Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment of the potential financial impact of exclusion from the electoral register on UK residents who are not eligible to vote in the UK.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government’s position on the franchise remains unchanged. The Government was elected on a manifesto promising to “maintain the voting age at 18 – the age at which one gains full citizenship rights”. 18 has been the well-established age of majority for, for example, jury service, purchasing alcohol, getting married without parental permission, serving in front-line military roles, standing for election as an MP or councillor, and so on.
The purpose of the electoral register is to enable those who are eligible to vote to register and ensure that only people who are eligible to vote are permitted to do so. Data on those who are not eligible to vote in UK elections is not held centrally.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending the franchise for local elections in England and Northern Ireland in line with the voter eligibility criteria in Wales and Scotland.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government’s position on the franchise remains unchanged. The Government was elected on a manifesto promising to “maintain the voting age at 18 – the age at which one gains full citizenship rights”. 18 has been the well-established age of majority for, for example, jury service, purchasing alcohol, getting married without parental permission, serving in front-line military roles, standing for election as an MP or councillor, and so on.
The purpose of the electoral register is to enable those who are eligible to vote to register and ensure that only people who are eligible to vote are permitted to do so. Data on those who are not eligible to vote in UK elections is not held centrally.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent estimate he has made of the number of UK residents who have no right to vote in any election.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government’s position on the franchise remains unchanged. The Government was elected on a manifesto promising to “maintain the voting age at 18 – the age at which one gains full citizenship rights”. 18 has been the well-established age of majority for, for example, jury service, purchasing alcohol, getting married without parental permission, serving in front-line military roles, standing for election as an MP or councillor, and so on.
The purpose of the electoral register is to enable those who are eligible to vote to register and ensure that only people who are eligible to vote are permitted to do so. Data on those who are not eligible to vote in UK elections is not held centrally.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an estimate of the number of EU citizens who will be removed from the electoral roll following the implementation of the Elections Act 2022.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
I refer the Rt Hon Member to the answer I gave to Question UIN 14299 on 23 February 2024.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to case no. GWF066389479, for what reason an applicant who has been granted entry clearance under paragraph 319X of the Immigration Rules or Appendix CNP has been asked to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge despite the application being submitted before 12 April 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Applicants who have been granted entry clearance under paragraph 319X on the Immigration Rules or Appendix Child Staying with or joining a Non-Parent Relative (Appendix CNP) for more than 6 months, are required to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge which covers the period of leave to enter they have been granted.
Applicants who have been granted entry clearance under paragraph 319X on the Immigration Rules or Appendix Child Staying with or joining a Non-Parent Relative (Appendix CNP) for 6 months or less are not required to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to case no. GWF066389012, for what reason an applicant who has been granted entry clearance under paragraph 319X of the Immigration Rules or Appendix CNP has been asked to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge despite the application being submitted before 12 April 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Applicants who have been granted entry clearance under paragraph 319X on the Immigration Rules or Appendix Child Staying with or joining a Non-Parent Relative (Appendix CNP) for more than 6 months, are required to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge which covers the period of leave to enter they have been granted.
Applicants who have been granted entry clearance under paragraph 319X on the Immigration Rules or Appendix Child Staying with or joining a Non-Parent Relative (Appendix CNP) for 6 months or less are not required to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to notify local authorities of when (a) asylum seekers and (b) settled refugees are relocated to their area as a result of hotel closures.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The programme of hotel closures is managed carefully to ensure those asylum seekers still eligible for support are relocated to suitable alternative Home Office accommodation, which may be in a different location from their current hotel. The Home Office’s accommodation providers manage the moves of asylum seekers from one location to another. Whilst we expect impacts on local authorities to be minimal, we have put in place additional resource to work with our accommodation providers and local partners to manage this process and minimise disruption. We are working with our partners, including local authorities, to provide timely notification of key events that impact them.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he is taking steps to help ensure the adequacy of resources for supporting the integration of asylum seekers into British society in (a) local authorities and (b) organisations in the (i) voluntary, (ii) community and (iii) faith sector.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
This Government’s priority is to focus our efforts and resources to support those who most need it. As not all of those who seek asylum are found to need international protection, integration resources are available to those granted permission to stay. Under the New Plan for Immigration, the Government committed to offering an enhanced integration package for refugees arriving through safe and legal routes.
Individuals granted asylum have access to the labour market and to mainstream services that support their integration, including benefits and healthcare. We are working across Government to ensure these services meet the needs of all newly granted refugees.
Support is offered from Migrant Help or their partner organisation to all individuals when they receive a decision on their asylum claim. This support includes providing advice on accessing the labour market, on applying for Universal Credit and signposting to local authorities for assistance with housing.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he is seeking to secure additional bilateral voting rights agreements with EU states to ensure EU citizens who arrived in the UK from 2021 onwards can continue voting in local elections after May 2024.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
In December 2018, the UK wrote to all 27 EU Member States signalling our willingness to enter into bilateral agreements to ensure continuity of local election voting and candidacy rights for each other's citizens. Since 2018, we have entered into five bilateral agreements, these are: Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland and very recently Denmark, which is subject to Parliamentary ratification. The existence of constitutional barriers in some Member States has prevented the UK from entering into agreements with certain Member States. However, the UK remains open to negotiating fully reciprocal bilateral agreements where EU Member States are interested in doing so.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of people from Sudan applying for entry clearance to the UK have requested that (a) the biometric enrolment process be excused and (b) the application be predetermined since April 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not routinely publish data on the number of applications that are excused from the biometric enrolment process and those that are pre-determined due to applicants undertaking unsafe journeys.
Biometrics, in the form of fingerprints and facial images, underpin the current UK immigration system to support identity assurance and suitability checks on foreign nationals who are subject to immigration control. They enable comprehensive checks to be made against immigration and criminality records to identify those who pose a threat to our national security, public safety, immigration controls, or are likely to breach our laws if they are allowed to come to the UK.
The threshold in the unsafe journeys guidance for excusing the requirement to attend a visa application centre is deliberately set at a high-level because of the need to protect the integrity of the UK border. If we do not know about a person's identity we are less able to assess the risks they may pose to the public. This is why we would only excuse applicants from being required to attend a visa application centre to enrol their biometrics in circumstances that are so compelling as to be exceptional.