Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the payment of £500 made to Hadush Kebatu, (a) by what legislative authority this payment was made; (b) what level of payment made under this authority requires ministerial approval, (c) what is the average level of such payments made over the last three years, (d) the total number of such payments made in the last three years and (e) whether she plans to take steps to end such payments.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office applies small discretionary payments, where appropriate, to prevent the failure of returns. These payments facilitate returns by making them quicker and cheaper, helping to avoid delays and additional costs. Decisions on their use are operational in nature.
As always with expenditure on returns, these one-off costs must be set against the much higher long-term costs that would result from the same individuals remaining in the UK, including, where necessary, ongoing expenditure on accommodation or detention and the legal processes required to authorise their removal.
This Government’s priority is keeping the people of this country safe, and we make no apology for seeking to remove dangerous foreign criminals and other immigration offenders.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether any ministerial redundancy payments have been repaid to their Department since 2019.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average response time was for a third country enquiry on an asylum application in each year since 2014.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
We do not routinely publish the information you have requested.
The Home Office publishes statistics on inadmissibility quarterly under the asylum and resettlement datasets. The latest statistics are available at Immigration system statistics quarterly release - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum claims are subject to third country enquiries as of 28 February 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
We do not routinely publish the information you have requested.
The Home Office publishes statistics on inadmissibility quarterly under the asylum and resettlement datasets. The latest statistics are available at Immigration system statistics quarterly release - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many claims for asylum were suspended in each month between September and December 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on the outcomes of asylum claims, including grants, refusals and withdrawals, is published in table Asy_D02 of the ‘Asylum applications, decisions and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the year ending September 2023. Data up to the end of 2023 will be published on 29 February 2024.
Further information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many job vacancies there are in his Department as of 29 January 2024.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The number of vacancies is not held centrally and would require significant manual collation and manipulation of data, so could only be retrieved with disproportionate effort.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many properties have been provided to asylum seekers receiving Section 95 support in (a) Ellesmere Port, (b) the North West and (c) England; and what proportion of these were provided in the last six months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The number of asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority, although not broken down into hotels or other accommodation, can be found in the attached link https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-support. For the safety, security and wellbeing of those we house within the hotels, we do not disclose the individual locations.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time to receive a response to an application to the voluntary return scheme is.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
We do not routinely publish the information requested.
The Home Office publishes statistics on all types of removals from the UK which includes voluntary departures. The latest statistics are available at: Immigration system statistics quarterly release - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Published datasets for Voluntary Returns are available at: Returns and detention datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications to the voluntary return scheme have been (a) received and (b) concluded since 1 January 2023.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
We do not routinely publish the information requested.
The Home Office publishes statistics on all types of removals from the UK which includes voluntary departures. The latest statistics are available at: Immigration system statistics quarterly release - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Published datasets for Voluntary Returns are available at: Returns and detention datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the average length of time taken for a production request for a Biometric Residence Permit to be made after a decision to grant leave to remain has been made.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
We aim to deliver a BRP within 7 working days of the immigration decision.
BRPs are produced at the secure delivery facility (Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA)) within 48 hours of the production request being made and are collected by our secure delivery partner the same day. Our secure delivery partner (Royal Mail Group) aims to attempt to deliver the BRPs within 48 hours of receipt of the BRPs. This equates to a minimum of 5 working days from date of production request being made to delivery of the BRP. We have added an additional 2 working days to the timeline advised to applicants to allow us to resolve any production issues.
In November, DVLA produced all BRPs within 24 hours of the production request. In November RMG attempted to deliver 99.1% of BRPs within 48 hours.