Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her department is taking to ensure that every child in care has their immigration status resolved before turning 18.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The previous Home Secretary set out in the Immigration White Paper published on 12 May 2025 that the Home Office will ensure children who have been in the UK for some time, turn 18 and discover they do not have status, are fully supported and able to regularise their status and settle where appropriate. This will also include a clear pathway for those children in care and care leavers.
This commitment will be delivered primarily through an update to the ‘children in care policy.
As part of this, separate targeted engagement will take place with external stakeholders to help us to understand the challenges in this area and develop a policy solution which supports children in care without status while upholding the need to have a robust and coherent migration system. Children who have claimed asylum are dealt with under separate provisions.
A range of reforms are underway across the immigration and asylum system, and the development of a clear pathway to settlement for children in care and care leavers must be considered alongside these changes.
When handling child applications, all caseworkers must comply with their duty under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, to have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
Further detail on this will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
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 issuing emergency visas to students in Gaza who have confirmed UK university places; and whether her Department has had recent discussions with UK universities on facilitating safe passage for affected students.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government provided exceptional support to enable the departure of Chevening Scholars and fully funded scholarship students from Gaza, for students whose courses began before 31 December 2025. This support was for students who met the relevant requirements of the Immigration Rules.
The Government is reviewing the impact of the policy implemented to-date, and any decision on further support will depend on the evolving international situation. We will continue to keep the policy under review.
This has been a cross-Government initiative and the Home Office, Department for Education and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office have engaged with Higher Education Institutions throughout this process.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 20 January 2026 to Question 104868, what the service standard wait times at passport control are, and what assessment the Department has made of the economic impact of passenger delays at the border.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Border Force publish data on the percentage of sampled measurements cleared within service standards, with the target of 95%.
The service standard is 25 minutes for passengers using eGates or queues where the majority of passengers are GBR/ EEA/ B5JSSK nationalities / 45 minutes for passengers using queues dedicated to other nationalities.
The latest published data was Quarter 3 2025 (Jul-Sept) which showed 97.9% of sampled measurements were cleared within service standards.
The Department for Business and Trade will be best placed to provide information on the economic impact of passenger delays at the border.
Asked by: Anna Dixon (Labour - Shipley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to provide exemptions from Electronic Travel Authorisation for children living abroad who hold dual citizenship having inherited their British Citizenship from a Parent but who do not possess a British Passport.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
British citizens with dual nationality (including those who acquired British citizenship from birth), are already exempt from the requirement to obtain an electronic travel authorisation when travelling to the UK.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 20 January 2026 to Question 104897 on Strategic Migration Partnership: Finance, and with reference to the Cabinet Office Guide to Parliamentary Work, paragraph 233, if he will provide an aggregate figure for the most recent year’s funding to the partnerships contained with the Government Grants Data and Statistics database.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not currently publish funding levels to Strategic Migration Partnerships, previous years funding can be found here Government Grants Data and Statistics Government grants data and statistics - GOV.UK
Asked by: Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to the statement by the Secretary of State for the Home Office on 26 January (HC Deb col 610), what steps they are taking to correct and define new large language models for facial recognition to ensure errors and potential racial bias are removed.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
Facial recognition algorithms provided by or procured with Home Office funding for police use are required to be independently tested for accuracy and bias. Independent testing is important because it helps determine the setting in which an algorithm can safely and fairly be used.
Where potential bias or performance issues are identified, the Home Office works with policing partners to ensure their guidance, practices, and oversight processes minimise any risks arising from use of the technology.
On 4 December last year, we launched a public consultation on when and how biometrics, facial recognition and similar technologies should be used, and what safeguards and oversight are needed. Following analysis of the responses, we will publish a formal government response in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to the statement by the Secretary of State for the Home Office on 26 January (HC Deb col 610), what assessment they have made of any bias and inconsistency of application in the use of facial recognition assessments and algorithms for Black and Asian men and women.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The algorithm used for retrospective facial recognition searches on the Police National Database (PND) has been independently tested by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), which found that in a limited set of circumstances it was more likely to incorrectly include some demographic groups in its search results. At the settings used by police, the NPL also found that if a correct match was in the database, the algorithm found it in 99% of searches.
