Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department is planning an awareness campaign, on changes to UK-EU travel requirements associated with the EU’s (a) Entry/Exit System and (b) European Travel Information and Authorisation System.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government is engaging both the European Commission and French Government through officials holding routine technical meetings to understand and influence the implementation plans of the new systems. This includes working with port owners and operators to understand and support their plans to mitigate EES and ETIAS impacts at the border.
A cross-government communication group consisting of Home Office, Department for Transport, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and Cabinet Office teams has been established and is developing a communication strategy for both the travelling public and trade stakeholder groups.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he plans to seek bilateral Youth Mobility Scheme agreements with EU countries.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The UK remain open to negotiating new Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS) arrangements with other countries and territories, including EU Member States. However, as each YMS is subject to a bilateral, reciprocal arrangement, which also provides benefit to UK nationals, with the details agreed between the relevant parties, we are unable to disclose the status of negotiations as they occur.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken with his (a) French and (b) other EU counterparts to prepare for implementation of the EU Entry/Exit System.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government is engaging both the European Commission and French Government through officials holding routine technical meetings to understand and influence the implementation plans of the new systems. This includes working with port owners and operators to understand and support their plans to mitigate EES and ETIAS impacts at the border.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she made an assessment of the impact of the Government Communications Service Propriety Guidance on the list of organisations invited to accompany her on the visit to Rwanda in March 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Due consideration of the GCS guidelines is undertaken in Home Office communications.
All news organisations were kept informed of the progress of the visit regardless of whether they attended or not.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information she holds on Iranian intelligence operatives attempting assassinations in (a) mainland Europe and (b) Britain and Gibraltar in the last five years.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
We do not routinely comment on intelligence matters or specific threats.
The safety and security of our citizens is the Government’s top priority and we will continue to use all tools at our disposal to protect the UK and our interests from any Iran-linked threats.
The UK is committed to working with the international community to ensure Iran abides by international laws and norms and is held to account for its destabilising activity.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of Commonwealth service leavers who are eligible to apply for Leave to Remain have applied for Leave to Remain.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office does not hold data on the number of Commonwealth service leavers who are eligible to apply for Leave to Remain or the number of applications received from Commonwealth service leavers.
Commonwealth service leavers can apply for an immigration status on a variety of routes. To capture numbers would require a manual trawl of data and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Applications from Commonwealth service leavers are grouped together with other categories in our published statistics:
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure the right to peaceful protest during the covid-19 lockdown.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The right to protest is the cornerstone of our democracy and the Government is absolutely committed to maintaining freedom of expression.
However, we are currently in a national lockdown as we continue to fight this deadly pandemic. We have a duty to reduce transmission and prevent more lives being lost which is why currently, outdoor gatherings of more than two are not permitted unless an exemption applies.
Government will keep the rules under review and amend as necessary to ensure they remain relevant and proportionate in line with easing the lockdown restrictions, and as we enter the next stages of the Roadmap.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment he has made of the potential effectiveness of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 in increasing transparency of the future cobalt supply chain.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
In 2020, the UK Government funded NGO PACT to conduct a series of workshops to review the prevalence of modern slavery in mines, and international commercial awareness of these issues. In FY 20/21, the UK has continued to fund programmes, including through PACT, to raise awareness of the risks of, and solutions to, modern slavery in supply chains for a range of minerals.
Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires certain businesses in all sectors, including the mining and electronics sectors, with a turnover of £36m or more to report annually on the steps they have taken to prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.
The prevalence of modern slavery and complexity of global supply chains means that it is highly unlikely that any sector or company is immune from the risks of modern slavery. The Government therefore encourages businesses to take a targeted approach to preventing modern slavery based on where their risks are most salient and severe, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights. The annual reporting requirement contained in section 54 is also designed to encourage companies to demonstrate year on year progress in their actions to mitigate their modern slavery risks.
To increase transparency and accelerate progress to tackle modern slavery, the Government recently announced an ambitious package of changes to strengthen and future-proof section 54, including a requirement for organisations to report against specific topics, such as due diligence, the introduction of financial penalties for organisations which fail to meet their statutory obligation to publish a statement, and the creation of a Government modern slavery statement registry to make all statements available in one place.
The new Government modern slavery registry, which is due to launch early this year, will provide increased visibility of the action organisations are taking to prevent modern slavery and will empower investors, consumers and civil society to scrutinise how organisations are developing and improving their response over time.
These measures, including requiring organisations to publish their statement on the Government modern slavery registry, require primary legislation and will be introduced when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect on the financial and mental well-being of visa applicants of extensive travel to (a) complete the English Language and Life in the UK tests and (b) submit a visa application in person.
Answered by Kevin Foster
UKVI work hard to ensure that front-end immigration services are accessible to customers.
UKVI works closely with commercial partners both oversees and in the UK, to ensure that there is a sufficient geographical spread of English language and Life in the UK (UK only) testing and biometric enrolment locations to minimise the amount of travel required by customers by analysing where concentrations of demand are. Our footprints in respect to both services are kept under review and further locations opened where sufficient demand supports.
In addition, our commercial partners offer a range of optional added-value services which provide customers additional choice in how they access biometric enrolment services overseas or in the UK such as mobile enrolment at a location at their convenience.
Individuals applying in the UK who have higher needs, may be vulnerable, or whose circumstances may be complex are directed to the Home Office run Support Centres (SSC) where they receive support with their application.
SSC customers who are unable to pay the application fee may submit a fee waiver request. Customers who have been granted a fee waiver and who fit certain criteria may be eligible to apply for travel assistance to attend their closest SSC.
Within the UK, customers who cannot travel to enrol biometrics due to ill heath are directed to contact either UKVI (if routed to SSCs) or Sopra Steria Limited (if routed to the UKVCAS service which they run on behalf of UKVI) once they have completed their application and before booking an appointment. Information on how to do this is provided at the end of the online application form on Gov.uk.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans her Department has to establish English Language and Life in the UK test centres in Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross constituency.
Answered by Kevin Foster
There are no current plans to open either an English language test centre or a Life in the UK test centre in the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross constituency.
A life in the UK test centre is planned to open in Inverness by 31 March 2021.