Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of not permitting volunteers to accompany refugees and asylum seekers when attending reporting centres except in exceptional cases on (a) immigration compliance and (b) wellbeing of those reporting.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The purpose of reporting is to ensure those without leave to remain in the UK and illegal entrants remain in close contact with the Home Office. A reporting requirement of bail is used to enable case progression, interviews, offers of voluntary departure and travel document applications to be conducted to support removal actions. A person on a reporting regime will be considered for a variety of methods to report including in person within a Centre or a combination of telephone reporting, digital bail or electronic monitoring.
There has been no change to the current guidance on accompanied reporting. It remains at the discretion of the ROM manager and all representations will be considered. This was present in v1 issued 2017 and has not been amended since:
Accompanied reporting
The reporting centre manager has discretion as to whether a person reporting may have someone accompany them, such as a legal representative, a support or charity organisation worker, or volunteer. Where the person reporting is vulnerable, or where they are reporting for the first time, are typical examples of when assistance is requested.
You should not consider accompanied reporting to be routine, but it can be permitted in exceptional cases where specific requests are made to the reporting centre manager. A person accompanying the reporting person must only be allowed into the waiting area, you must not permit them to intervene on the person’s behalf at the counter.
A change in the new guidance is new asylum applicants will not be required to report until a negative decision is made on their application, unless exceptional circumstances apply, for example the applicant is also a foreign national offender (FNO), a restricted access case or a TCU case, these will be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 24 March 2021 to Question 172093 on Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, what further progress she has made in her discussions with the Department for Health and Social Care on the potential merits of amending the Misuse of Drugs Act to allow paramedic advanced practitioners working in hospital settings to prescribe medication they can administer in the community.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs provided advice to Ministers on the prescribing and administration of specified controlled drugs by paramedics in October 2019.
As set out in the response to Question 172093, the Home Office is working with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to consider the advice. The Government intends to respond publicly to the ACMD in the near future.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the conditions are for Ukrainians in the UK on (a) family visas and (b) the Homes for Ukraine Scheme regarding leaving the UK and returning; and whether there are restrictions regarding their leave and visa conditions such as those in the UK on Tier 2 and Tier 4 visas.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Ukrainians in the UK under the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine Scheme are not subject to conditions linked to leaving and returning to the UK. Successful applicants are granted three years’ leave to remain, and can work and access public services during this time.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the letter dated 24 January 2022 from the Independent Anti Slavery Commissioner in response to the Government's evaluation of the Seasonal Workers Pilot, whether she plans to accept and implement the Commissioner's recommendations on (a) introducing mechanisms to listen to workers, (b) introducing an independent grievance mechanism, (c) introducing remediation for workers who have paid recruitment fees and (d) assessing and addressing risks in the scheme before expansion.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We have noted the recommendations made in the Independent Anti Slavery Commissioner letter and will respond to her in due course.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Afghans (a) have arrived in the UK in total under Operation Warm Welcome, (b) have arrived under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme, (c) were British citizens, and (c) were neither British citizens or did not qualify under the Policy and will be allocated places under the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme since August 2021.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
C.15,000 people were evacuated from Afghanistan during Operation Pitting, with a further c.1,500 brought to the UK from neighbouring countries since then.
We will not give a running commentary on statistics due to the continuing flow of people being welcomed. We will include this data within published resettlement statistics in 2022.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether Afghans relocated to the UK under the ARAP scheme including Locally Employed Staff will count towards the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme allocation of 20,000.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) is separate from, and in addition to, the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), which offers any current or former locally employed staff assessed to be under serious threat to life priority relocation to the UK.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department’s draft statutory guidance on Unauthorised Encampments, what constitutes significant damage, disruption, or distress.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The draft statutory guidance on unauthorised encampments gives examples of what might be considered by police and by courts to be significant damage, disruption and distress.
It is for the police and courts to assess the circumstances and the evidence of each individual case and to decide on proportionate enforcement action based on this.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of the draft statutory guidance on Unauthorised Encampments on gypsy, Romani and traveller communities.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
We have carefully considered the impact the new measures might have on people with protected characteristics, including race and ethnicity, in accordance with the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010.
The overarching equality impact assessment was published in September and is publicly available. Home Office measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Equalities Impact Assessment - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on ensuring that no foreign national resident in the UK is prevented from travelling overseas because their passports is being held by DVLA outside the agreed timescale for processing provisional driving licence applications.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The DVLA recognises the importance to applicants of having possession of their identity documents for a range of reasons, including overseas travel.
The DVLA has introduced additional online services, recruited additional staff, and secured extra office space to help reduce waiting times. DVLA staff are working as quickly as possible to return people’s documentation to them when processing a driving licence application.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department is providing to (a) banks and (b) mortgage lenders on (i) EU Settled Status and (ii) accepting digital proof of that status.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We are enabling other government departments and public authorities to be able to automatically access immigration status information. Currently, this includes the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and NHS England and Wales.
The data made available is specific to the need of each department and contains only the necessary information to inform their decision making. By making data available in this way, we are reducing the number of occasions on which an individual has to prove their status in the UK. The Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Privacy Notice provides information about how we share data with other government departments.
When applying for banking services, all individuals are required to provide proof of their identity as part of anti-money laundering, regulatory ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) checks.
We have produced guidance for financial providers to help them understand the documents we issue, including eVisas, and how they can be used as proof of identity for the purposes of KYC checks. This can be found at:
As detailed in this guidance, financial institutions can check someone’s identity, using the online ‘View and Prove’ service at:
https://www.gov.uk/check-immigration-status.
This enables checks to be conducted without physical documents changing hands or the checker having to assess the authenticity of the documents and whether the person presenting it is the rightful holder.