Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people from (a) Burma, (b) Afghanistan and (c) Syria are held in immigration removal centres in England.
Answered by James Brokenshire
As at 31 March 2016, the latest published statistics, there were 66 Afghan and 19 Syrian nationals in detention in the UK. There were no Burmese nationals held in detention on the 31 March 2016.
The Home Office publishes quarterly and annual statistics on the number of persons removed or departed voluntarily from the UK within Immigration Statistics. Information on those in detention by nationality is available in the latest release, Immigration Statistics: January to March 2016, table dt_13_q from GOV.UK on the statistics web pages at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/series/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release.
We are currently not enforcing returns to Syria, although Syrians may be removed to safe third countries, for example where they have been identified as the responsibility of an EU Member State.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to (a) monitor and (b) improve the performance of police forces in completing applications to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) provides a formal monthly performance report to the Home Office and Home Office Ministers. This includes updates on the performance of police forces in meeting the Service Level Agreement (SLA) standards for the time taken to complete local disclosure checks.
If police force performance falls below the standard agreed with the DBS, the DBS will work with the force concerned. Where appropriate, this may include implementing a recovery plan and providing additional resources to ensure that the plan is fully supported.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children in England have been detained in immigration removal centres in each year since 2015; how many of those children so detained have been deported; and how many children are still in detention.
Answered by James Brokenshire
In 2015, 133 children left detention, of which: 50 were removed, 81 were granted temporary admission or release and 2 for other reasons. As at 31 December there were no children held in detention.
The Home Office publishes quarterly and annual statistics on the number of persons removed or departed voluntarily from the UK within Immigration Statistics. Information on those leaving detention is available in the latest release, Immigration Statistics: January to March 2016, table dt_09 from GOV.UK on the statistics web pages at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/series/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what funding the Government has allocated to tackle domestic violence in each year since 2010.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The previous Government provided £40 million of dedicated funding for domestic and sexual violence services between 2011 and 2015 equating to £10 million per year. This funding was extended until April 2016, supplemented by an additional £10 million for refuges and a £3.5 million fund to boost the provision of domestic violence services.
As part of our new Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy, we announced increased funding to £80 million from 2016 to 2020 to protect women and girls from violence, which includes support for refuges and other accommodation-based services, funding to national helplines, a further year of funding for Independent Domestic Violence Advisers and Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference Coordinators and, from 2017, the launch of the VAWG Transformation Fund.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the effect of visa arrangements for international students on the number of those students coming to study in the UK.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The student migration system we inherited was too weak, and open to wide-spread abuse, damaging the UK’s reputation as a provider of world-class education. The National Audit Office reported that in 2009/10 up to 50,000 students may have come to work, not study.
We have clamped down on immigration abuse from poor quality institutions selling immigration rather than education, and since 2010 we have struck off more than 920 bogus colleges. Visa applications for the further education sector, where abuse has been most prevalent over recent years, are down 75 per cent compared with 2010.
At the same time, we have maintained a highly competitive offer for international students who would like to study at our world-class institutions. This is borne out by the figures: visa applications from international students to study at British universities are up by 16 per cent since 2010, whilst visa applications to our world-leading Russell Group institutions are up by 39 per cent since 2010.
We will continue to reform the student visa system to tackle abuse and deliver an effective immigration system that works in the national interest.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of the Syrian resettlement scheme is funded through (a) Official Development Assistance and (b) funds from the EU.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
All of the first year costs of the Syrian Resettlement Scheme are funded through Official Development Assistance. None of the costs are currently met using EU funding.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many refugees from Syrian have been accepted into the UK under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation scheme to date.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
The Government has committed to resettling 20,000 Syrian refugees in the lifetime of this Parliament. The Prime Minister has said that we want to see 1,000 refugees brought to the UK by Christmas.
The first charter flights arrived earlier this month and represent a significant upscaling of the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation scheme. We will not be giving a running commentary on numbers. Details are published in the regular quarterly immigration statistics. The statistics published on 26 November include the number of arrivals from July to the end of September 2015.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many knife-related crimes were recorded in (a) London, (b) Tower Hamlets and (c) Bethnal Green and Bow constituency in the last five years.
Answered by Norman Baker
Data for selected offences involving the use of a knife or sharp instrument are
collected by the Home Office at police force area level only, so data are not
available for Tower Hamlets or Bethnal Green and Bow constituency. Data for
these selected offences are in the given table for the Metropolitan Police and
City of London Police force areas for 2008/09 to 2012/13.
The offences covered are attempted murder, assault with injury, assault with
intent to cause serious harm, robbery, threats to kill, sexual assault, rape
and homicide. Figures for 2013/14 will be published by the Office for National
Statistics on 17 July 2014.
| Knife and sharp instrument offences recorded by the Metropolitan and City of London police for selected offences in London1, 2008/09 to 2012/13 | |
| Numbers | |
| Year | Total selected offences 2 |
| 2008/09 | 12,335 |
| 2009/10 | 12,620 |
| 2010/11 | 13,356 |
| 2011/12 | 14,184 |
| 2012/13 | 11,384 |
| 1. Police recorded knife and sharp instrument offences data are submitted via an additional special collection. Other offences exist that are not shown in this table that may include the use of a knife or sharp instrument. | |
| 2. Selected offences covered are attempted murder, assault with injury, assault with intent to cause serious harm, robbery, threats to kill, sexual assault and rape and homicide. Homicide data is taken from the Home Office Homicide Index. | |