Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people with rejected asylum applications have been approached regarding voluntarily relocation to Rwanda as of 13 March 2024.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
The option of voluntary relocation will be given to failed asylum seekers. If they wish to relocate, it is only right that we facilitate that in order to save taxpayers’ money and pressures on our public services.
Regarding the voluntary relocation of individuals to Rwanda, it would be inappropriate to provide a running commentary on individual cases.
If a person expresses an interest in the voluntary relocation, we are supporting people in ensuring that they have all the information they need in order to make a decision.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what criteria his Department plans to use for selecting people with rejected asylum applications for proposed voluntary relocation to Rwanda.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
The option of voluntary relocation will be given to failed asylum seekers. If they wish to relocate, it is only right that we facilitate that in order to save taxpayers’ money and pressures on our public services.
Regarding the voluntary relocation of individuals to Rwanda, it would be inappropriate to provide a running commentary on individual cases.
If a person expresses an interest in the voluntary relocation, we are supporting people in ensuring that they have all the information they need in order to make a decision.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has plans to remove the corporate opt-out for cross-border payments pricing disclosures.
Answered by Bim Afolami
The UK’s legislative framework for payment services, including cross-border payments, places various disclosure requirements on payment firms. This includes the ability to opt out of disclosures for certain corporates, where both parties agree.
This legislation derives from EU law, which will be replaced under the government’s Smarter Regulatory Framework programme. Under this, it is intended that government legislation will set the framework within which the regulators will operate. In general, firm-facing requirements, such as these cross-border disclosures, will be determined by the relevant regulator (in this case, the FCA).
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an estimate of the number of therapists offering reunification therapy services to help with cases of family breakdown.
Answered by David Johnston
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he plans to respond to the correspondence of 26 January 2024 from the Rt hon. Member for East Ham, reference ST105404.
Answered by Paul Maynard
I can confirm that a full response was issued to the MP’s parliamentary email address as a PDF attachment on 15 February 2024 from our complaint’s resolution team (CMPT12024-07318 (ST105404) I have checked the email address used and it is correct.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to prevent unregulated psychologists from giving reunification therapy to parents and children.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Ministry of Justice and the HM Courts and Tribunals Service set any criteria that a professional must satisfy, in order to be a psychological expert, providing evidence in a family court setting. The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) is the independent regulator responsible for regulating practitioner psychologists. The HCPC does not regulate practitioner psychologists according to job role, although its legislation protects nine designated psychologist professional titles in law.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to his Department's consultation on building safety directors, published on 1 December 2022, which closed on 7 February 2023, which right to manage companies his Department has (a) received representations from and (b) otherwise consulted as part of that consultation.
Answered by Lee Rowley
Responses came from a cross-section of the sector including Right to Manage and Resident Management companies, as well as individual directors of Right to Manage and Resident Management companies and individual leaseholders. The Government is carefully considering their feedback, and the Building Safety Regulator continues to work with a range of stakeholders, including through their new statutory Residents Panel.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people received housing support at the shared accommodation rate in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The information requested is not readily available for Universal Credit, and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. However, data on households on Housing Benefits entitled to the Shared Accommodation Rate is published and available here.
Guidance for users is available here.
Evidence relating to Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR) rates was considered as part of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) review last Autumn. This led to the significant investment of £1.2 billion increasing LHA rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents. This means 1.6 million private renters will receive additional help towards their rental costs in 2024/25.
There are exemptions from the SAR for those who find it difficult to share accommodation, such as care leavers, victims of modern slavery and domestic abuse and people who have been homeless and living in a hostel for over 3 months. There is also an exemption in certain circumstances on the grounds of disability. Exempt claimants can claim the higher one-bedroom LHA rate.
For individuals who may require additional support, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) are available. DHP payments are entirely at the discretion of the local authority and since 2011 the Government has provided nearly £1.7 billion to local authorities.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the level of housing support provided through the shared accommodation rate.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Evidence relating to Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR) rates was considered as part of the LHA review last Autumn. This led to the significant investment of £1.2 billion increasing Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents. This means 1.6 million private renters will receive additional help towards their rental costs in 2024/25.
There are exemptions from the SAR for those who find it difficult to share accommodation, such as care leavers, victims of modern slavery and domestic abuse and people who have been homeless and living in a hostel for over 3 months. There is also an exemption in certain circumstances on the grounds of disability. Exempt claimants can claim the higher one-bedroom LHA rate.
For individuals who may require additional support, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) are available. DHP payments are entirely at the discretion of the local authority and since 2011 the Government has provided nearly £1.7 billion to local authorities.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of asylum claims based on false conversions to Christianity between 6 September 2022 and 13 November 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
This information is not recorded in a reportable format.
Information regarding initial decisions on asylum claims, by outcome, is contained within the ASY_D02 tab of the Asylum applications, decisions and resettlement dataset: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
This does not include information regarding whether the asylum claimant changed their religion.