Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish a response to Early Day Motion 674 on Animals in Scientific Research and transition to new approach methodologies.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
This Government is committed to the development of non-animal technologies. Such technologies have the potential to reduce the reliance on the use of animals, improve the efficiency of drug research and development and to deliver safer, cheaper, and more effective medicines to patients. We continue to actively support and fund the development and dissemination of techniques that replace, reduce, and refine the use of animals in research (the 3Rs).
At this current point in time, the availability of non-animal technologies does not allow us to transition away from the use of animals in science and testing. The use of animals in science supports the development of new medicines, safety testing and cutting-edge medical technologies, for humans and animals, as well as the safety and sustainability of our environment.
Where animals have to be used they are protected under law. No animal testing may be conducted if there is a non-animal alternative available, where only the minimum numbers are used to achieve the likely expected benefit and only the minimum suffering caused.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of people applying for asylum in the UK for whom the UK was the first safe country of arrival, in each year since 2015.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on the number of asylum applications which received a third country refusal (where the applicant is believed to have reached a safe third country prior to claiming in the UK) are published in table ASY_D02 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. The latest data cover up to the end of September 2021.
From 1 January 2021, following the UK’s departure from the EU, strengthened inadmissibility rules came into effect. Prior to the UK leaving the EU, most inadmissibility decisions were made according to the Dublin Regulation, which for the cases in its remit, established the criteria and mechanisms for determining which state was responsible for examining an application for international protection.
Data on the number of cases considered under inadmissibility rules since 1 January 2021 are published in table Asy_09a, and data on transfers into and out of the UK under the Dublin Regulation (prior to 2021) are available in Dub_01 of the ‘asylum and resettlement summary tables’.
Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to make sure each individual applying for asylum in the UK has access to adequate translation services to support (a) their application and (b) communications with her Department.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office Interpreter Language Services Unit (ILSU) delivers interpreting and translation services for most immigration customers. ILSU manages a database of 1,759 freelance interpreters as well as a commercial contract with TheBigWord for interpreting and documents translating. ILSU provides interpreters for 191 languages, including dialects.
ILSU arranges appointments, manages invoices and payments and has a quality assurance role to ensure reliability and to ensure the level of interpretation and translation is consistently high. ILSU works with other commercial providers and public sector bodies which provide interpreters and linguists (as well as the National Register of Public Service Interpreters) to ensure the best sector-wide standards are applied.
As with other Home Office contracts, ILSU works with commercial specialists to ensure contracted service are cost effective, and delivered to a high standard, with in-built quality measures. These contracts are reviewed annually.
ILSU operates tight quality control processes on interview appointments both internally and externally, whether face-to-face or by video. These measures include close management of interpreters through a dedicated team (recruitment, security, training and qualifications), virtual interviewing enablement training and mentoring, mandatory interviewer feedback forms, frequent dip surveys, and risk analysis and checking.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what data her Department holds on the number of people who have died while waiting for a determination on asylum applications in each of the last five years.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office are unable to provide data on the number of people who have died while waiting for a determination on asylum applications in each of the last five years as this information is not held in a reportable format and to gather it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the compatibility of the Borders and Nationality Bill with (a) the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and (b) the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Nationality and Borders Bill, which is part of our New Plan for Immigration, seeks to build a fair, but firm asylum and illegal migration system. The Bill complies with all our international obligations. In addition, on 16 September, we published an Equality Impact Assessment for the policies being taken forward through the Bill. This includes an assessment of potential impacts on children.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the risk of torture for (a) members of the Sikh community and (b) other religious minorities facing extradition to India.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
In UK extradition cases, requested persons are given the opportunity of a fair and balanced hearing before an independent court, with procedures which are robust and transparent. It is the role of the UK courts to thoroughly examine whether the conditions which would allow an extradition to take place are met.
These conditions include a comprehensive and rigorous assessment of whether extradition is compatible with the human rights of requested individuals. If there is a risk that the extradition could lead to a breach of those rights, the Extradition Act 2003 (‘the Act’) creates a statutory bar to extradition. Human rights are an extensive suite of protections contained in the Act, which fall to be considered by the courts in every case and includes the risk of torture. These considerations are a judicial not an executive function.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
What assessment she has made of the adequacy of her Department’s provision for Afghans seeking asylum in the UK following the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan.
Answered by Priti Patel
This country has a proud history of providing sanctuary to those in need. Our swift and generous response to the crisis in Afghanistan is no exception.
The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy has relocated around 7,000 Locally Employed Staff and their family members since late June, while the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme will provide up to 20,000 people at risk with a safe and legal route to the UK.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of licensed security guards to enable the (a) hospitality, (b) nightlife and (c) events sectors to reopen safely after the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
As required by the Private Security Industry Act 2001, the Security Industry Authority (SIA) regulates the private security industry and issues licences for certain roles in the sector.
Both the Home Office and the SIA recognise the impact the pandemic has had on licence-holders and the private security industry, particularly in the hospitality sector and night-time economy.
The SIA confirms that the number of active SIA Door Supervisor licence-holders is currently higher than it has ever been. As of 2 August 2021, there were 286,571 Door Supervisor licence-holders compared with 270,307 at the end of the 2019/20 financial year.
The number of Door Supervisor applications received by the SIA in the FY 2020/21 was also higher than previous years, standing at 118,458, compared with 114,340 in 2019/2020. This trend has continued so far this financial year, with 45,056 applications received in the period April-July 2021 compared with 33,074 in the same period last year.
Given these encouraging numbers following the changes to training in April 2021, and the work that the SIA has done with training providers’ awarding bodies to ensure that training can be delivered through a mixture of self-study, virtual classrooms, and face-to-face training in Covid-19 secure environments, the SIA is confident that there is, and will continue to be, a strong pool of licence holders that security companies and buyers of security can draw on.
The SIA has engaged with the UK Door Security Association, the Night Time Industries Association, and the sector to consider concerns and keep capacity issues regarding active licences under review.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with representatives of the security sector on the impact of the covid-19 outbreak on the (a) recruitment levels and (b) deployment of licensed security guards.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
As required by the Private Security Industry Act 2001, the Security Industry Authority (SIA) regulates the private security industry and issues licences for certain roles in the sector.
Both the Home Office and the SIA recognise the impact the pandemic has had on licence-holders and the private security industry, particularly in the hospitality sector and night-time economy.
The SIA confirms that the number of active SIA Door Supervisor licence-holders is currently higher than it has ever been. As of 2 August 2021, there were 286,571 Door Supervisor licence-holders compared with 270,307 at the end of the 2019/20 financial year.
The number of Door Supervisor applications received by the SIA in the FY 2020/21 was also higher than previous years, standing at 118,458, compared with 114,340 in 2019/2020. This trend has continued so far this financial year, with 45,056 applications received in the period April-July 2021 compared with 33,074 in the same period last year.
Given these encouraging numbers following the changes to training in April 2021, and the work that the SIA has done with training providers’ awarding bodies to ensure that training can be delivered through a mixture of self-study, virtual classrooms, and face-to-face training in Covid-19 secure environments, the SIA is confident that there is, and will continue to be, a strong pool of licence holders that security companies and buyers of security can draw on.
The SIA has engaged with the UK Door Security Association, the Night Time Industries Association, and the sector to consider concerns and keep capacity issues regarding active licences under review.
Asked by: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government has taken to engage people with lived experience of (a) being refugees and (b) seeking asylum in the UK in the development of the Nationality and Borders Bill.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government undertook a 6 week consultation, including on those areas set out in the Nationality and Borders Bill. That consultation included engagement with those with lived experiences of the asylum system.