Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the ability for individuals granted Ukraine Family scheme visas under exceptional circumstances to fully access benefits and public services.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Applicants coming to the UK under the Ukraine Family Scheme, including those granted under exceptional circumstances, 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:
Immigration Rules Appendix Ukraine Scheme - Immigration Rules - Guidance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many outstanding applications for the EU Settlement scheme are from (a) Wales (b) rest of the United Kingdom.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office publishes data on the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) in the ‘EU Settlement Scheme statistics’. Data on the number of applications and concluded applications in total and for Wales to 30 June 2021 are published in ‘EU Settlement Scheme quarterly statistics, June 2021’, tables EUSS_MON and EUSS_05 respectively.
Summary statistics of total EUSS applications and concluded applications to 30 September 2021 are published on the ‘EU Settlement Scheme statistics’ web page.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she made of the number of outstanding applications to the EU Settlement scheme.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office publishes data on the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) in the ‘EU Settlement Scheme statistics’. Data on the number of applications and concluded applications in total and for Wales to 30 June 2021 are published in ‘EU Settlement Scheme quarterly statistics, June 2021’, tables EUSS_MON and EUSS_05 respectively.
Summary statistics of total EUSS applications and concluded applications to 30 September 2021 are published on the ‘EU Settlement Scheme statistics’ web page.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of including a Welsh-only option for people receiving registration documents from the General Register Office.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 requires all events to be registered in the registration district in which they take place. The forms which are used are prescribed in secondary legislation.
Where an event takes place in Wales, the information to be recorded in the registration can be provided and recorded in English only, or in both English and Welsh.
The General Register Office (GRO) has made no assessment of including a Welsh-only option for people receiving registration documents.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent review her Department has conducted of the format and provision of the Welsh language on registration documents provided by the General Register Office in Wales.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 requires all events to be registered in the registration district in which they take place. The forms which are used are prescribed in secondary legislation. Where an event takes place in Wales, the information to be recorded in the registration can be provided and recorded in English only, or in both English and Welsh.
The General Register Office (GRO) has not conducted a recent review of the format and provision of the Welsh language on registration documents.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing a Seasonal Visa Scheme for qualified lorry drivers to tackle shortages in labour supply.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The UK Government is working with the haulage sector to promote jobs, training and a range of other initiatives to get more people into HGV driving.
Like other sectors the focus should be on training and recruiting from the UK based workforce in the first instance, especially given the impact of the pandemic resulting in more looking for secure new employment. Immigration policy will be considered alongside strategies to do this, not separately or as an alternative to doing so.
The Government therefore has no plans to introduce a seasonal visa scheme for heavy goods vehicle drivers in the UK. The job of HGV driver is not eligible to be sponsored for a Skilled Worker visa so cannot be added to the Shortage Occupation List.
The Home Office has though amended the Immigration Rules to enable drivers who come to the UK on an international journey to transport goods or people on journeys within the UK and undertake cabotage operations in line with Department for Transport rules.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of adding drivers of heavy goods vehicles to the Shortage Occupation List to tackle shortages in labour supply.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The UK Government is working with the haulage sector to promote jobs, training and a range of other initiatives to get more people into HGV driving.
Like other sectors the focus should be on training and recruiting from the UK based workforce in the first instance, especially given the impact of the pandemic resulting in more looking for secure new employment. Immigration policy will be considered alongside strategies to do this, not separately or as an alternative to doing so.
The Government therefore has no plans to introduce a seasonal visa scheme for heavy goods vehicle drivers in the UK. The job of HGV driver is not eligible to be sponsored for a Skilled Worker visa so cannot be added to the Shortage Occupation List.
The Home Office has though amended the Immigration Rules to enable drivers who come to the UK on an international journey to transport goods or people on journeys within the UK and undertake cabotage operations in line with Department for Transport rules.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the affordability of short-stay visa and work permits for UK citizens who perform temporary seasonal tourism work in the EU.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is responsible for setting the immigration policy for those who wish to travel for work purposes to the UK and not those who seek to travel for work purposes to other countries. Hence we do not assess the immigration policies relating to seasonal work set by foreign Governments.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Biometric Residence Permit Cards enquiry forms were (a) received and (b) answered within the five day working day target in November 2020.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Quality assured data on the number of unique enquiries received is not available.
The Home Office is not meeting its five working day response time for deliveries, collections and errors. At the end of November, it was taking 35 working days. Additional staff are being recruited and trained to undertake this work to improve this position.
An Application Planning Interface (API) is due to be introduced at the end of January 2021 to improve the National Insurance Number verification process between the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and UKVI. This will reduce data transfer delays and speed up the verification process.
Work is underway to improve address quality and prevent mis-delivery of BRPs, as well as reducing errors in production. We are meeting weekly with our delivery partner (FEDEX) to improve delivery processes.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to improve the (a) production and (b) delivery times of Biometric Residence Permit Cards since the 1 of November 2020.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Quality assured data on the number of unique enquiries received is not available.
The Home Office is not meeting its five working day response time for deliveries, collections and errors. At the end of November, it was taking 35 working days. Additional staff are being recruited and trained to undertake this work to improve this position.
An Application Planning Interface (API) is due to be introduced at the end of January 2021 to improve the National Insurance Number verification process between the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and UKVI. This will reduce data transfer delays and speed up the verification process.
Work is underway to improve address quality and prevent mis-delivery of BRPs, as well as reducing errors in production. We are meeting weekly with our delivery partner (FEDEX) to improve delivery processes.