Asked by: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has ever sent (a) classified documents and (b) material from the intelligence services through her personal email address.
Answered by Suella Braverman
I wrote to the Home Affairs Select Committee Chair on 31 October and a copy of the letter was placed in the House Libraries - I refer the hon. member to that letter where both questions are answered.
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 Government documents she has sent (a) to and (b) using her personal email address.
Answered by Suella Braverman
I wrote to the Home Affairs Select Committee Chair on 31 October and a copy of the letter was placed in the House Libraries - I refer the hon. member to that letter where both questions are answered.
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 passport applications have been waiting for a decision for more than six weeks as of 13 July 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The published processing time for the standard UK service is up to ten weeks. However, the vast majority of applications continue to be processed within six weeks.
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 (a) skilled worker, (b) study, (c) spousal, (d) seasonal agricultural worker and (e) visitor visas have been processed outside target processing times in each of the last three years.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office publishes data on the number of a) skilled worker, (b) study, (c) spousal, and (e) visitor visas which have been processed outside target processing times in our Transparency data. Seasonal agricultural workers are grouped into other work groups in the data.
The Home Office Transparency data sets out how the department is performing against its service standard, which can be found on the GOV.UK webpage: Visas and Citizenship data: Q1 2022 - 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, how many e-gate failures Border Force has recorded in each of the last twelve calendar months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
It has never been government practice, for reasons of law enforcement, to comment on operational issues relating to border security and immigration controls. This includes offering commentary on the performance of border systems and of ePassport Gates data specifically.
The current eGate estate was upgraded in 2021. Incidents impacting the availability of eGates are proactively managed and the number of incidents is reducing.
The eGates process passengers arriving in the UK and provide a secure border check on approved travel documents and refer passengers to an officer if required.
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 passengers at the UK border were not cleared within the timeframe set out in her Department's published service standards in each of the last twelve calendar months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Performance against our passenger wait time SLA’s can be found in Border Force Transparency data available at:
Border Force transparency data: Border Force Transparency data: Q1 2022 opens in a new tab)
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)