Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of EU citizens in the UK who have applied for Settled Status under the EU Settlement Scheme.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Over 400,000 EU Citizens have applied to the Scheme so far.
An estimated 3.4m EEA nationals currently resident in the UK are eligible for the EU Settlement Scheme (based on Home Office internal analysis of ONS Annual Population Survey (APS) data for year October 2017 to September 2018).
The Impact Assessment for the EU Settlement Scheme was published in July 2018
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2018/116/pdfs/ukia_20180116_en.pdf )
and an updated version was published in March 2019
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2019/74/pdfs/ukia_20190074_en.pdf).
The Home Office has estimated that the total number of EEA citizens and their family members eligible to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme by the end of the planned implementation period on 31 December 2020 is likely to be between 3.5 million and 4.1 million. This estimate is based on a number of assumptions as to how the size of the eligible EEA population will change over the period. The range should be considered indicative as future migration flows can be affected by many factors and are difficult to predict.
Two reports on the private testing phases have already been published (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-1 and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-2/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-testing-phase-2-report)
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether gagging clauses have been used in contracts drawn up between his Department and any charities, voluntary sector organisations, social enterprises or companies with the intention of stopping any criticism of Ministers of his Department.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
There are no gagging clauses within Home Office contracts or Grant agreements specifically to stop criticism of Home Office Ministers.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate his Department has made of the number of non-UK EU citizens in the UK eligible to apply for settled status; and how many applications for settled status have been submitted in each age group.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
An estimated 3.4m EEA nationals currently resident in the UK are eligible for the EU Settlement Scheme (based on Home Office internal analysis of ONS Annual Population Survey (APS) data for year October 2017 to September 2018).
The Impact Assessment for the EU Settlement Scheme was published in July 2018
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2018/116/pdfs/ukia_20180116_en.pdf )
and an updated version was published in March 2019
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2019/74/pdfs/ukia_20190074_en.pdf).
The Home Office has estimated that the total number of EEA citizens and their family members eligible to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme by the end of the planned implementation period on 31 December 2020 is likely to be between 3.5 million and 4.1 million. This estimate is based on a number of assumptions as to how the size of the eligible EEA population will change over the period. The range should be considered indicative as future migration flows can be affected by many factors and are difficult to predict.
Two reports on the private testing phases have already been published (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-1 and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-2/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-testing-phase-2-report)
Interim statistics on the public beta phases were also referenced in the Written Statement HCWS1387WS1387 of 7 March
(https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2019-03-07/HCWS1387/ )
We will publish further data on the operation of the EU Settlement Scheme in due course.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment the Government has made of the potential additional cost of policing the Northern Irish border in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Nick Hurd
Across Government we are working closely with operational partners on contingency planning so we can ensure the safety and security of our citizens in all scenarios.
On 18 December, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) would receive an additional £16.48m for financial year 2019-20 to support their planning for EU-exit.
This funding will help the PSNI manage pressures and contingencies arising from EU exit preparations which fall in the 2019/20 financial year, reflecting the specific and unique concerns in Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2019 to Question 221553 on National Crime Agency: Brexit, since what date has leave for the month of April 2019 for staff of the National Crime Agency no longer been authorised.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The date from which leave for the month of April 2019 for staff of the National Crime Agency was no longer authorised was 14 January 2019
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to tackle the issue of the official name of Bulgarian citizens appearing in Cyrillic on their EU settled status applications as a result of the first line of their passport being written in the Cyrillic script.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The EU Settlement Scheme is streamlined, user-friendly and will be accessible to all prospective applicants. To provide a simple user experience and to increase data accuracy, we use technology to read data direct from the passport Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) the text at the bottom of a passport and the passport chip.
Neither the MRZ nor the chip in the document include special characters such as Cyrillic script. This is in line with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standard for passports that all EU passports adhere to. The ICAO standard provides translation matrices for each marking to the English alphabet, and it is intended that the digital status shown to individuals will follow the same format and display names in Latin script only. However, in some cases, we are aware that Cyrillic characters are appearing within the digital status name, and we are investigating why this is happening so that this can be rectified.
The test phases have provided us with a useful opportunity to prove various elements of the scheme functionality and we continue to refine the handling of special characters, including how this could apply retrospectively to any applicants who may want their data to be corrected
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of applicants were unable to complete the application process for settled status during the second phase of the trial of the EU Settlement Scheme.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The EU Settlement Scheme opened on a trial basis at the end of August 2018 and a wider public beta commenced in January 2019. In total across all the test phases we have granted over 100,000 applications. We have pub-lished a report on second testing phase which sets out further details of the outcomes:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-2/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-testing-phase-2-report.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of applicants were granted pre-settled status during the second phase of the trial of the EU Settlement Scheme.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The EU Settlement Scheme opened on a trial basis at the end of August 2018 and a wider public beta commenced in January 2019. In total across all the test phases we have granted over 100,000 applications. We have pub-lished a report on second testing phase which sets out further details of the outcomes:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-2/eu-settlement-scheme-private-beta-testing-phase-2-report.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether officials in the National Crime Agency have had annual leave scheduled for April 2019 cancelled.
Answered by Ben Wallace
Officers in the National Crime Agency have not had agreed annual leave scheduled for April 2019 cancelled.
Asked by: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether officials in UK Visas and Immigration have had annual leave scheduled for April 2019 cancelled.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
UKVI has not introduced any leave restrictions during April 2019. Business areas will be operating annual leave arrangements in line with Home Office policy.