Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason time when employees are furloughed does not count towards the 12 month period for the purposes of Tier 1 entrepreneur visa despite employees being considered as employed during furlough; and if she will take steps to change that policy and ensure that the period of furlough does count towards meeting the conditions of the visa.
Answered by Kevin Foster
To extend leave or apply for settlement, Tier 1 Entrepreneurs must demonstrate they are undertaking ongoing business activity. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused disruption to many businesses and in light of this a number of Tier 1 Entrepreneur requirements have been relaxed to make sure applicants are able to remain in the UK.
Ordinarily, applicants must show they have created jobs for at least two people for 12 consecutive months. They will be allowed to include non-consecutive periods, as well as amalgamate multiple jobs to make the equivalent of two full time employees. For those applicants who are still unable to meet these requirements before the expiry of their visa, the Government will allow more time to qualify via temporary extensions of leave.
The Government continue to keep policies under review to ensure individuals, including those on a Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa, do not suffer any detriment as a result of this pandemic.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if the Government will waive the requirement for applicants for Indefinite Leave to Remain not to have spent more than 90 days outside the UK in circumstances where applicants are unable to return to the UK due to travel restrictions during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Individuals who hold leave in categories including Tier 2, Start-up and Global Talent are allowed a maximum of 180 days absence from the UK without breaking their continuous residence. However, the published guidance confirms that applicants may exceed the 180 days in the event of serious or compelling circumstances. This would include travel disruption caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
A full list of categories covered by this exemption is available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/indefinite-leave-to-remain-calculating-continuous-period-in-uk
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) extending the deadline for applications to the EU Settlement Scheme beyond 30 June 2021 and (b) making the EU settlement scheme an automatic registration system in response to additional pressures on the Civil Service resulting from the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kevin Foster
There are no plans to extend the deadline for applications to the EU Settlement Scheme or to replace it with an automatic registration system. There is still over a year before the deadline of 30 June 2021 and the latest published statistics, to 31 March 2020, show the scheme is performing well, with more than 3.4 million applications having been received and over 3.1 million concluded. The Home Office has continued to receive and process applications throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
EU citizens can apply online, free of charge, simply by completing three key steps: proving their identity, showing they live in the UK and declaring any criminal convictions. There is support available online, by email and by telephone from our assisted digital provider.
Where a person eligible for leave under the scheme has reasonable grounds for missing the application deadline, they will be given a further opportunity to apply. Our compassionate and flexible approach will ensure that individuals who miss the deadline through no fault of their own can still obtain lawful status in the UK. We will publish clear guidance for caseworkers in due course to ensure consistency of approach.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 24 February 2020 to Question 1876, on Extradition: Offenders, what discussions (a) officials and (b) Ministers in her Department have had with their (i) Austrian, (ii) German and (iii) Slovenian counterparts on the extradition of criminals during the transition period.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Home Office officials and Ministers regularly engage with their international counterparts in EU Member States on security cooperation. Engagement also takes place between the law enforcement agencies and prosecution services responsible for the execution of individual warrants, including with Austria, Germany and Slovenia where appropriate.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the (a) European Commission and (b) her (i) Austrian, (ii) German and (iii) Slovenian counterparts on the extradition of criminals during the transition period.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Home Office officials and Ministers regularly engage with their international counterparts in EU Member States on security cooperation. As the UK has left the European Union, these policy discussions take place via bilateral rather than EU channels.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many immigration cases have taken longer than (a) six months and (b) one year to be resolved in each of the last five years.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Information on our immigration routes with service standards and whether they have been processed against these standards is available as part of our transparency data, at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#uk-visas-and-immigration
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her Department's definition is of a complex immigration case; and what the criteria are for designating a case as complex.
Answered by Kevin Foster
There is no prescribed test or definition for when a case is deemed to be complex.
Each case is dealt with on its own merits and, while reviewing an application, a trained caseworker will make an assessment of whether the particular circumstances of that application would deem it to be classed as complex.
If a case is classed as complex the Home Office will write to the customer explaining why.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Border Force staff her Department is planning to recruit in the financial year 2020-21 in preparation for the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Border Force have already delivered a largescale recruitment and training exercise, which has seen an uplift of permanent staff, bringing the number of full-time equivalent Border Force staff to over 8,700 from c7,700 in March 2018. This includes a multi-disciplinary Readiness Task Force (RTF) of c.300 officers, which is available to deploy across the UK at short notice to deal with emerging issues and peaks in demand.
Resource and staffing requirements are continually reviewed, and we deploy resources flexibly as and when they are required. Border Force will continue to build a pipeline of resource to flexibly respond to future requirements.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff were recruited by her Department in the last twelve months to work on preparations for the UK leaving the EU; and what the Border Force budget has been for (a) additional permanent staff members and (b) agency workers in each financial year since 2015-16.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The department has been continually assessing the resourcing levels required to prepare for EU Exit across all possible scenarios, developing contingency plans in line with government policy. It is not possible to provide the number of staff who have been recruited to work on preparations for the UK leaving the EU as staff are generally engaged across a range of workstreams, which will include business as usual activity as well as EU Exit preparations, across all scenarios.
Over the last 12 months the department has adapted to the different scenarios in preparation for the UK leaving the EU and our staffing numbers have fluctuated to meet these demands.
The latest published staffing and finance figures for Border Force can be found in the Home Office Annual Report for 2018-2019 on page 85 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-annual-report-and-accounts-2018-to-2019
The previous published staffing and financial figures for Border Force since 2015 to 2018 can be found at the following links:
2015-2016: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-annual-report-and-accounts-2015-to-2016
2016-2017: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-annual-report-and-accounts-2016-to-2017
2017-2018: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-annual-report-and-accounts-2017-to-2018
2018-2019: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-annual-report-and-accounts-2018-to-2019
Excluding EU Exit, Border Force’s gross resource budget for 2019-20 is £488m. This includes an income target of £19m, which means a net allocation of £469m.
Border Force has received a total of c.£182m for EU Exit preparations in 2019/20. (£141m Resource and £41M Capital)
Border Force originally received funding, based on a Deal, of £100m; this funding was to fund recruitment for full customs compliance by the end of 2020. The recruitment and training for this uplift of permanent staff has completed bringing the Border Force FTE to over 8,700 from 7,700 in March 2018.
The additional £41m Resource funding provided throughout 2019-20 enabled further recruitment with Border Force expecting to reach c9,300 FTE by March 2020.
Border Force received a total £82.1m for EU Exit preparations in 2018/19 (£72.1m Resource and £10m Capital)
Border Force received a total of £3.2m for EU Exit preparations in 2017/18 (£1.7m Resource and £1.5m Capital)
Budgets for 20-21 cannot be confirmed as they remain subject to final confirmation.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what qualifications or criteria are required for Border Force personnel working in (a) ports and (b) airports; and whether those qualifications or criteria applied to the recruitment of agency staff, in the last twelve months.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Border Force have recruited nationally for permanent staff at various grades in the last twelve months. The educational qualifications and other criteria required will be dependent on the grade being recruited.
However, the basic criteria for all recruitment of permanent staff into Border Force must be:
The agency staff are temporary staff which Border Force engaged for an administrative purpose should the UK have left the EU in a no deal scenario. Their intended role was not consistent with that of a permanent Border Force Officer and the agency staff received training appropriate to the duties to be carried out.
The criteria for eligibility to apply for agency staff was the consistent with the criteria set out above for permanent recruitment, with the exception that there was no academic qualifications required due to level of responsibilities to be undertaken
All agency staff were interviewed (assessed) and selected upon suitable demonstration of the following skills: