Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers in (a) the UK and (b) Scotland were housed in initial accommodation for longer than the 17 day target period, in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
I am sorry but the Home Office does not record this information centrally and it could only be provided at disproportionate cost by examination of individual records.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what forecast the Government has made of the effect of immigration policy on the ratio of working people to retired people in the next (a) five, (b) 10 and (c) 20 years.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
It has been the practice of successive Governments not to make such forecasts. There are numerous different factors that can affect migration flows.
UK Population projections (including variants based on alternative assumptions of future fertility, mortality and net migration) are published by the independent Office for National Statistics at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress the Government has made on relocating child refugees from France, Greece and Italy; and how many child refugees have been so relocated to the UK since the Immigration Act 2016 came into force.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
In 2016, we transferred over 900 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to the UK from Europe, including more than 750 from France as part of the UK’s support for the Calais camp clearance. Approximately 200 of these children met the criteria for section 67 of the Immigration Act.
More eligible children will be transferred from Europe, in line with the terms of the Immigration Act, in the coming months and we will continue to meet our obligations under the Dublin Regulation. In addition to our long standing secondee in Italy, we have seconded an expert to Greece who has been working closely with UNHCR, IOM and the Greek authorities to identify potentially eligible children under section 67 of the Immigration Act and support transfers under the Dublin Regulation.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what process the Government plans to use for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Coalition Government signed the Istanbul Convention to show its strong commitment to tackling violence against women and girls, and this Government remains committed to ratifying it.
In most respects, the measures already in place in the UK to protect women and girls from violence comply with or go further than the Convention requires.
Further amendments to domestic law, to take extra-territorial jurisdiction over a range of offences, are necessary before the Convention can be ratified. We will seek to legislate when the approach to implementing the extra-territorial jurisdiction requirements in England and Wales is agreed and Parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will grant existing EU national university staff and students leave to remain in the UK in advance of Article 50 being triggered.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
While the UK remains in the EU, EU national university staff and students will continue to have the same rights and status that they had before the referendum. The Prime Minister has been clear that she wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living and working in the UK after the UK leaves the EU, and the only circumstances in which that would not be possible is if British citizens' rights in other EU Member States were not protected in return.
The Government has provided repeated assurances on this point. It has also been clear that the timeframe for resolving this issue is through an agreement with the EU to ensure fair treatment of British citizens living in other EU countries.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 13 October 2016 to Question 47816, if she will publish details of any (a) policy equality statement, (b) equality impact assessment and (c) equality monitoring that the Government has carried out on its contracts with Compass to provide accommodation to asylum seekers (i) prior to those contracts being signed in 2012 and (ii) in the years since those contracts were signed.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The COMPASS contracts and their associated procurement exercise defined the required performance standards expected of all providers including sensitivity of equality impacts, these contracts are published at:
https://data.gov.uk/data/contracts-finder-archive/contract/503124/
The Government expects the highest standards from our contractors and providers are monitored closely to ensure they continue to meet these standards. Equality assessments have not been undertaken in isolation from usual contract tendering and management processes and discussions about equality impacts form part of regular engagement with stakeholder groups. Equality assessments are not collated in publishable formats.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 26 October 2016 to Question 49108, what assessment she has made of the proportion of visa refusals that relate to university admissions; and how many visa applications have related to such admissions in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Data regarding the number and proportion of visa refusals under Tier 4 of the Points Based System over the last five years can be found within the data tables produced for the immigration statistics, last published in August 2016 including data up to and including June 2016:
All data tables:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-april-to-june-2016-data-tables
Visa applications table:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/546766/entry-visas1-q2-2016-tabs.ods
The data tables do not split the data according to the sponsoring institution type. Whilst this data is recorded in relation to each institution it is not held centrally in such a way as to be available without incurring disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 17 October 2016 to Question 48003, if she will publish the visa refusal rates for (a) Cambridge University, (b) Oxford University, (c) Bath University, (d) Imperial College London, (e) Edinburgh University, (f) Glasgow University, (g) University of St Andrews and (h) Aberdeen University in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Visa refusal rate data is produced for internal use only and is not intended for publication. The data requested provides sensitive information about sponsors’ compliance with their immigration requirements and by extension how likely they are to retain their sponsor licence.
As this information could potentially impact their reputation and ability to attract international students, and therefore their commercial viability, we are unable to provide the information requested on the basis of commercial confidentiality.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the criteria for inclusion in the limited post-study work visa pilot were; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Tier 4 visa pilot has been introduced to test the benefits of a differentiated approach within the education sector on the basis of compliance with immigration sponsorship requirements.
The four universities chosen to participate in the Tier 4 visa pilot, namely the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Bath and Imperial College London, were chosen on the basis of their consistently low visa refusal rates.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Government has carried out a (a) policy equality statement, (b) equality impact assessment or (c) any equality monitoring on its contracts with Compass to provide accommodation to asylum seekers since those contracts were signed in 2012.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Home Office is currently considering any equality impacts as part of the wider considerations as to whether to extend the asylum support and accommodation contracts for the period from 2017-19.
The Home Office takes its equality duty seriously and engages regularly with Non-Governmental Organisations and its contractors to ensure that support and accommodation for asylum seekers meets the needs of individual service users.