Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Brokenshire and Richard Graham

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

Changes to the appeals and removals system introduced under the Immigration Act 2014 have reduced the number of immigration decisions that can be appealed from 17 to four. New appeal provisions now allow us to deport harmful individuals before their appeals are heard if there is no risk of serious, irreversible harm. We have also introduced new powers to stop foreign criminals using family life arguments to delay their deportation.

[Richard Graham]

I am encouraged by what the Minister has said, and I appreciate all that he and the Home Office are doing to deport criminals—including EU nationals—who are guilty of serious crimes. He will know of the case of Mr Peter Pavlisin, a Slovakian national who brutally attacked his pregnant Gloucester girlfriend in January 2013 and was sentenced. Will he update me on when a decision on Mr Pavlisin’s deportation will be made?

[James Brokenshire]

I cannot comment on the specifics of my hon. Friend’s case, but I can underline the Government’s commitment to removing foreign national offenders from this country—just under 5,100 were removed last year. There is a cross-Government approach to ensure that we do all we can to redocument and remove foreign national offenders and, with the changes in the Immigration Act 2014 that I underlined, we have changed the law to ensure that we speed up those deportations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Brokenshire and Richard Graham

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

This is an exceptional period of demand. To put this into context, the Passport Office would usually handle about 5.5 million applications per year, and this year it has received about 4 million applications already. That gives some context to the work that is involved. “Work in progress” figures will run into hundreds of thousands because of the output that the Passport Office is delivering—about 170,000 a week. That gives a sense of the scale of the work that is involved. Yes, there are pressures there, but the Passport Office is responding to the challenge.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

What matters when Departments miss their targets is how everybody reacts, and the Home Secretary and Ministers have reacted with energy and determination to resolve this problem. May I thank the Passport Office, which so far, even though it has been a close-run thing in several cases, has managed to resolve 100% of my constituents’ problems so that they can travel on time? Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking my constituents for their patience and my constituency office for its resilience in making sure that so far everybody has got away on time?

[James Brokenshire]

I am pleased to give that recognition to my hon. Friend’s constituents, and, of course, constituents across the country who are working with HMPO to see that issues are resolved. We have put additional measures in place to assist colleagues from across the House with their individual inquiries, recognising the need to ensure that passports can be delivered to enable people to travel on their holidays.