Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applicants were waiting for an asylum interview to be undertaken as of 1 September 2022; hoe many of those cases pending had been waiting (a) beyond the published timescales, (b) for over one year and (c) in excess of two years; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office is unable to state how many asylum claimants were awaiting their asylum interview as of 1 September 2022, or how many claimants had been waiting (a) beyond the published timescales, (b) for over one year and (c) in excess of two years. This data is not held in a reportable format, not routinely published and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
However, the Home Office does publish data on the number of asylum claims awaiting an initial decision by duration, for main claimant only. This data can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics:
List of tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The Home Office is committed to ensuring asylum claims are considered without unnecessary delay; that individuals who need protection are granted asylum as soon as possible so that they can start to integrate and rebuild their lives.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many full-time equivalent staff in her Department were based permanently in (a) Gujarat, (b) Delhi and (c) other states in India in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Please find below a table for the number of staff located in India.
| Delhi | Other |
2018 | 316 | 82 |
2019 | 328 | 68 |
2020 | 324 | 54 |
2021 | 307 | 0 |
2022 | 318 | 0 |
Source : Metis HO-HR database
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what further support she plans to put in place to provide responses to the large number of constituent enquiries that hon. Members and their staff are making via the Home Office hub in Westminster as a result of delays in processing passport applications; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The UK Visas and Immigration, MP Account Management Team have recently increased the staffing at the Portcullis House hub by 50% to provide additional support for Members and their staff in answering enquiries about passport applications as well as about matters related to the situation in Ukraine.
Staffing levels at the hub continue to be reviewed to ensure the hub provides the best possible service to Members and their staff.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to (a) recruit more staff, (b) offer more upgrade appointments, (c) increase the responsiveness of the helpline for hon. Members and (d) put in place other resources to mitigate delays in processing passport applications; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Her Majesty’s Passport Office has added 850 staff since April 2021, which has enabled more passport applications to be processed than ever before. Approximately three million applications were completed across March, April, and May, and an additional 350 staff will arrive this summer to add further resilience to this processing capacity.
If a customer has made a standard application and now needs their passport sooner than the published processing times of ten weeks, they should contact the Passport Adviceline (0300 222 0000) to discuss any available options. For those who have yet to apply and need their passport more quickly, appointments for urgent services are released on a daily basis, three weeks in advance. Work to increase appointment capacity has led to the recent opening of an eighth public counter.
In light of the difficulties caseworkers have had in making contact about constituents’ passport matters, members of HM Passport Office staff are now dedicated to support on the Home Office’s MP Enquiry Line. 25 members of non-frontline staff have been trained so far, with an average of 15 staff on the phones each day. HM Passport Office staff are also available at Portcullis House from Monday to Friday, to provide in-person surgeries for the most urgent enquiries.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff in her Department have been (a) redeployed and (b) hired since March 2022 to alleviate delays in processing passport applications; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Since April 2021, Her Majesty’s Passport Office have added over 850 additional staff to help meet the current unprecedented demand for passports, with almost 400 of these staff brought in since March 2022. A further 350 staff will added during the summer.
HM Passport Office’s makes use of its own flexible resources, with fully trained staff being deployed to operational roles as required. It also routinely uses flexible resource from HMRC to support with peaks in passport demand, with over 80 full-time equivalents from HMRC supporting passport services in May.
This has helped to process applications in record numbers. Across March, April, and May, HM Passport Office completed the processing of approximately three million applications, with 98.5% of applications from the UK being completed within the published processing time of up to ten weeks.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department holds documents on the 1984 Camell Laird dispute; and whether she will make a statement.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
I refer the Honourable Member to the response made to PQ 210572 tabled on 29 January 2019. The Home Office does not hold any files relating to the 1984 dispute at Cammell Laird shipyards.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time was for a Standard Visitor visa application to be processed for applicants from Mumbai in the latest period for which data is available; whether her Department is taking steps to reduce the waiting time for those applicants; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office does not publish data on the individual processing times by location. It does publish data of its performance against its service level agreement, which can be found on the GOV.UK webpage: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Resources are focussed on reducing the current processing times and will continue to prioritise urgent compelling or compassionate cases across all workstreams.
UKVI encourages all customers to apply in good time ahead of intended travel dates, and customers can also make use of UKVI’s optional priority visa services for visit visas in certain locations.
The Home Office is also continuing to invest in a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives which will speed up and simplify decision making, reduce the time people spend in the system and decrease the number of people who are awaiting an interview or decision.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made on processing the visa applications for family members of the constituent of the hon. Member for Harrow West, reference GT52722; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We do not comment publicly on individual cases.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to allow Ukrainian refugees who travelled to the UK through the Ukraine Family Scheme following the Russian invasion to transfer to the Homes for Ukraine scheme so they can access a wider range of support from local authorities; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Ukraine Family Scheme was set up to ensure family members were able to reunite with family fleeing Ukraine ahead of the development of the Homes for Ukraine scheme. It is based on family visa routes which existed before the Ukraine conflict, where public services are funded out of council budgets and the same principle is applied here. The UK-based family member is expected to provide support and accommodation for those coming to join them, who in turn benefit from the wider integration advantages in joining an existing family network.
Ukrainian nationals coming to the UK under the Ukraine Family Scheme are given access to work, benefits and public services as laid down in Appendix Ukraine to the Immigration Rules, details of which can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-ukraine-scheme
Homes for Ukraine on the other hand is a unique scheme set up specifically to support those escaping the conflict in Ukraine who are not able to rely on UK based family support. The Government is providing additional funding to local authorities which includes resource to enable them to carry out sponsorship-specific functions such as safeguarding checks and property checks, administering payments, as well as providing support such as English language training to help their integration into communities.
We continue to keep the UK Government’s support under review and will adapt and develop the visa routes in place to ensure they keep pace with the situation in Ukraine and the needs of those who have sought sanctuary here.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many passport applications processed by her Department missed the 10-week processing target since 1 January 2022; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Since April 2021, people have been advised to allow up to ten weeks when applying for their British passport as more than 5 million people delayed applying due to the pandemic. The vast majority of all passport applications continue to be dealt with well within 10 weeks
HM Passport Office has increased its staffing numbers by 650 since April 2021 and is in the process of recruiting a further 550. This has helped to ensure that passport applications continue to be processed in higher numbers than ever before, with the processing of almost two million applications being completed across March and April 2022.