Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberafan Maesteg)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when his Department last reviewed the potential risk of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers under the overseas domestic worker visa rules.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office keeps immigration route policy under review, including that for the Overseas Domestic Worker route. We have introduced a number of reforms to the route for overseas domestic workers since 2015; designed to build on existing safeguards and in line with the broader immigration system. Employers of overseas domestic workers must act in accordance with UK employment law, and workers who find themselves a victim of modern slavery are protected by the National Referral Mechanism and may be eligible to apply for permission to stay as a domestic worker who is a victim of modern slavery.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people from Rwanda were granted asylum on (a) human rights and (b) other grounds in each year since 2010.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The UK has a proud history of providing protection to those who need it, in accordance with our international obligations under the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Those who need protection are normally granted refugee status or humanitarian protection.
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum decisions by nationality are published in table Asy_D02 of the ‘Asylum Applications, Decisions and Resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to 2023.
All asylum and human rights claims lodged from within the UK and admitted to the UK asylum system, including those seeking asylum from Rwanda, are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with our international obligations, and against the background of relevant case law, policy guidance and the latest available country of origin information.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many Rwandan nationals have been granted (1) refugee status, or (2) other leave to remain, in the UK since April 2022; and what are the principal reasons for granting.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’ on gov.uk. Data on initial decisions by nationality are published in table Asy_D02 of the ‘Asylum applications, decisions and resettlement detailed datasets’. From April 2022 until December 2023, 9 main applicant Rwandan nationals were granted refugee permission and 1 main applicant was granted other leave.
All asylum and human rights claims lodged from within the UK and admitted to the UK asylum system, including those seeking asylum from Rwanda, are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with our international obligations, and against the background of relevant case law, policy guidance and the latest available country of origin information.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he plans to publish guidelines that protect LGBT+ refugees in relation to her proposals to offshore refugees to Rwanda.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
Protection from discrimination is enshrined within the Rwandan constitution. Rwanda does not criminalise or discriminate against sexual orientation in either law or policy.
The published country information notes (CIN) for Rwanda have been updated and can be found at the following link: Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill: supporting evidence - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), along with other supporting evidence relating to the safety of Rwanda.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of whether Rwanda is a safe country to which to send LGBT+ refugees.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
Protection from discrimination is enshrined within the Rwandan constitution. Rwanda does not criminalise or discriminate against sexual orientation in either law or policy.
The published country information notes (CIN) for Rwanda have been updated and can be found at the following link: Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill: supporting evidence - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), along with other supporting evidence relating to the safety of Rwanda.
Asked by: Lord Dodds of Duncairn (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the effect of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will be to disapply the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will apply in full in Northern Ireland in the same way it does in the rest of the UK. This is set out on the face of the Bill, reflecting that immigration policy is a UK-wide matter.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights does not form part of domestic law anywhere in the UK, including Northern Ireland.
The published factsheet on this Bill has been updated to reflect the government position on the Bill in Northern Ireland: Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill: factsheet - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill does not undermine the UK's duty to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into the law of Northern Ireland, including facilitating both (1) direct access to the courts, and (2) remedies for breaches of the Convention.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will apply in full in Northern Ireland in the same way it does in the rest of the UK. This is set out on the face of the Bill, reflecting that immigration policy is a UK-wide matter. There is nothing in the Windsor Framework that affects that. The Bill does not engage the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, including the rights chapter – those rights seek to address longstanding and specific issues relating to Northern Ireland’s past and do not extend to matters engaged by the bill. The Government remains fully committed to that Agreement in all its parts.
I have written to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson in relation to this. The letter will be published in the House Library in due course.
To provide further reassurance on these points, the published factsheet on this Bill has been updated to reflect this: Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill: factsheet - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the conformity of adding Georgia to the list of Safe States with the duties laid out in section 80AA(4) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 on LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
In order to inform ministerial decision making on whether to add India and Georgia to the list of Safe States in section 80AA of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (NIAA 2002), we made an assessment of the general situation in both countries, using evidence from a wide range of reliable sources in order to do so. This was in line with the requirements at section 80AA(3) and 80AA(4) of the NIAA 2002 (as inserted by section 59(3)(3) and 59(3)(4) of the Illegal Migration Act 2023).
Through considering country information and each country’s respect for the rule of law and human rights, we assessed that both countries met the criteria. Further information on the situation for LGBT people in Georgia and India is contained within our published Country Policy and Information Notes, available on Gov.Uk.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the conformity of adding India to the list of Safe States with the duties laid out in section 80AA(4) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 on LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
In order to inform ministerial decision making on whether to add India and Georgia to the list of Safe States in section 80AA of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (NIAA 2002), we made an assessment of the general situation in both countries, using evidence from a wide range of reliable sources in order to do so. This was in line with the requirements at section 80AA(3) and 80AA(4) of the NIAA 2002 (as inserted by section 59(3)(3) and 59(3)(4) of the Illegal Migration Act 2023).
Through considering country information and each country’s respect for the rule of law and human rights, we assessed that both countries met the criteria. Further information on the situation for LGBT people in Georgia and India is contained within our published Country Policy and Information Notes, available on Gov.Uk.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is her Department's policy to assess the age of every person that arrives in the UK illegally on a small boat.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office will only conduct an age assessment in circumstances where an individual who arrives does not have genuine documentary evidence of their age and where there is doubt about their claimed age.
An initial age assessment is conducted as a first step to prevent individuals who are clearly an adult or child from being subjected unnecessarily to a more substantive age assessment and ensure that new arrivals are routed into the correct accommodation and processes for assessing their asylum or immigration claim.
The Home Office will only treat an individual claiming to be a child as an adult, without conducting further enquiries, if two Home Office members of staff independently determine that the individual's physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggests they are significantly over 18 years of age. The lawfulness of this process was endorsed by the Supreme Court in the case of R (on the application of BF (Eritrea)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 38.
Where doubt remains and an individual cannot be assessed to be significantly over 18, they will be treated as a child for immigration purposes until further assessment of their age by a local authority or the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB) which launched in March 2023. This will usually entail a careful, holistic age assessment, known as a ‘Merton compliant age assessment’, which are undertaken by social workers and must adhere to principles set out in case law by the Courts.
Separately, secondary legislation laid by the Ministry of Justice will, once approved by Parliament, authorise the use of x-rays in scientific age assessments, paving the way for the Home Office to improve their ability to effectively determine the age of illegal entrants making disputed claims to be children. Age assessment is an important process to help to prevent asylum seeking adults posing as children as a way of accessing support they are not entitled to, and allow genuine children to access age-appropriate services.
Legislation will then be laid by the Home Office, taking forward powers under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which will specify that x-rays of teeth and bones of the hands and wrist and MRIs of knees and collar bones can be used as part of the age assessment process.