Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 allotting targeted funding to allow for the efficient and quick analysis of (a) mobile phones and (b) computers in investigations.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Government has provided a total police funding settlement of up to £16.9 billion in 2022/23, an increase of up to £1.1 billion when compared to 2021/22.
Decisions about the allocation of police resources locally, are a matter for Chief Constables and directly elected local policing bodies (including Police and Crime Commissioners, Mayors exercising with PCC functions and the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime).
Where we have identified a specific need for targeted investment, such as through the Digital Forensics Programme, the Home Office is providing funding to allow for the efficient and quick analysis of digital devices. For example, as part of commitments made under the Rape Review we provided £5m in 2021/22 to support policing to acquire technology that will enable police forces to extract data more swiftly from mobile devices belonging to rape victims, with further investment to bolster these capabilities agreed for this financial year.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 temporarily dropping (a) visa and (b) leave to remain fees for healthcare workers.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Individuals applying to enter or for limited leave to remain on the Health and Care Visa already pay significantly reduced visa fees. In addition, they are also exempt from having to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge making applications significantly cheaper. These benefits apply to main applicants and their dependants.
More broadly, fees for migration and borders products and services play a vital role in our country’s ability to run a sustainable system. We believe it is right that those who use the system should contribute to its cost, thereby reducing the burden on the UK taxpayer.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the number of people allowed to resettle in the UK through the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme in the next 12 months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) will provide up to 20,000 women, children and others at risk with a safe and legal route to resettle in the UK.
The ACRS is in addition to individuals relocated through the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP). We have relocated over 7,000 eligible Afghan citizens and their family members under the ARAP scheme, which remains open.
The ACRS is a bespoke scheme, which responds to a challenging and complex situation. The capacity of the UK to resettle people is not unlimited and difficult decisions have to be made on who will be prioritised for resettlement.
There are around 6,500 people in the UK who have been brought to safety during and after the evacuation and who are eligible for the ACRS under Pathway 1. They include women’s rights activists, journalists, and prosecutors, as well as Afghan families of British Nationals.
Under Pathway 2, we anticipate receiving referrals from the UNHCR for up to 2,000 refugees during the first year of this pathway. We will continue to receive UNHCR referrals to the scheme in the coming years. Under Pathway 3, in the first year we will offer resettlement places to up to 1,500 people from the three identified cohorts (British Council and GardaWorld contractors and Chevening alumni) and their eligible family members.
Beyond the first year of Pathway 3, the Government will work with our international partners and NGOs to welcome wider groups of Afghans at risk.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to publish a cost-benefit analysis of her Department's Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
There are no plans for a cost-benefit analysis of the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda to be published.
A Ministerial Direction was issued ahead of this policy proceeding and relevant letters have been published. Uncertainty is to be expected with a partnership as innovative and ground-breaking as this. As the Permanent Secretary’s letter states, there are potentially significant savings to be realised from deterring people entering the UK illegally. However, because such a deterrent effect cannot be quantified with sufficient certainty, Ministerial Direction was required to proceed.
Actual spend will be reported as part of the annual Home Office Reports and Accounts in the usual way.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many successful appeals in the First-tier Tribunal are awaiting implementation as of 7 September 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The requested information cannot be accurately extracted from our internal systems. To provide this information would require a manual trawl of successful appeals and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Where an appeal has been allowed in favour of the appellant, and is not subject to onward appeal, we take all reasonable steps to implement the allowed appeal in a timely manner.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the appropriateness of the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seeking families that include children with severe mental health issues or autism; and if she will review the use of hotel accommodation in such circumstances.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Hotels are an appropriate means of providing adequate accommodation in order to meet our legal obligations to support asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute. Our published asylum support healthcare needs and pregnancy dispersal policy sets out that if an applicant’s healthcare need requires the urgent provision of dispersal accommodation, the application for support should be prioritised wherever possible. This guidance also provides guidelines on dispersal for those with mental health issues.
The guidance can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/496911/new_Healthcare_Needs_and_Pregnancy_Dispersal_Policy_EXTERNAL_v3_0.pdf.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of beagles being bred for use in laboratory experiments in the UK; and what steps she is taking to phase out animal experiments.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
No estimate has been made of the number of beagles being bred for use in laboratory experiments in the UK. Most dogs used for research purposes are for the toxicity and safety testing, including potential new medicines, based on internationally-set requirements for testing in non-rodent mammals, usually dogs or monkeys, to protect human health. The level of breeding is largely determined by the level of safety testing required.
The Government is clear that the use of animals in science is justified, for the benefits it brings to human, animal and environmental health and safety.
The Government is committed to assuring that those animals used in science are protected. The legal framework in the UK requires that animals are only ever used in scientific procedures where there are no alternatives, where the number of animals used is the minimum needed to achieve the scientific benefit, and where the potential harm to animals is limited to that needed to achieve the scientific benefit.
Government policy is to actively support and fund the development and dissemination of techniques that Replace, Reduce and Refine the use of animals in research (the 3Rs). This is achieved through funding UKRI who both fund the National Centre for the 3Rs and fund research through Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council into the development of alternatives.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that people who need fast-track HM Passport Office appointments for (a) business and (b) compassionate purposes are able to secure an appointment as a priority.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Her Majesty’s Passport Office has explored options to further increase appointment capacity for its urgent services. This has led to the recent opening of an eighth public counter, in Birmingham, to help support those people whose need for urgent travel does not meet the compassionate criteria.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the current level of violence perpetrated against retail workers.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Government recognises the significant and long-lasting impact violence and abuse towards retail workers can have on its victims.
The Home Office Annual Commercial Victimisation Survey was published on 30 March 2022. The surveys highlight the sector’s experience of, and concerns about, levels of violence and abuse towards shop workers, and shop theft by customers. Annual retail sector crime surveys, undertaken by the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS), Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) and the British Retail Consortium (BRC) were published in Spring 2022. Each of these surveys show an increase in violence and abuse towards retail workers in the previous year.
The Government has taken action to tackle assaults against any worker providing a service to the public by introducing a statutory aggravating factor via the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.
The public-facing nature of the victim’s role will be considered an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing for assault offences. It applies where an assault is committed against those providing a public service, performing a public duty or providing a service to the public. This includes those working in retail and other public-facing roles. The provision commenced on 28 June and builds on the important work already underway by the Home Office through the National Retail Crime Steering Group to ensure assaults are not seen as part of a retail worker’s job.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to UK Visas and Immigration and HM Passport Office's customer service operations data, published on 26 May 2022, what her timeframe is for reaching the performance target of 95 per cent in respect of responses to letters and emails from hon. Members.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Performance against target has been impacted by a significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan and more recently in Ukraine.
The Department continues to prioritise enquiries related to Ukraine and recognises it has not been able to meet service standard in other cases. Actions are being taken to clear backlogs and drive-up performance. MPs can also escalate urgent and compassionate cases via the team at Portcullis House.
The Department continues to recruit additional resources and has recently been loaned staff from non-operational areas to assist in clearing the backlogs.