidenced urgent or compelling reason.
The most recent data can be found at Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The next data is due to be published in or around September 2023.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of the report by Public Health Scotland entitled Evaluating the impact of minimum unit pricing for alcohol in Scotland, published on 27 June 2023.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government maintains an interest in the impact of minimum unit pricing in Scotland and will consider the findings from the outcome report in due course.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to consult on introducing minimum unit pricing in England.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government maintains an interest in the impact of minimum unit pricing in Scotland and will consider the findings from the outcome report in due course.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications for naturalisation have been submitted each year since 2010; and what has been the average processing time per year.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on the number of applications for naturalisation and registration of British citizenship. Annual data for citizenship applications can be found in table Cit_01 of the citizenship summary tables.
The Home Office publishes data on processing times for total citizenship applications against service standards in table VSI_02 Visas and Citizenship Migration transparency data.
The latest data relates to the year ending June 2023.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 9 June 2023 to Question 186725 on Naturalisation: Applications, what was the average processing time for non-straightforward applications in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on the processing of applications for British citizenship on the Gov.UK website. We do not publish data on average processing times for naturalisation applications.
The link to the latest Migration Transparency Data can be found here:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/visas-and-citizenship-data-q2-2023
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 14 March 2023 to Question 158848 on Home Office: Consultants, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of spending on consultants in the previous five years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Home Office publishes its Annual Reports and Accounts which are available on gov.uk at HO annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Pg 107 of the 21/22 report sets out how we assure consultancy spend:
Home_Office_ARA_21-22_Final_-_Gov.uk.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk).