Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of people from the Windrush generation who have lost their home because they could not provide evidence to demonstrate their right to remain.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office wrote to the Home Affairs Select Committee on 21 August with the initial findings of the Historical Review of removals and detentions and have provided regular updates to the committee. This correspondence is available in the library of the House.
Work is ongoing to review historical proactive compliant environment sanctions, for example where the Home Office has instigated the action taken by a partner of a third party to deny or revoke a service to an individual, or it has taken action to penalise a third party for employing or housing an unlawful migrant. The Home Office will report back to the Committee when this work is complete.
However, many checks, such as right to rent and right to work, are applicable to everyone in the UK on a non-discriminatory basis. Checks are often conducted independently of the Home Office and so it is not possible for the Government to accurately estimate the number of individuals who have been impacted by these measures. In relation to those who may have lost jobs - information that is not automatically reported back to the Home Office - we anticipate that we will gain a greater understanding when we launch our compensation scheme.
The Home Office has introduced additional safeguards to ensure those from the Windrush generation are not adversely affected by measures designed to protect benefits and services.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of people from the Windrush generation who have lost their job because they could not provide the evidence required to demonstrate their right to remain in each of the last three years.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office wrote to the Home Affairs Select Committee on 21 August with the initial findings of the Historical Review of removals and detentions and have provided regular updates to the committee. This correspondence is available in the library of the House.
Work is ongoing to review historical proactive compliant environment sanctions, for example where the Home Office has instigated the action taken by a partner of a third party to deny or revoke a service to an individual, or it has taken action to penalise a third party for employing or housing an unlawful migrant. The Home Office will report back to the Committee when this work is complete.
However, many checks, such as right to rent and right to work, are applicable to everyone in the UK on a non-discriminatory basis. Checks are often conducted independently of the Home Office and so it is not possible for the Government to accurately estimate the number of individuals who have been impacted by these measures. In relation to those who may have lost jobs - information that is not automatically reported back to the Home Office - we anticipate that we will gain a greater understanding when we launch our compensation scheme.
The Home Office has introduced additional safeguards to ensure those from the Windrush generation are not adversely affected by measures designed to protect benefits and services.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the EU Settlement Scheme for EU citizens.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
EU citizens make a huge contribution to our economy and society, and we want them to stay. The EU Settlement Scheme enables them to do so, in line with the draft Withdrawal Agreement. The scheme provides a simple, streamlined process for resident EU citizens and their family members to obtain their new UK immigration status. The scheme is being implemented on a phased basis and will be fully open by 30 March 2019.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding from the public purse his Department has allocated to the National Crime Agency specialist unit for investigating child sexual abuse online in the last 12 months.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
It has been the longstanding policy of successive Governments not to reveal specific details of the budgets or spending of the intelligence agencies.
However, a recent NCA and NPCC joint bid to the Police Transformation Fund (PTF) secured £2.2 million for an immediate uplift to work to tackle online child sexual exploitation. This will fund a significant expansion of the Joint Operations Team (JOT). Furthermore, in his speech at the NSPCC in September, the Home Secretary announced an extra £21m investment in law enforcement and intelligence agencies over the next 18 months to enable a focus on reducing the volume of offending and pursuing the most hardened and dangerous abusers, which also includes further funding for the JOT.
The JOT is a jointly managed National Crime Agency (NCA) and GCHQ capability, drawing on the experience and knowledge of the NCA and the high end capabilities and tradecraft of GCHQ to investigate and disrupt online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.
Working collaboratively provides a very powerful operating model. The JOT has supported the NCA in bringing offenders such as Dr Matthew Falder the university lecturer who committed 137 offences to justice. He was sentenced to 32 years imprisonment following their investigation.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of crimes unsolved in the latest year for which figures are available.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Office collects outcomes data for police recorded crime which provides transparency on how crimes are resolved.
These data are published quarterly and the latest figures, for the year ending June 2018 can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of wanted suspects on the Police National Computer who have been wanted for longer than 12 months.
Answered by Nick Hurd
Information on the number of wanted suspects on the Police National Computer is not available.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the EU Settlement Scheme for EU citizens.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
EU citizens make a huge contribution to our economy and society, and we want them to stay. The EU Settlement Scheme enables them to do so, in line with the draft Withdrawal Agreement. The scheme provides a simple, streamlined process for resident EU citizens and their family members to obtain their new UK immigration status. The scheme is being implemented on a phased basis and will be fully open by 30 March 2019.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will amend his decision not to grant residency to the husband of Emma De Souza.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Guidance for immigration officials can be found at https://www.gov.uk/topic/immigration-operational-guidance and staff training is based around this guidance. The Home Office complies with its obligations under the Belfast Agreement and respects the rights of the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves as Irish or British or both as they may so choose
It would be inappropriate to comment further in relation to Mr De Souza as the case is subject to ongoing legal proceedings.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what (a) information and (b) training has been given to immigration officials on their obligations under the Good Friday Agreement; and whether those staff have been made aware of the rights of residents of Northern Ireland to identify either as Irish or British or both without prejudice to their immigration status and that of their spouses and family members.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Guidance for immigration officials can be found at https://www.gov.uk/topic/immigration-operational-guidance and staff training is based around this guidance. The Home Office complies with its obligations under the Belfast Agreement and respects the rights of the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves as Irish or British or both as they may so choose
It would be inappropriate to comment further in relation to Mr De Souza as the case is subject to ongoing legal proceedings.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department has taken to provide assurance to (a) users and (b) employers on the security of documents stored by cloud services for the EU Settlement Scheme.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office takes the security of all of our data extremely seriously, including digitised evidence provided by EU Settlement Scheme users. There are processes in place in the Home Office for the capturing and mitigation of risks and vulnerabilities to ensure appropriate control of our services. I can confirm this is the case for the EU Settlement Scheme
All Home Office systems including EU Exit applications undergo rigorous cyber strengthening prior to launch. This includes an independent security testing to ensure they are resilient to external attack.
Our IT systems hosting platform include a number of mechanisms to detect and respond to malicious intrusions.
All data is encrypted both in transit and at rest. Our IT staff are security cleared and your data will only be accessed by those who have a valid business reason to access it. The Home Office regularly monitors the systems for abuse and misuse.