Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to compensate people who had no access to asylum support payments during the recent Aspen card transition; and what steps she is taking to ensure people do not temporarily lose access to asylum support payments in the future.
Answered by Kevin Foster
A significant majority of service users have received their new Aspen card and they have successfully activated and started using the card.
Those who have experienced issues have been supported via the provision of emergency cash payments until their issue has been resolved. Due to this, there has always been some form of access to asylum support payments for the user population (even without an ASPEN card).
The provision of emergency cash payment has been in place for some time and will continue to be in place where emergency access to asylum support is required.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether a landlord conducting right-to-rent checks after 30 June 2021 will be obliged to refuse to rent a property to an EU citizen in the event that they are unable to demonstrate proof of their status and have not applied to the EU Settlement Scheme.
Answered by Kevin Foster
From 1 July right to rent checks will change and EEA citizens will be required to demonstrate eligibility through evidence of their immigration status, rather than their nationality, now free movement has ended.
We will be updating our guidance and communicating with landlords in the coming weeks to set out the support available and ensure they are clear on the steps they should take at the end of the grace period.
Where an EEA citizen, who was resident here before the end of the transition period, has reasonable grounds for missing the EUSS application deadline, they will be given a further opportunity to apply.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken to reduce the number of immigration enforcement visits made in error to British citizens.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Immigration Compliance Teams conduct immigration enforcement visits to residential and business premises. Extensive checks are undertaken on all individuals before any action is undertaken.
These checks include searches of all internal Home Office databases and where necessary external checks, such as birth or financial checks. In the immediate aftermath of Windrush, additional processes were put in place to carefully check the status of Commonwealth nationals to minimise the risk of tasking visits involving British nationals or those with the right to remain the United Kingdom.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish a breakdown of immigration enforcement visit statistics for the last 12 months by (a) location, (b) nationality, (c) ethnicity and (d) resultant arrests.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
To maintain the highest standard of accuracy, the Home Office prefer to refer to published data, as this has been subject to rigorous quality assurance under National Statistics protocols prior to publication.
We do not routinely publish data regarding breakdowns of immigration enforcement visits statistics by location, nationality, ethnicity and resultant arrests as to do so could only be done at disproportionate cost. All data published by the Home Office is considered in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics.
Our published data is available at the following links:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-enforcement-data-august-2020
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish data on immigration enforcement visits on a regular basis by (a) location, (b) nationality and (c) ethnicity.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
To maintain the highest standard of accuracy, the Home Office prefer to refer to published data, as this has been subject to rigorous quality assurance under National Statistics protocols prior to publication.
We do not routinely publish data regarding breakdowns of immigration enforcement visits statistics by location, nationality, ethnicity and resultant arrests as to do so could only be done at disproportionate cost. All data published by the Home Office is considered in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics.
Our published data is available at the following links:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-enforcement-data-august-2020