Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to support the public health approach to tackling knife crime in Hackney.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Tackling serious violence is a top priority for the Government and it is clear we must continue to step up the response to stop this violence. The Serious Violence Strategy sets out the Government’s approach, which depends on a multi-agency approach working across several sectors and stresses the importance of early intervention to tackle the root causes.
Since launching the Strategy in April last year, we have progressed in deliver-ing on our key commitments which support early intervention and prevention
including:
• delivery of the Early Intervention Youth Fund of £22m which is supporting 29 projects in England and Wales, with over £4m of funding to
London projects including a Pan London rescue and response county lines project which targets young people up to the age of 25 who are
being exploited, or at risk of exploitation, through county lines;
• delivery of the anti-knife crime Community Fund which provided £1.5m in 2018/19 to support 68 projects, with a continued focus on local multi-strand partnership approach to tackling serious violence. The Immediate Theatre, Hackney received £30k from the 2018/19 Fund to deliver
positive community activities to people living in an area of high crime; and
• delivery of the national knife crime media campaign – #knifefree - to raise awareness of the consequences of knife crime.
In addition, on 1 April we launched a public consultation on a new legal duty to support a ‘public health’ multi-agency approach to preventing and tackling serious violence. This statutory duty would make serious violence a top priority for all key partners, ensuring that they are working together to prevent young people being caught in the criminal cycle. The consultation, closes on 28 May, can be found on the Gov.UK website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=home-office&publication_filter_option=consultations
On 13 March the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a further £100m funding in 2019/20 to help in the police’s immediate response to the rise in serious knife crime, enabling priority forces to immediately begin planning to put in place the additional capacity they need. £63.4m of this funding has already been allocated to 18 police forces worst affected by serious violence to pay for surge operational activity, such as increased patrols. This includes £20.84m to the Metropolitan Police Service. £35m of this Serious Violence Fund will support the setting up of Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) and associated preventative activity in areas most affected by serious violence.
In October 2018 the Home Secretary announced a ten-year £200m Youth Endowment Fund, focused on targeted early intervention with those children and young people most vulnerable to involvement in serious violence. This will form an important part of the multi-agency, public health; approach to serious violence.
On 1 April 2019 the Prime Minister hosted a Serious Youth Violence Summit at 10 Downing Street, with the support of the Home Secretary and Secretaries of State. The central aim of the summit was to ensure a shared understanding and commitment to a multi-agency, ‘public health’ approach to tackling knife crime and serious violence more generally. An outcome of the Summit is the creation of a new Ministerial Taskforce, chaired by the Prime Minister, to drive cross-government action. This will be supported by a new, dedicated, serious violence team in the Cabinet Office to support cross-departmental coordination.
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason his Department does not retain data on delays in the issue of Biometric Resident Permits.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Whilst the Home Office does not keep overall data relating to delays in the issuing of Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs), it does closely monitor the service level agreements (SLAs) with partners relating to the successful production and delivery of BRPs. The Home Office is also able, on a case by case basis, to check whether and how quickly a BRP was produced and delivered.
Where the Home Office is made aware of a problem with BRP production, collection or delivery, the department aims to respond within 5 working days. Production problems are also closely monitored within the department and resolved urgently in order that an applicant receives their BRP within 10 working days of their decision being made.
In relation to BRP production the DVLA, who produce the BRPs, have an SLA to personalise 90% of BRPs within one working day of receipt and the remaining 10% within two working days of receipt.
The delivery partner, DX, is required to collect BRPs from the DVLA daily, excluding weekends and bank holidays, and then attempt first delivery within 48 hours of receipt (working days only) in 99% of cases.
DVLA and DX both met these SLAs for 2018/19 and continue to do so.
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of UK settlement visa applicants that paid for the priority service received a response within his Department's deadline.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Information on in country premium service applications for settlement visas and processing performance against service standards is published in the Migration Transparency data, table InC07, latest edition at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/in-country-migration-data-may-2019
Information on overseas premium service applications for settlement visas and processing performance against service standards are not published in the International Operations Transparency data, but the number of out of country settlement applications received and processed within service standards is published in table Visa_01, which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-operations-transparency-data-may-2019
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 16 October 2018 to Question 176098, how his Department plans to contact people with existing leave to remain in the UK on applying for a biometric residence permit.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Individuals with indefinite leave to remain who hold legacy immigration documents can access information on GOV.UK on how to upgrade to a biometric residence permit.
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many biometric residence permits have been issued in the last three months; and what the average time taken has been for issuing such permits in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The data required to answer the first part of the question is not recorded in a way that can be reported on accurately. As well as biometric residence permits (BRPs) issued following a grant of leave to enter or remain, the total number of cards issued by the Home Office includes replacements for lost or stolen BRPs, biometric residence cards for the dependents of EEA nationals, asylum application registration cards and BRPs reissued to correct customer reported errors.
Information regarding processing times for immigration leave applications is available through the transparency data published on GOV.UK. The latest data available is for August 2018: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/in-country-migration-data-august-2018
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 16 October 2018 to Question 176098, how his Department plans to contact people with existing leave to remain in the UK on applying for a biometric residence permit.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Individuals with indefinite leave to remain who hold legacy immigration documents can access information on GOV.UK on how to upgrade to a biometric residence permit.
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many biometric residence permits have been issued in the last three months; and what the average time taken has been for issuing such permits in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The data required to answer the first part of the question is not recorded in a way that can be reported on accurately. As well as biometric residence permits (BRPs) issued following a grant of leave to enter or remain, the total number of cards issued by the Home Office includes replacements for lost or stolen BRPs, biometric residence cards for the dependents of EEA nationals, asylum application registration cards and BRPs reissued to correct customer reported errors.
Information regarding processing times for immigration leave applications is available through the transparency data published on GOV.UK. The latest data available is for August 2018: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/in-country-migration-data-august-2018
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average length of time is for processing biometric residence permits for people (a) applying with existing indefinite leave to remain and (b) making new claims in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Non-EEA nationals with indefinite leave to remain already have the facility to enrol for a biometric residence permit to show they have no time limit on their stay in the UK. Details on how to apply are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-to-transfer-indefinite-leave-to-remain-in-uk-form-ntl
We do not publish the specific data requested, but as per the In-Country migration statistics published in August 2018, 99.5% of settlement applications were decided within the six-month service standard. This figure includes applications made by those who already hold indefinite leave to remain and those who have never previously held a biometric residence permit. The data can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/in-country-migration-data-august-2018
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department plans to advise individuals with indefinite leave to remain to apply for a biometric residence permit.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Non-EEA nationals with indefinite leave to remain already have the facility to enrol for a biometric residence permit to show they have no time limit on their stay in the UK. Details on how to apply are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-to-transfer-indefinite-leave-to-remain-in-uk-form-ntl
We do not publish the specific data requested, but as per the In-Country migration statistics published in August 2018, 99.5% of settlement applications were decided within the six-month service standard. This figure includes applications made by those who already hold indefinite leave to remain and those who have never previously held a biometric residence permit. The data can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/in-country-migration-data-august-2018
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the number of refugees who will be resettled in the UK under the asylum route in 2018.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Government’s current commitment is to resettle 750 refugees each financial year under the Gateway Protection Programme
We do not resettle people under the asylum route and there is no provision within our Immigration Rules for a person to be allowed to travel to the UK to seek asylum; a person must be in the UK in order to lodge an asylum claim here. All claims for asylum are considered on their individual merits, and where a genuine need for protection or a well founded fear of persecution is established, refugee status will be granted.