Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to bring into force legislative provisions in the Public Order Act 2023 relating to safe access zones around abortion clinics.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Public Order Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 2 May. Implementation of the Public Order Act measures is staggered.
The Government respects the will of Parliament and is working to commence Safe Access Zones as soon as is practicably possible. We have been considering what needs to be done to ensure Safe Access Zones can be implemented as effectively as possible, with law enforcement agencies having a clear and consistent understanding around enforcement, and abortion service providers and protestors being clear as to what is expected under the new law.
The timescales for commencing the new Section 9 offence of interference with access to, or provision of, abortion services will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of (a) family, (b) student, (c) settlement, (d) visitor and (e) work visas submitted in the last 12 months have taken longer to process than the limits set by their respective customer service standards.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office makes every attempt to meet the service level agreement standard, but in certain cases additional checks are required which can mean visa requests take longer to process.
Data on performance against service standards is published through migration transparency data and can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#uk-visas-and-immigration
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on extending the 90-day period for collecting visas in Sudan.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Where our records confirm that a customer’s passport is being held in the Visa Application Centre (VAC) in Khartoum, UK Visas and Immigration have contacted all those customers that have been issued or refused visa applications in our VAC in Khartoum and offering them a letter confirming that their passport is securely stored and attaching a digital copy of their passport, that may help support their travel out of Sudan and into a third country.
Where our records show that the passport is held in Nairobi or Pretoria and a named individual (either the applicant or a designated 3rd party) is identified to return the passport to outside of Sudan, the passport can be sent (to the named individual) by courier or for collection from another visa application centre. UK Visas and Immigration have contacted all those customers. For customers that have been able to exit Sudan, processes are in place to re-direct printing of their visa and endorsement on a Form for affixing a visa (FAV) to another VAC location of their choice for collection.
Where a customer would normally receive a 90-day vignette, we will defer issuing the vignette until they have been able to safely travel to a location where the vignette can be collected. If the vignette had already been issued and is due to expire, we will assist the customer in applying for a replacement vignette once they have been able to safely travel to a location where the vignette can be collected.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to help ensure that people in Sudan who made successful visa applications before the continuing crisis can collect their visas.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Where our records confirm that a customer’s passport is being held in the Visa Application Centre (VAC) in Khartoum, UK Visas and Immigration have contacted all those customers that have been issued or refused visa applications in our VAC in Khartoum and offering them a letter confirming that their passport is securely stored and attaching a digital copy of their passport, that may help support their travel out of Sudan and into a third country.
Where our records show that the passport is held in Nairobi or Pretoria and a named individual (either the applicant or a designated 3rd party) is identified to return the passport to outside of Sudan, the passport can be sent (to the named individual) by courier or for collection from another visa application centre. UK Visas and Immigration have contacted all those customers. For customers that have been able to exit Sudan, processes are in place to re-direct printing of their visa and endorsement on a Form for affixing a visa (FAV) to another VAC location of their choice for collection.
Where a customer would normally receive a 90-day vignette, we will defer issuing the vignette until they have been able to safely travel to a location where the vignette can be collected. If the vignette had already been issued and is due to expire, we will assist the customer in applying for a replacement vignette once they have been able to safely travel to a location where the vignette can be collected.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications for her Department's policies of the High Court ruling on the licensing of animal testing for cosmetic ingredients on 5 May 2023.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat
Animal testing of cosmetics for consumer safety has been banned in the UK since 1998 and this remains in force.
On 17 May 2023 the Government announced it is going further by banning, with immediate effect, licences to test ingredients exclusively used in the production of cosmetics for the purposes of worker safety.
The Home Secretary has issued a Written Ministerial Statement, which can be found here: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-05-17/hcws779
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle knife crime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Tackling knife crime is a priority for this government. We are pursuing a robust twin-track approach, combining tough enforcement with programmes that divert young people away from crime.
Since 2019, we have invested £340m in the areas most affected by violence, funding our ‘Grip’ hotspot policing programme and Violence Reduction Units to tackle the root causes of serious violence.
On 18 April, we launched a 7-week consultation on proposed legislation to tackle knife crime and particularly the use of certain types of large knives and machetes in crime.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of delays in DBS check waiting times; and what steps her Department is taking to reduce delays to those checks.
Answered by Sarah Dines
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) performed strongly for the 2022/23 financial year, issuing over 7.5 million DBS certificates. Against 80% targets, DBS issued an average of 85.2% of Basic DBS certificates in 2 days, 94.7% of Standard DBS certificates within 5 calendar days, and 78.4% of Enhanced DBS certificates within 14 calendar days. In addition, DBS processed 278,138 fast and free COVID-19 checks (funded by the Department of Health and Social Care) and 54,432 Enhanced checks in support of the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
DBS received 10.8% more Enhanced DBS applications compared to the proceeding financial year, with intake for this product during 2022/23 being the largest volume since the inception of DBS. This resulted in referral volumes to police forces exceeding the original budget set with forces, preventing some police forces from achieving their targets. This adversely affected the overall Enhanced DBS check performance. Although the target for Enhanced DBS certificates was not achieved, the average time to issue DBS certificates for 2022/23 was 10.7 calendar days, with over 3.5m customers receiving their enhanced check results within 14 days of submitting their application, and the 80% target being met on day 16.
Police Disclosure Unit budgets have been increased during the year with additional funding provided by DBS for the police to recruit additional staff, provide additional overtime, and fund the associated equipment to deal with the increased referral volumes. Police forces with capacity are also helping other forces where shared IT platforms allow. It is expected that these measures will result in an improvement to Enhanced DBS performance during the current financial year.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what measures her Department has in place to help ensure that foreign workers hired for the seasonal workers scheme by licensed scheme operators are recruited legally, ethically and fairly in their countries of origin and in compliance with UK and source country rules and regulations.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Scheme Operators are responsible for managing the recruitment and placement of workers on UK farms, and ensuring their welfare in the UK. This includes ensuring ethical recruitment practices and complying with all aspects of UK law, such as Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority regulations.
The Home Office and Defra monitor the scheme closely, to ensure operators adhere to the stringent requirements set for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the seasonal workers.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to support individuals whose Start-Up visas expire before the introduction of the revised Innovator visa.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The current provision for those switching from Start-up to Innovator remains in operation until the 13th April and applicants will be able to obtain endorsement in the usual manner until that date.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to respond to the letter of 14 December 2020 from the hon. Member for Bristol East relating to a constituent.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Home Office, Detention and Escorting Services (DES) team responded to the correspondence on 24 December 2020.