Asked by: Shaun Woodward (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applicants for a UK passport have paid an upgrade fee to fast-track their application after having submitted that application at a passport office at each such office and in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The information is not collected in the format requested and the cost of
collecting the information would be disproportionate.
Asked by: Shaun Woodward (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of the minimum income threshold requirement on pensioners who wish to sponsor their partner's visa to settle in the UK; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The minimum income threshold for sponsoring a partner under the family
Immigration Rules aims to prevent burdens on the taxpayer and promote
integration. It is appropriate that the requirement to meet the income threshold
should not be affected by the age of the sponsor. The income threshold rules make
provision for the counting of a wide range of both employment and non-employment
income, including pensions, and of cash savings. They also exempt the applicant from
the income threshold requirement where the sponsor is in receipt of a specified
disability-related benefit or carer's allowance.
Asked by: Shaun Woodward (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect changes to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency vision testing contract will have on independent optical practices.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
As part of the procurement process, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency identified that 2,009 optical practices carried out vision testing services. The new contract means that independent practices are no longer required to carry out on average 20 assessments per year. This equates to around 10 hours of work.