Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will publish the data to be provided to the Migration Advisory Committee as part of the review of the graduate route.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office publishes a range of migration statistics, including statistics relating to the Graduate route, in its quarterly statistics releases.
The Migration Advisory Committee will publish their findings of the Graduate route review in May.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of people (a) received and (b) repaid a refugee integration loans since 2007.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Refugee Integration Loans were introduced in 2007 following a public consultation and are intended to help people with the costs of integrating into UK society. They are funded by the Home Office, who make the initial decisions on applications. They are then administered and recouped by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Refugee integration loans are interest-free loans with favourable repayment terms for individuals who are over 18 and meet the following eligibility criteria:
Individuals are currently able to borrow between £100 and £500. Between £100 to £780 can be borrowed if submitting a joint application with a partner.
The specific data requested cannot be provided as it comes from live operational databases that have not been quality assured.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of people work in his Department's equality, diversity and well-being team.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
There are 29 members of staff working in the central Equality, Diversity and Wellbeing Team based on headcount, this represents 0.06% of the total staff working for the Home Office.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which unit in his Department is responsible for equalities.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Within the Home Office, internal people-related Equality, Diversity and Inclusion activity sits within the responsibilities of the Home Office Equality, Diversity and Wellbeing Team.
A separate team within our Home Office Analysis and Insight Unit provides expert input to the department on our responsibilities under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) requirements, under the Equality Act.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his oral statement of 4 December 2023 entitled Legal Migration, Official Report, column 41, for what reason the review of the graduate visa route has not been started.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government recognises the importance of reviewing the Graduate route, in line with the Home Secretary’s commitment of 4 December 2023.
We will commission the Migration Advisory Committee to undertake this review at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff in their Department have job titles that include the words (a) equality, (b) diversity, (c) inclusion, (d) gender, (e) LGBT and (f) race.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Home Office staff job titles is not held centrally and would require significant manual collation and manipulation of local data, so could only be retrieved with disproportionate effort.
The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) of the workforce, through the review of EDI spending announced last June.
As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the review of the graduate visa route by the Migration Advisory Committee has begun.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Migration Advisory Committee have not yet been commissioned to review the Graduate route.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many equalities impact assessments his Department completed in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The information requested is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Under the Public Sector Equality Duty all public authorities, including Government departments, are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions.
While equality impact assessments may be produced, there is no legal requirement for duty assessments to be recorded in a specific format.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of foreign national prisoners made a claim for asylum prior to being detained in the latest year for which data is available.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not publish data on the immigration status of foreign nationals held in prisons.
The Home Office publishes data on asylum-related detainees in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on numbers of asylum-related detainees entering, leaving and in detention are published in table Det_01 of the ‘Detention Summary tables’. However data on numbers of foreign national offenders being detained are not published. Asylum-related cases refer to those where there has been an asylum claim at some stage prior or during detention. This will include asylum seekers whose asylum claims have been refused, and who have exhausted any rights of appeal, those returned under third country provisions, as well as those granted asylum/protection, but detained for other reasons (such as criminality).
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the end of September 2023 for entering and leaving detention data, and September 2022 for in detention data.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of foreign national prisoners have indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not publish data on the immigration status of foreign nationals held in prisons.
The Home Office publishes data on asylum-related detainees in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on numbers of asylum-related detainees entering, leaving and in detention are published in table Det_01 of the ‘Detention Summary tables’. However data on numbers of foreign national offenders being detained are not published. Asylum-related cases refer to those where there has been an asylum claim at some stage prior or during detention. This will include asylum seekers whose asylum claims have been refused, and who have exhausted any rights of appeal, those returned under third country provisions, as well as those granted asylum/protection, but detained for other reasons (such as criminality).
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the end of September 2023 for entering and leaving detention data, and September 2022 for in detention data.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.