Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance his Department provides social care providers on using the social staff visa application portal.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Once licensed, sponsors are given access to the sponsorship management system (SMS). This online function allows them to carry out day-to-day activities and report any changes to UKVI, such as a change of organisation address. Sponsors can also use SMS to create and assign Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) to workers they wish to sponsor and report changes of circumstances of their sponsored workers.
SMS has help text embedded throughout to aid navigation of the system, however, this is not sector specific. In addition, UKVI publish sponsor guidance and SMS user guides which are available on gov.uk to assist sponsors in understanding their sponsor duties and navigating SMS; however, this is not sector specific.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the accessibility of the UK Visa and Immigration portal for social care workers visas.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The accessibility statement for the social care visa online application can be found through the following link: https://visas-immigration.service.gov.uk/accessibilityStatement.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help social care providers to (a) apply for a sponsorship license for social care staff and (b) complete online applications to sponsor a social care worker visa.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
There is a significant amount of information published for sponsors which helps to set out their duties and responsibilities. Further information on the general guidance can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sponsorship-information-for-employers-and-educators.
We have worked with the Department of Health and Social Care and Skills for Care on a range of information to assist those seeking to recruit into adult social care. Information can be found on the Skills for Care website at: https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/Recruitment-support/International-recruitment/International-recruitment.aspx.
In addition to this guidance there is a dedicated team in UKVI who handle most health and care applications who are available to assist with any issues with the sponsorship process.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of attempts to log into the UK Visas and Immigration portal failed in each of the past six months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office only retains the data for 30 days.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to support people running small and medium-sized enterprises impacted by banking fraud.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
In May 2023, Government published the Fraud Strategy setting out the aim of cutting fraud by 10% by the end of this Parliament. The strategy outlines three key elements:
▪ Pursue fraudsters, disrupting their activities and bringing them to justice more often and quicker.
▪ Block frauds at source by dramatically reducing the number of fraud and scam communications that get through to the public and businesses.
▪ Empower people to recognise, avoid and report frauds and equip them to deal with frauds that do get through.
The Strategy outlines how we will raise public awareness and safeguard victims through improved reporting pathways, more accessible victim support, and the provision of clear and consistent protect advice. This will ensure that everyone receives the support they need to feel safe again and prevent re-victimisation.
In February 2024, Government will launch a new national anti-fraud behaviour change campaign, for individuals and businesses. The campaign will help people spot and take action to avoid fraud.
Fraud has reduced 13% compared to last year (Sept 2022) and has continued to decrease since the Fraud Strategy was launched in May 2023.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is his Department's policy to waive the visa fee for children leaving Gaza who are non-British citizens with family residing in the UK.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Applicants outside of the UK wishing to apply to join/accompany a family member who is a British national; or a person present and settled in the UK, with a view to residing in the UK, may apply for a fee waiver if they consider they cannot afford the fee.
There is no fee attached to applications submitted under Appendix Family Reunion to the Immigration Rules.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to provide safe and legal routes of entry to the UK for people displaced from Sudan who have dependents that are British Citizens.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Over 2,000 people have been evacuated to safety in the longest and largest airlift of any western nation during the crisis in Sudan. As well as British nationals, the UK has also evacuated Sudanese clinicians who work in the NHS.
The UK Government is monitoring the situation in Sudan closely to ensure that it is able to respond appropriately. We recognise that some people displaced by the fighting may wish to join family in the UK, and where those family members do not have a current UK visa, they can apply for one via one of our standard visa routes, which remain available, and applications can be submitted at the nearest Visa Application Centre (VAC).
The UK continues to welcome refugees through our existing resettlement schemes which include the global UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS), Community Sponsorship and the Mandate Resettlement Scheme. While our safe and legal routes are some of the most generous anywhere, we cannot accommodate everyone who wants to come to the UK.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applications have been received from displaced Sudanese citizens in the last three months.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum applications raised by nationality can be found in table Asy_D01 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relate to the year ending March 2023. Data for the year ending June 2023 will be published on 24 August 2023. Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applications from people with epilepsy were (a) granted, (b) refused, (c) withdrawn and (d) pending a decision in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
This data is not held in a reportable format, not routinely published, and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost as it requires a manual search of individual records.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases of push payment fraud there have been in each of the last five years.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
UK Finance publish figures on the number of incidents of Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud for the UK each year. In 2021, UK Finance recorded 195,996 cases of APP, a 27% increase from 2020. In 2020, UK Finance recorded 154,614 incidents of APP fraud (data updated 26/08/2022). Figures for years prior to 2020 are not available as these are not directly comparable with current data due to changes in the manner in which APP losses are identified and reported. Please also note UK Finance figures are for the UK and include personal and non-personal account reports.