Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's decision to extend the standard processing times for family visas to 24 weeks, what consultation her Department undertook prior to making that decision; and what assessment her Department has made of the impact of that decision on people awaiting visa decisions, particularly in respect of their right to family life.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The 24-week service standard is based on expected processing times due to the increased number of outstanding family visa applications. This increase was due to the prioritisation of Ukraine Visa Schemes applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Staff from other government departments, including DWP and HMRC, have been surged into the department to help with Ukraine work and enable normal visa routes to return to normal service levels in due course. Applicants were informed of the change to a 24-week service standard on 11 May 2022 and the department is currently operating within this.
The Department is aware of potential impacts of applicants awaiting visa decisions. Requests to expedite spousal visa applications where there are compelling or compassionate circumstances are considered on a case-by-case basis and take a range of factors into consideration.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 20 June 2022 to Question 18899 on Sexual Harassment: Public Places, whether she plans to publish the consultation on public sexual harassment ahead of the summer recess.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
I confirm that we plan to publish the consultation on public sexual harassment before the summer recess.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her timescale is for publishing an updated code of practice for the treatment of juvenile covert human intelligence sources; and what stakeholders her Department has engaged with on the content of that update.
Answered by Stephen McPartland
The Government currently plans to publish the revised Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) Code of Practice in the autumn of this year. The CHIS Code provides comprehensive guidance to public authorities on their powers and duties in respect of CHIS, including children who are authorised as CHIS.
As part of the consultation process, Home Office officials engaged with a wide number of stakeholders, including children’s charities, the Children’s Commissioner for England and Wales (and devolved equivalents), as well as users of the Code.
In addition, on 13 December 2021, the Home Office launched a public consultation for a period of 8 weeks to seek views on the changes to the revised CHIS Code. The Home Office received a number of responses to the consultation and officials have been carefully considering all of these responses before finalising the changes to the Code.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Protocol on the Law Commission, for what reason she has not published a response to the Law Commission report entitled Hate crime laws: Final report, HC 942, within six months of its publication.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
We are grateful to the Law Commission for its detailed report.
The Government is carefully considering its recommendations and a full Government response to the Law Commission report will be published shortly.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 26 April 2022 to Question 156340 on Sexual Harassment: Public Places, on what date she will publish the Government's consultation on public sexual harassment.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
We look forward to receiving the views of respondents to the consultation, which will help ensure that the Government is in the most informed position in determining its policies on public sexual harassment.
We will commence the consultation before the summer recess.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which national human rights institutions will be able to inspect the provision of services for those refugees whose applications for asylum will be covered by the joint new migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
As set out in paragraph 15 of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) governing the Migration and Economic Development Partnership, an independent Monitoring Committee will monitor the entire relocation process and compliance with assurances in the MoU, including the processing of asylum claims and provision of support in Rwanda. More details on this, including membership, will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's proposal to use a hotel in E10 to house asylum seekers, when her Department plans to put in place (a) details of additional support provided by her Department to the local authority, (b) proposals to support local services experiencing additional demand and (c) proposals to ensure that hotel residents are able to move from that premises into longer term accommodation.
Answered by Kevin Foster
On 13th April 2022, The Minister for Safe and Legal Migration announced with immediate effect we would move to a full model for dispersal, to end our reliance on the use of contingency accommodation.
We have committed to working with local authorities to move to a fairer distribution of asylum seekers. All local authority areas in England, Scotland and Wales will be expected to participate in the new system process to allow us to move from hotels to less expensive and more suitable dispersed accommodation.
The full dispersal procurement process will run in two parts
a. Continued Procurement is effective from the 13th of April and will run until Regional Allocation plans are agreed. This is in place to ensure we are progressing with procurement in the absence of Regional Allocation plans.
b. Procurement against Regional Allocation Plans which will commence from the 15th of July or in advance pertaining to agreement on regional allocation plans and once the allocations are confirmed and shared.
We are committed to working with local authorities to move to a fairer distribution of asylum seekers and so during the week of 9 May, we launched an informal consultation. This will help to design how the full dispersal system will operate in each region. Participants will include Devolved Governments, Local Authorities and Non-Government Organisations who have an interest in asylum dispersal and resettlement. This consultation will run for 8 weeks.
To recognise the existing contribution and longstanding support from local authorities, each local authority in England, Scotland and Wales which was accommodating asylum seekers on 27 March 2022 will receive a £250 one off payment per asylum seeker.
In addition, further funding has been made available for 2022/2023 to provide £3,500 for each new dispersal bed space occupied, in both new and existing dispersal areas, between 28 March 2022 and 31 March 2023. This funding can be used to implement and/or bolster services in both new and existing areas. This will alleviate some pressures on local authorities and will ensure every local authority plays its part in this important work. Funding is also available for primary care through clinical commissioning groups.
The Government is fixing the broken asylum system through the work of the Nationality and Borders Bill. The asylum accommodation system is under enormous pressure because of the significant and sustained increase in asylum intake over the last 12 months and the build-up of the population as a result of Covid-19 related measures, which is placing unsustainable pressure on a limited number of local authorities.
This has resulted in the Home Office having to source temporary contingency accommodation, such as the hotels in E10. The use of hotel contingency is only ever a short term solution and we are working with our accommodation providers to find appropriate dispersed accommodation across the United Kingdom.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to passport applications, what the average length of time taken to return supporting documents is when documents are (a) British passports or other proof of British citizenship and (b) Passports or proof of identity from another country.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We currently do not hold this data and to provide it would be at a disproportionate cost.