Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the (a) median and (b) mean response time has been to passport queries sent by hon. Members on behalf of constituents to her Department in each of the last six months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest Quarter available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q1-2022
Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of adding licensed drivers of Heavy Goods Vehicles to the shortage occupation list for immigration purposes.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The UK Government is working with the haulage sector to promote jobs, training and a range of other initiatives to get more people into HGV driving.
Like other sectors the focus should be on training and recruiting from the UK based workforce in the first instance, especially given the impact of the pandemic resulting in more looking for secure new employment. Immigration policy will be considered alongside strategies to do this, not separately or as an alternative to doing so.
The job of HGV driver is not eligible to be sponsored for a Skilled Worker visa so cannot be added to the Shortage Occupation List.
The Home Office has though amended the Immigration Rules to enable drivers who come to the UK on an international journey to transport goods or people on journeys within the UK and undertake cabotage operations in line with Department for Transport rules.
Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March 2021 to Question 170550 on North Wales Police: Finance, if he will publish the same information for each year in the period 2008-09 to 2016-17.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The information requested is available online, on the Government website, at the link listed below. Here there are links to the Police Grant allocations for each year from 2010-11 and the Police Grant Report which is published annually and sets out details of Central Government to police forces in England and Wales. These reports contain information on funding to North Wales Police.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-finance
Police funding prior to 2010-11 can be found on Parliament.uk at the following link.
House of Commons Hansard Ministerial Statements for 06 Dec 2007 (pt 0003) (parliament.uk)
It is important to note that it is difficult to make direct comparisons between current police funding figures and police funding in the years before 2015-16 due to a number of significant changes in the structure of police funding and the structure of policing over the period.
Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much central government funding, in real terms , has been allocated to North Wales Police in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The amount of central funding the Government has allocated to North Wales Police during the annual settlement process is as follows:
Central government funding (including capital) for North Wales Police (£m) | ||||
2021/22 | 2020/21 | 2019/20 | 2018/19 | 2017/18 |
86.4 | 82.2 | 75.3 | 72.2 | 72.2 |
While the majority of funding for the police comes directly from the central Government grants, around a third comes from a share of council tax, known as the police precept. This is not included in the above figures.
The responsibility for setting the precept falls on individual PCCs, and they must consult their local electorate to ensure they explain how additional investment will help deliver a better police service.
This Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2021/22 (publishing.service.gov.uk) explains the full allocation of police core settlement for 2021/22.
Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether (a) aerospace and (b) cybersecurity workers are exempt from quarantining when arriving in the UK if they carry out that work in another country and are returning to the UK.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The list of travellers exempt from quarantine can be found here (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-travellers-exempt-from-uk-border-rules/coronavirus-covid-19-travellers-exempt-from-uk-border-rules).
Passengers arriving from exempt countries and territories no longer need to self-isolate when entering England from 10th July.
Travellers will need to self-isolate if they visited or made a transit stop (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-travel-corridors#transit-stops) in a country that is not on the list in the 14 days before they arrive in England.
Public health remains our top priority, and we will not hesitate to remove countries and territories from the list if the health risks are seen to increase.
Devolved administrations make their own decisions around public health measures in place and so it is important for travellers to familiarise themselves with the latest position in the nation of the UK they are travelling to.
Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to help ensure the safety of alleged victims in cases where a non-molestation order has been breached during the covid-19 outbreak and the alleged perpetrator of the breach is awaiting trial.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Domestic abuse cases are amongst the highest priority work being dealt with by the courts. Non-molestation?orders have been placed in the highest category of work in the magistrates’ and family courts, and they continue to be listed for urgent hearings despite the current restrictions. Domestic abuse cases will continue to be afforded a higher priority as public health restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic are adjusted.
Protecting victims of domestic abuse and robustly pursuing perpetrators remains a key policing priority during the pandemic and beyond. Where the police are dealing with breach of a non-molestation order, we expect them to engage with local IDVA (Independent Domestic Violence Advocate) and community-based services to ensure that the victim and their children receive appropriate specialist support throughout the criminal justice process.
Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to help ensure the safety of alleged victims in cases where a non-molestation order has been breached during the covid-19 outbreak and the alleged perpatrator of the breach is awaiting trial.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Domestic abuse cases are amongst the highest priority work being dealt with by the courts. Non-molestation?orders have been placed in the highest category of work in the magistrates’ and family courts, and they continue to be listed for urgent hearings despite the current restrictions. Domestic abuse cases will continue to be afforded a higher priority as public health restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic are adjusted.
Protecting victims of domestic abuse and robustly pursuing perpetrators remains a key policing priority during the pandemic and beyond. Where the police are dealing with breach of a non-molestation order, we expect them to engage with local IDVA (Independent Domestic Violence Advocate) and community-based services to ensure that the victim and their children receive appropriate specialist support throughout the criminal justice process.
Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing the rate of asylum support during the covid-19 outbreak commensurate with the increase in the universal credit standard allowance.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We have been reviewing the level of the cash allowances provided to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, as we do each year to ensure that they remain capable of meeting their essential living needs (the legal test).
As a result of this work, the standard allowance has been raised to £39.60 per week from £37.75 per week, an increase of around 5%. This increase is significantly higher than the current general rate of inflation, which Office of National Statistics data shows was only 0.5% in the 12 months period to May.
The level of the allowance is not linked to social security benefits.
In addition to the allowance, we also provide free accommodation, with utilities and council tax paid for and there is free access to the NHS and free access to education for their children.
The UK has a generous record in supporting asylum seekers. Last year, we made around 20,000 grants of asylum or protection (one of the higher figures in Europe), as well as offered protection to 3,000 Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children – the highest number of any country in Europe. In addition, we have directly resettled around 20,000 people from the most dangerous areas of the world (especially Syrians) in the UK over the last 5 years. Finally, we spend around £14 billion per year in Overseas Aid, helping millions of people around the world. This is the highest amount of any country in Europe and we are the only G7 country to meet the 0.7% of GNI Overseas Aid target.
Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases are known to officials of his Department of people who have been injured due to the misuse of fireworks since 2015.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office does not collect the information requested.
Asked by: Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases are known to (a) Ministers and (b) officials of her Department of people who have been wrongfully (i) deported and (ii) detained.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Department has been carrying out a review of all cases of Caribbean Commonwealth nationality, born before 1 January 1973, who have been removed and/or detained by the Home Office since 2002 (when the Casework Information Database (CID) was available across the immigration system) and sought to identify any individuals where there was an indication in the record that the individual could have been in the UK before 1973.
The Home Secretary wrote to the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee on 21st August to provide an update on this work. This letter outlined that, so far, this review has found eighteen people of Caribbean Commonwealth nationality, born before 1 January 1973, who told the Home Office they came to the UK before 1 January 1973 and stayed here permanently and who have been removed and / or detained. Eleven of these left the UK voluntarily and seven were detained.
These are the people we consider are most likely to have suffered detriment because their right to be in the UK was not recognised and where the Department is most likely to have acted wrongfully in removing and / or detaining them. Letters of apology are being sent from the Home Secretary.
A copy of this letter has been deposited in the House Library. This work is ongoing and the Home Secretary has committed to regularly updating the Home Affairs Select Committee on progress.