Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she will meet with representatives from the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium to discuss their report entitled Lost Childhoods: The consequences of flawed age assessments at the UK border, published on 4 March 2025.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Home Office officials are already engaging with stakeholders involved in the production of this report, and I look forward to hearing the outcome of these discussions. I am happy to meet the consortium for a discussion.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to implement stalking protection notices that would be issued by police officers pending a full application to court.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs) are civil orders which can be imposed on anyone who has carried out acts associated with stalking and who poses a risk. They are available to the police on application to the court and can impose restrictions considered necessary. The police may also apply for an interim SPO, for example, if there is an immediate risk of harm but further investigation is required to meet the criteria for a full SPO, or when the court is unable to provide the full order in time.
We are legislating through the Crime and Policing Bill to enable the courts to impose SPOs on conviction and acquittal of their own volition.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of migrants are granted settlement after (a) five years and (b) ten years for which the latest data is available.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office publishes data on how people move through the immigration system in the Migrant Journey report. Data on those granted indefinite leave to remain or citizenship by year of initial leave can be found in dataset MJ_D01. The latest publication includes those granted initial leave up to the end of 2024.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of people who come to the UK get citizenship after (a) five years and (b) ten years.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office publishes data on how people move through the immigration system in the Migrant Journey report. Data on those granted indefinite leave to remain or citizenship by year of initial leave can be found in dataset MJ_D01. The latest publication includes those granted initial leave up to the end of 2024.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many sponsoring employers in the care sector had their sponsorship licence revoked in each year between 2022 to 2024; and what information her Department holds on the number of overseas care workers who have become unemployed following the revocation of their employer's sponsorship licence in that time period.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office does not routinely publish data on sponsor revocations for specific sectors. However, between July 2022 and December 2024, the government revoked more than 470 sponsor licences in the care sector to clampdown on abuse and exploitation. More than 39,000 workers have been associated with these sponsors since October 2020.
From our analysis we believe that up to 10,000 of these individuals are now in alternative sponsored work within the Health and Care sector.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support organisations that help victims of (a) gender based violence and (b) domestic abuse.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Tackling Violence Agains Women and Girls (VAWG), including domestic abuse is a top priority for this Government. We will deliver a cross-Government transformative approach, utilising every tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence.
The Home Office has provided £2.025m for the national VAWG Helplines this financial year (24/25), which offer specialist support to victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence, victims of revenge porn, stalking and ‘honour’ based abuse.
On 28th November 2024, the government announced a funding increase of £30 million, meaning a total investment of £160 million in the Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation Grant in 2025-26.
We have been able to secure decisions on the majority of grants for the next financial year 2025-26. We have sought to protect frontline services and give them certainty, so they can plan for the next financial year ahead of the full budget-decision making process concluding.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken toward reaching the Government's target of halving violence against women and girls by the end of the decade.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Tackling VAWG is a top priority for this Government. We will deliver a cross-Government transformative approach, utilising every tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence. This will be underpinned by a new strategy to be published later this year.
Recent measures have included developing a new package of six measures to tackle stalking and a step-change in approach to the way that policing looks at VAWG crimes, through a new National Policing Centre for VAWG and Public Protection. We are investing £13.1 million pounds next financial year (25/26) to stand up this new Centre from April 2025 and throughout its first year. This funding includes an uplift of nearly £2 million to enable policing to better target these crimes.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Education on the use of education in schools to prevent violence against women and girls.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Prevention and education are fundamental to our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and that includes supporting our education system to teach children about respectful and healthy relationships and consent.
As part of the Safer Streets Mission, I regularly engage with colleagues across Government including those at the Department for Education.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) commencing the move-on period for newly-recognised refugees only after access to their e-visa has been confirmed and (b) extending the move-on period to 56 days.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office has recently introduced a time limited pilot giving newly recognised refugees 56 days’ notice to move on from asylum accommodation, in order to support local authorities as we seek to clear the asylum backlog and transition to eVisas.