Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to increase the mobility of skilled labour into the UK.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our Points Based System enables the Government to prioritise the skills and talent we need to help our economy grow and support our NHS, while encouraging investment in, and protecting, our own resident workforce.
The UK’s immigration offer enables talented individuals to come to the UK through a variety of different routes, including Global Talent, Skilled Worker, and Global Business Mobility. More recently we have added the High Potential Individual route for recent graduates of top global universities to build their careers in the UK.
The Government will continue to use the levers provided by the Points Based system to allow highly skilled workers to come to the UK, while taking decisive action against those take advantage of the system at the expense of those who play by the rules.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to increase the mobility of young people between the UK and Europe.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The UK remain open to negotiating new Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS) arrangements with other countries and territories, including EU Member States. However, as each YMS is subject to a bilateral, reciprocal arrangement which also provides benefit to UK nationals, with the details agreed between the relevant parties, we are unable to disclose the status of negotiations as they occur.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has issued recent guidance to the organisers of festivals on the use of back-of-house drug testing licences.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
There is no safe way to take illegal drugs, which devastate lives, ruin families and damage communities. The Government recognises the potential benefits of ‘back-of-house' drug checking services in the night time economy, at festivals and similar events. Back-of-house services are those which test surrendered or confiscated drugs, but do not offer individuals the opportunity to submit drugs for testing, do not return any drugs to individuals or give individuals any information on the content of the drugs following testing.
Instead, they provide intelligence to law enforcement and healthcare agencies about the kinds of illicit drugs in circulation and they enable localised public alerts if toxic or otherwise dangerous drugs are detected so that anyone at risk can dispose of those drugs in amnesty bins. This type of service does not encourage drug taking, recognising that all illicit drugs are harmful and that there is no safe way to take them.
No recent guidance has been issued to festival organisers. Organisations wishing to deliver back-of-house services have always been able to apply for a Home Office controlled drug licence and we continue to encourage potential applicants to plan ahead to ensure that they apply for a licence in good time for the festival season next year.
Guidance on applying for a Home Office controlled drug licence can be found at the following link: Controlled drugs: domestic licences - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department's average response time to correspondence from Birmingham, Hall Green constituents.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We do not hold data about response times for correspondence from individual customers. The information could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps his Department has taken to help support the West Midlands Police to prevent car theft in Birmingham.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to tackling vehicle crime.
The Criminal Justice Bill, introduced to Parliament on 14 November, proposes new offences to possess, import, make, adapt, supply or offer to supply an electronic device for use in vehicle theft. This proposed new legislation will make it easier for police to prevent and tackle the theft of vehicles.
The Home Office is working closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group, chaired by ACC Jennifer Sims, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime, to take forward a programme of work to prevent and reduce vehicle crime nationally. This includes training police officers on methods used to steal vehicles, encouraging vehicle owners to secure their vehicles and working with industry to prevent theft. West Midlands Police is represented on the Working Group.
A network of vehicle crime leads has been established in every police force in England and Wales, ensuring forces share information about emerging trends in vehicle crime and are better able to tackle regional issues.
The Government is pleased to be able to say that through our successful uplift programme, we recruited over 20,000 additional officers and have a record number of officers across forces in England and Wales. 1966 officers have been allocated to West Midlands Police.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to reduce homelessness among refugees.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The UK Government’s ‘Ending Rough Sleeping for Good’ Strategy was revised and published in September 2022. Under this strategy the Home Office is committed to preventing rough sleeping wherever possible and where it cannot be prevented, ensuring it is a rare, brief and non-recurring experience.
We are working closely with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) on ensuring individuals can move on from asylum support as smoothly as possible. With DLUHC, we are working to ensure the right asylum decision data is being shared with local authorities to enable effective planning and to lessen the impact on existing homelessness and rough sleeping pressures. Our accommodation providers are also directly working with local authorities to notify them when an individual is due to have their asylum support ended.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time was between an asylum claim being upheld and receipt of a biometric residence permit in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The information is not available publicly and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the Asylum Support Rates in the context of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We have been reviewing the level of the cash allowances provided to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, as we do each year to ensure that they remain capable of meeting their essential living needs (the legal test).
As a result of this work, the standard allowance has been raised to £39.60 per week from £37.75 per week, an increase of around 5%. This increase is significantly higher than the current general rate of inflation, which Office for National Statistics data shows was only 0.5% in the 12 months period to May.
In addition to the allowance, we also provide free accommodation, with utilities and council tax paid for and there is free access to the NHS and free access to education for their children.
The UK has a generous record in supporting asylum seekers. Last year, we made around 20,000 grants of asylum or protection (one of the higher figures in Europe), as well as offered protection to 3,000 Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children – the highest number of any country in Europe. In addition, we have directly resettled around 20,000 people from the most dangerous areas of the world (especially Syrians) in the UK over the last 5 years. Finally, we spend around £14 billion per year in Overseas Aid, helping millions of people around the world. This is the highest amount of any country in Europe and we are the only G7 country to meet the 0.7% of GNI Overseas Aid target.