Asked by: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what additional payments have been made to Rwanda since the £120 million initial payment under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with that country.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The UK has provided Rwanda with an initial investment of £120m as part of the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.
Every person’s needs are different, but we anticipate the amount would be comparable to processing costs incurred in the UK. Funding is only provided while a person remains in Rwanda.
Asked by: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what per-person payment has been agreed for the transfer of asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda for the individuals in addition to the £120 million initial investment under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with that country.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The UK has provided Rwanda with an initial investment of £120m as part of the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.
Every person’s needs are different, but we anticipate the amount would be comparable to processing costs incurred in the UK. Funding is only provided while a person remains in Rwanda.
Asked by: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of applicants for (a) Skilled Worker visas, (b) study visas, (c) family visas, and (d) visitor visas wait more than 100 days for a decision on their application.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is currently prioritising Ukraine Visa Schemes applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We are communicating directly with customers to explain applications for study, work and family visas are taking longer to process at this time.
Current average processing times:
Standard visitor visas - 6 weeks
Student visas - 4 weeks
Work visas - 6 weeks.
Spouse visas – up to 24 weeks
As the number of outstanding applications from Ukraine has reduced significantly decision makers are being returned to their normal work, with a focus on reducing processing times for visit and work visas being the initial priority.
Data is not published on the number of applicants which wait more than 100 days for a decision on their application. The transparency data does, however, include a range of processing data and the latest data can be found at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time is for (a) Skilled Worker visas, (b) study visas, (c) family visas, and (d) visitor visas.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is currently prioritising Ukraine Visa Schemes applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We are communicating directly with customers to explain applications for study, work and family visas are taking longer to process at this time.
Current average processing times:
Standard visitor visas - 6 weeks
Student visas - 4 weeks
Work visas - 6 weeks.
Spouse visas – up to 24 weeks
As the number of outstanding applications from Ukraine has reduced significantly decision makers are being returned to their normal work, with a focus on reducing processing times for visit and work visas being the initial priority.
Data is not published on the number of applicants which wait more than 100 days for a decision on their application. The transparency data does, however, include a range of processing data and the latest data can be found at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what was the average waiting time at UK airport border control in each of the last twelve months.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Resource and staffing requirements at every port are continually reviewed by Border Force who work closely with port operators to ensure resources are deployed flexibly as and when they are required.
Performance against our passenger wait time SLA can be found in Border Force Transparency data available at:
Border Force transparency data: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/border-force-transparency-data-q4-2021
Asked by: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Civil Service staff have been seconded to the Passport Office to resolve application backlogs; and how much those secondments have cost the public purse.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Her Majesty’s Passport Office routinely uses flexible resource from HMRC to support with peaks in passport demand. In May 2022, 82 full-time equivalents from HMRC were supporting passport services.
Staffing costs, including the use of flexible resources from other government departments, are met by passport fee income.
Asked by: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the total cost incurred for the flight that was scheduled to take asylum seekers to Rwanda on 14 June 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The costs of our broken asylum system are at a 20 year record high, currently costing the UK taxpayer over £1.5bn a year, with £4.7 million a day being spent on hotels alone. This cannot continue – and the partnership with Rwanda is a key part of our plans to reform the system and put an end to the unsustainable costs which impact the taxpayer.
The Government’s efforts to facilitate entirely legitimate and legal returns of people who have entered the UK illegally are too often frustrated by late challenges submitted hours before the flight. These claims are very often baseless and entirely without merit, but are given full legal consideration which can lead to removal being rescheduled.
Costs for individual flights will vary based on a number of different factors and are regularly reviewed to ensure that best value for money is balanced against the need to remove those individuals with no right to remain in the UK.
We do not routinely disclose commercial or operational information relating to individual charter flights.