Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) single adult men, (b) single adult women, (c) families and (d) single-parent families were in receipt of support under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 at the end of 2015.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office publishes statistics on those supported under section 95, as at the end of each quarter, in the quarterly Immigration Statistics release.
Of the 34,363 main applicants that were supported under section 95 as at the end of December 2015, 12,561 were single adults. Where the gender of the main applicant is recorded, 9,987 were males and 2,135 were females.
There were 6,456 families supported under section 95 as at the end of December 2015. It is not possible to identify single parent families from the published statistics.
The figures provided are published in table as_17_q, in volume 4 of the Immigration Statistics asylum data tables. The data provided by gender are a subset of published figures. The latest release, Immigration Statistics September to December 2015, is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2015
Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to consider the final report of the Home Affairs Committee's planned inquiry into asylum accommodation before she makes her decision on whether to extend Compass asylum accommodation to 2019.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Secretary will consider the Home Affairs Committee’s report on their planned inquiry into asylum accommodation when it is published.
The timing of any decision to extend the COMPASS contracts is subject to ongoing discussions with providers and is commercially sensitive. In deciding whether to extend the contract the Home Office will take a number of things into account, including the performance of the contracts and the value for money that they offer to the taxpayer.
Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who on the Government's warnings index is known to have travelled to which destinations during the Semaphore eBorders system national power outage in June 2015.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Home Office systems are used for the purposes of border and national security and the detection and prevention of crime. It is longstanding policy not to discuss the specific data held on these systems, the source of the data or how it is used for national security reasons.
Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to provide long-term funding for the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Every young person should learn about the Holocaust and the lessons it teaches us today. In recognition of its significance, the Holocaust is the only historic event which is compulsory within the national curriculum.
Since 2008, the Department for Education has funded UCL Institute of Education’s Centre for Holocaust Education which has seen more than 7,000 teachers benefit from their programme since 2011.
The Department has renewed the funding for 2016-17 and will continue to do all it can to promote, support and fund teaching of the Holocaust.
Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made on developing the planned annual asylum strategy; and when she expects that strategy to be published.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The asylum strategy will outline how we will focus our efforts on the most vulnerable refugees, and how we will take a tougher approach to those whose asylum claim is unfounded or could reasonably have been made in another country. This will include looking again at the end-to-end asylum process from upstream to in-country.
We will publish the strategy annually, as set out in the Home Secretary’s party conference speech. There are no plans to run a formal consultation but officials are engaging with a range of partners in preparing the strategy.
Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans that the Government's proposed annual asylum strategy will include third-country asylum application processing arrangements for people who have attempted to claim asylum in the UK at port or in-country.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The asylum strategy will outline how we will focus our efforts on the most vulnerable refugees, and how we will take a tougher approach to those whose asylum claim is unfounded or could reasonably have been made in another country. This will include looking again at the end-to-end asylum process from upstream to in-country.
We will publish the strategy annually, as set out in the Home Secretary’s party conference speech. There are no plans to run a formal consultation but officials are engaging with a range of partners in preparing the strategy.
Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what consultations her Department has undertaken in developing the proposed annual asylum strategy; and whether her Department plans to undertake any consultation on that strategy after it is published.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The asylum strategy will outline how we will focus our efforts on the most vulnerable refugees, and how we will take a tougher approach to those whose asylum claim is unfounded or could reasonably have been made in another country. This will include looking again at the end-to-end asylum process from upstream to in-country.
We will publish the strategy annually, as set out in the Home Secretary’s party conference speech. There are no plans to run a formal consultation but officials are engaging with a range of partners in preparing the strategy.
Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to publish proposals to introduce a victims' law.
Answered by Mike Penning
In the Queen’s Speech we made a commitment to bring forward measures to increase the rights of victims of crime. Further detail on our plans will be published in due course.
Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he has taken to introduce a Victims' Law since May 2015.
Answered by Mike Penning
In the Queen’s Speech we made a commitment to bring forward measures to increase the rights of victims of crime. Further detail on our plans will be published in due course.
Asked by: Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps the Government has taken to transpose the EU Directive on Victims' Rights into UK law.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Ministry of Justice fully transposed the EU Victims’ Directive 2012/29/EU (the Victims’ Directive) on 16 November 2015. In conjunction with existing legislation, the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (Victims' Code) is the main mechanism used to transpose the Victims’ Directive into the law of England and Wales.
The UK government is responsible for transposing the Directive in England and Wales. The Devolved Administrations are also required to implement the Directive under their devolved powers and we have been working closely with them to do so.
The transposition table which sets out how we have implemented the Victims’ Directive through the Victims’ Code can be found at:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/1817/pdfs/uksitn_20151817_en.pdf
In the Queen’s Speech we made a commitment to bring forward measures to increase the rights of victims of crime. Further detail on our plans will be published in due course.