Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were employed by his Department as of 30 April 2024.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This information is published monthly and can be accessed via the link below.
Workforce management information, 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Data for 30th April 2024 is currently being extracted and quality assured for publication in due course.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the level of risk to women and girls arriving in the UK via small boats of trafficking for sexual exploitation in 2024.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office publishes statistics on small boat arrivals to the UK in the ‘Irregular migration to the UK statistics’ release. Data on small boat arrivals by year, sex and age group is published in table Irr_D01 of the ‘Irregular migration to the UK detailed datasets’, with the latest data up to the end of December 2023.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. Future irregular migration publication release dates can be found on the research and statistics calendar.
No assessment has been made of the risk to woman and girls arriving in the UK via small boats to trafficking for sexual exploitation. However, all individuals arriving on small boats will be assessed on arrival, including assessments to identify vulnerability and safeguarding needs. Where there are indicators of modern slavery, the individual will be referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). The NRM aims to lift victims out of situations of exploitation, provide them with a short period of intensive support and specialist care, and put them in a position where they can begin to rebuild their lives with increased resilience against future exploitation. In the last two years alone almost 30,000 people have had access to the protections of the NRM.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 26 April 2024 to Question 23170 on Asylum: Rwanda, how many field visits within Rwanda by the Monitoring Committee of the Migration and Economic Development Partnership have been scheduled for 2024.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
Full details of the Monitoring Committee’s Terms of Reference and Monitoring Plan can be found here: Monitoring Committee: Migration and Economic Development Partnership - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
As set out in the monitoring plan, monitoring, especially in the enhanced phase, will be agile and responsive to operational activity so there will be a rolling presence of the Monitoring Committee and Support Team at different locations, rather than a set schedule of visits.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) women and (b) girls have arrived in the UK via small boats in each year since 2018.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office publishes statistics on small boat arrivals to the UK in the ‘Irregular migration to the UK statistics’ release. Data on small boat arrivals by year, sex and age group is published in table Irr_D01 of the ‘Irregular migration to the UK detailed datasets’, with the latest data up to the end of December 2023.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. Future irregular migration publication release dates can be found on the research and statistics calendar.
No assessment has been made of the risk to woman and girls arriving in the UK via small boats to trafficking for sexual exploitation. However, all individuals arriving on small boats will be assessed on arrival, including assessments to identify vulnerability and safeguarding needs. Where there are indicators of modern slavery, the individual will be referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). The NRM aims to lift victims out of situations of exploitation, provide them with a short period of intensive support and specialist care, and put them in a position where they can begin to rebuild their lives with increased resilience against future exploitation. In the last two years alone almost 30,000 people have had access to the protections of the NRM.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many initial reception centres in Rwanda are ready to accommodate individuals deported under the UK-Rwanda treaty; and what the maximum number of people those centres can accommodate is.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The number of people who can be relocated under the arrangement is uncapped and the Government of Rwanda have identified a range of accommodation sites to support individuals under the MEDP.
These include reception accommodation in addition to the existing Hope Hostel, and a range of sites for longer term accommodation purposes.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent estimate he has made of when the review of applications to the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy that were made by people who supported UK Special Forces in Afghanistan will be completed.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The reassessment began on 26 March 2024 and will take approximately twelve weeks to complete. Some complex cases might extend beyond the 12 weeks.
I will update the House once the review is completed, but my immediate priority is processing the cases as swiftly and diligently as possible and ensuring that the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme criteria is consistently applied to all applications being reassessed.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 24 April 2024 to Question 22532 on Home Office: Vivastreet, on what date discussions with adult service websites to explore a set of voluntary principles to counter exploitation on their sites began; and what her planned timescale is for finalising the voluntary principles.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Discussions with adult services websites have been focused on measures to reduce harm on these sites, with the exploration of a set of voluntary principles to counter exploitation evolving from these discussions over time. Work to develop and finalise the principles is ongoing, and we expect to publish the principles in due course.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many case workers in the UK have received training to manage and process the deportation of individuals seeking asylum to Rwanda.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
As the Prime Minister has already set out, the necessary case workers in the UK have been recruited and trained and are ready to make decisions in preparation for the first individuals being relocated.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what legal assistance will be available in Rwanda to asylum seekers relocated under the UK-Rwanda treaty.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
Relocated Individuals will be provided with legal representation free of charge throughout the asylum process. Part 3 of Annex B to the treaty details the provision that shall be made in Rwanda for Relocated Individuals to access legal assistance and interpreters.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many detention spaces are available for people seeking asylum who are due to be deported to Rwanda.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
As of 24 April, the Home Office has the capacity to detain around 2,200 people in immigration removal centres.