We take these findings very seriously. A new algorithm has been procured and independently tested, which can be used at settings with no statistically significant bias. It is due to be operationally tested in the coming months and will be subject to evaluation.
Manual safeguards embedded in police training, operational practice and guidance have always required trained users and investigating officers to visually assess all potential matches. Training and guidance have been re-issued and promoted to remind them of these long-standing manual safeguards. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has also updated and published data protection and equality impact assessments.
Given the importance of this issue, the Home Secretary has asked HMICFRS, supported by the Forensic Science Regulator, to inspect police and relevant law enforcement agencies’ use of retrospective facial recognition, with work expected to begin before the end of March.
It is important to note that no decisions are made by the algorithm or solely on the basis of a possible match– matches are intelligence, which must be corroborated with other information, as with any other police investigation.
For live facial recognition, NPL testing found, a 1 in 6,000 false alert rate on a watchlist containing 10,000 images. In practice, the police have reported that the false alert rate has been far better than this. The NPL also found no statistically significant performance differences by gender, age, or ethnicity at the settings used by the police.
On 4 December last year, we launched a public consultation on when and how biometrics, facial recognition and similar technologies should be used, and what safeguards and oversight are needed. Following analysis of the responses, we will publish a formal government response in due course.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Welsh Government on the desired governance end state for policing in Wales following the policing white paper; when those discussions took place; and what the outcomes were.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are working closely with the Welsh Government, as well as other Welsh Stakeholders including Welsh local government, police forces and other partners, to ensure new governance arrangements provide strong and effective police governance in Wales.
Officials have established a specific Welsh transition working group as part of the Police Governance Reform project, which last met on 22 January. Welsh Government officials are members of this Board and Home Office and Welsh Government officials speak regularly to develop proposals. The Minister for Policing and Crime regularly speaks to the Welsh Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Jane Hutt MS, and she attended the Policing Partnership Board for Wales on 18 December. The Minister plans to attend the next Board on 5 March.
We will continue to work collaboratively with Welsh stakeholders on the design and implementation of governance arrangements in Wales.
Asked by: Sam Carling (Labour - North West Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has considered the merits of allowing police to issue Community Protection Warnings and Notices to 10-16 year-olds.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Breach of a CPN is a criminal offence. Lowering the age that someone can receive a CPN from 16 to 10 years old risks putting young people into the criminal justice system.
While early and informal prevention-based approaches should generally be the first step where ASB is being perpetrated by a child, for the most serious cases of child-perpetrated anti-social behaviour, we already have powers available. The Civil Injunction is available for children from 10-18 and enables youth courts to make behavioural conditions to prevent ASB. It is for the youth court to determine if, on the balance of probabilities, the legal test is met, and it is just and convenient in the circumstances to grant a Youth Injunction.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West and Islwyn)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the numbers of animals being used in tests in order to satisfy international regulators despite a non-animal alternative being accepted in the UK; and what steps is she taking to reduce those numbers.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Animals in Science Regulation Unit has published guidance for applicants intending to conduct research under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 for regulated bodies outside the UK, available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/research-and-testing-using-animals (see section entitled ‘Research for regulatory bodies outside the UK’).
In summary, where there is a difference between the requested test and the lowest impact test used elsewhere, there must be associated benefit commensurate with allowing the higher impact test for that jurisdiction. This is aligned with the legally binding principle of the implementation of the 3Rs - Replacement, Reduction and Refinement.
This Government has recently launched an Alternatives Strategy to accelerate the development, validation and uptake of non-animal alternatives. The strategy is backed by £75 million in investment for delivery with plans to establish a UK Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods.