Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people currently in Immigration Removal Centres claim to be under 18 years old.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Government ended the routine detention of children in immigration re-moval centres in 2010. Current Home Office policy maintains this position. However, although many asylum seekers who claim to be children do not have any definitive documentary evidence to support their claimed age, the Home Office does not treat an individual as an adult when there is doubt about whether they are an adult or a child. In cases where new information comes to light or concerns are raised, which indicate that a person who has been detained as an adult may be a child, we would seek to release them in to the care of local authority children’s services at the earliest safe opportunity for an age assessment and they will be treated as a child whilst the outcome is awaited.
The Home Office publishes information on the number of children in detention on the last day of each quarter. The data is available in the detention tables (dt_13_q) in the latest release of ‘Immigration Statistics, year ending March 2019’, available from the Home Office website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/803188/detention-mar-2019-tables.ods.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress has been made implementing the recommendations of the Independent Monitoring Boards to improve conditions in short-term holding facilities.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Home Office management information indicates there were 19,434 detentions at the short-term holding facilities at Heathrow airport between June 2018 and May 2019. Of this number, 136 people were detained for more than 24 hours. For the same period 8,386 detentions were recorded in the short-term holding facilities at Gatwick airport, and of these 74 people were detained for more than 24 hours. This is provisional management information that has not been assured to the standard of official statistics.
Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs) provide vital scrutiny of short-term holding facilities and help ensure that they provide a secure and humane detention environment. IMBs publish annual reports and the Government responds with a published action plan. The Government has responded to the 2018 annual report for the North and Midlands Independent Monitoring Board for short-term holding facilities and will be responding to the 2018 annual reports for Heathrow Airport, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Larne, and Port of Dover short-term holding facility Independent Monitoring Boards in due course.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were detained (a) in total and (b) for more than 24 hours in short-term holding facilities at (i) Heathrow and (ii) Gatwick airport in the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Home Office management information indicates there were 19,434 detentions at the short-term holding facilities at Heathrow airport between June 2018 and May 2019. Of this number, 136 people were detained for more than 24 hours. For the same period 8,386 detentions were recorded in the short-term holding facilities at Gatwick airport, and of these 74 people were detained for more than 24 hours. This is provisional management information that has not been assured to the standard of official statistics.
Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs) provide vital scrutiny of short-term holding facilities and help ensure that they provide a secure and humane detention environment. IMBs publish annual reports and the Government responds with a published action plan. The Government has responded to the 2018 annual report for the North and Midlands Independent Monitoring Board for short-term holding facilities and will be responding to the 2018 annual reports for Heathrow Airport, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Larne, and Port of Dover short-term holding facility Independent Monitoring Boards in due course.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what his policy is on increasing the number of reporting locations for asylum seekers.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
There are currently no plans to increase the number of reporting locations. In some areas of the UK where there are no Reporting Centres, the Home Office require indivduals on reporting conditions to to report to Non-Home Office locations (Police Stations).
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many reporting locations there are for asylum seekers in each local authority area.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Asylum seekers are not required to report to the Secretary of State unless they have had a negative decision or if they have previously been encountered in breach of the Immigration rules
The majority of individuals on reporting conditions are required to report to one of the 14 reporting centres in a Home Office location. Additional reporting currently takes place in police stations in some of the areas not close to a reporting centre.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which projects by London Borough have received funding for the Early Intervention Youth Fund as set out in in the Serious Violence Strategy announcement on 9 April 2018.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
We have awarded over £4.1m from the £22m Early Intervention Youth Fund to fund ten projects in London. Details on the projects are at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-intervention-youth-fund-successful-bids.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which projects by London Borough have received funding from the anti-knife crime Communication Fund as set out in in the Serious Violence Strategy announcement on 9 April 2018.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Lists of all London-based projects that have received funding from the anti-knife crime Community Fund in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 financial years may be found in the attached tables.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many complaints against the actions of the Independent Office for Police Conduct have been made since its inception in January 2018.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The information you requested is available on the IOPC’s website, published via their annual reports. The 2017/18 report can be accessed:
With previous reports available:
https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/who-we-are/accountability-and-performance/annual-report-and-plans