Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of removing minimum income thresholds for spouse/partner visas.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We do not intend to remove the Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) for spouse / partner visas under Appendix FM to the Immigration Rules.
The purpose of the MIR, implemented in July 2012 along with other reforms of the family Immigration Rules, is to ensure family migrants are supported at a reasonable level so they do not become a burden on the taxpayer and they can participate sufficiently in everyday life to facilitate their integration into British society.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of including hospitality roles on the immigration salary list.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government intend to commission the MAC to undertake a full review of the Immigration Salary List. The Government will carefully consider their recommendations once received.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment his Department has made of the potential economic impact on the tourism industry of delays in the processing of Tier 2 visa licences.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
There are currently no delays in the processing of sponsor licence applications.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of a regional system for issuing of Tier 2 Skilled Worker visas.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The UK has a single immigration system which works for the whole of the UK. Adding different rules for different locations would introduce further complexity into the system and create frictions where workers move from one location to another.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps Border Force is taking to (a) identify and (b) detain people crossing the border who have been involved in the (i) funding and (ii) supply of munitions to Russia.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office’s priority is to deliver a safe and secure border and we will never compromise on this. Border Force maintain 100% checks for all scheduled arriving passengers into the UK.
We operate the Authority to Carry Scheme 2023 to prevent certain individuals from travelling to or from the UK when that is necessary in the public interest.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the lack of an appeals process for Visitor Visa's on tourism numbers coming to the UK.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The department has not conducted an assessment of tourism numbers and appeals. When appeals for family visitors were abolished in 2013, the assessment was that the quicker and more cost-effective remedy for those refused was a fresh application, with judicial review available where necessary. These options are open to tourists, who therefore have no reason to be deterred by the lack of an appeal. In 2023, the number of visitor visas issued was up by 40% on 2022.
In 2014, the immigration appeals system was reserved for cases raising issues of fundamental rights, and in those rare cases where a visit engages human rights an appeal is still available.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the adequacy of the options available to people who wish to complain about the reasons for a compliance notice when the Forensic Science Regulator issue's them a notice.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Section 8 of the Forensic Science Regulator Act came into force on 2 October 2023 via statutory instrument, allowing a person issued with a compliance notice to appeal to the First Tier Tribunal if they feel a compliance notice has been wrongly issued. Since then, no compliance notices have been issued by the Regulator.
The Act only applies to forensic science activities conducted in England and Wales. Further assessment of the adequacy of the provisions would be covered by post-legislative scrutiny.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had recent discussions with (a) Cabinet colleagues, (b) the Linda Norgrove Foundation and (c) the Scottish Government on the potential merits of opening the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme to nursing students from Afghanistan.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We remain committed to providing protection for vulnerable and at-risk people fleeing Afghanistan and so far, have brought around 24,600 individuals to the UK.
We continue to welcome individuals under all three pathways of the ACRS as set out in the policy statement and work with likeminded partners and countries neighbouring Afghanistan on resettlement issues, and to support safe passage for eligible Afghans. Further information is available here:
Beyond the first stage of Pathway 3, which is now closed to referrals, we will continue to work with international partners and NGOs to welcome wider groups of Afghans at risk under the next stage. Further detail will be set out in due course.
Whilst the government maintains a generous resettlement offer, we must recognise that the capacity of the UK to resettle people is not unlimited and difficult decisions have to be made on who will be prioritised for resettlement.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the report by the ONE Campaign entitled Getting a grip: How the Home Office should improve refugee and asylum seeker welfare and protect UK aid, published on 29 September 2023, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the recommendations of that report.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office is tackling the asylum legacy caseload so that people can receive a decision and exit the system, either by returning to their home country, or granting them asylum so they can begin to make a contribution to the UK. We have already met our commitment to increase the number of decision makers to 2,500. We will continue to increase the number of caseworkers to help clear the asylum backlog by the end of 2023. We are on track to clear the legacy backlog by the end of the year.
We are also improving the productivity, volumes, and speed of decision making so that people spend less time in asylum accommodation. We are streamlining and modernising the end-to-end process, with improved guidance, more focused and fewer interviews, enhancing use of digital technology, and we are introducing a more efficient approach to how claims are handled by decision makers. The aim is to clear initial asylum decisions relating to claims made before 28 June 2022, when the Nationality and Borders Act measures came into force, by the end of 2023.
The Home Office is committed to making every effort to reduce hotel use and limit the burden on the taxpayer. This is why we are delivering a range of alternative accommodation sites, maximising hotel space, operationalising the Illegal Migration Act and continuing our hard work to clear the asylum backlog by the end of the year.
In line with our response to the ICAI review, FCDO published the updated UK In-Donor Refugee Costs methodology report alongside our latest Statistics on International Development.
The full methodology report can be found here. Section 3 sets our the fit for purpose assessment and current data limitations.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many medical professionals working for the NHS moved from a study visa to a work visa in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office does not publish data that would cover this request.