Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing funding for (a) legal and (b) other expert support at benefits tribunals.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
At the First-tier Tribunal, proceedings are designed to be straightforward and accessible to all. The tribunal panel is trained and experienced in dealing with a wide range of appellants with individual needs. Accordingly, the Department does not consider that it needs to provide any advocacy funding at this level.
Legal Aid, which is administered by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), is still available for advice and assistance on welfare benefits appeals to the Upper Tribunal, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. At the First-tier Tribunal, Legal Aid may be available through the exceptional case funding scheme, if failure to provide Legal Aid may risk a breach of an individual’s human rights.
At all appellate stages, claimants are able to appoint a representative to assist with their appeal and there is helpful signposting to free support available on gov.uk at: https://www.gov.uk/appeal-benefit-decision/submit-appeal
Asked by: Luke Pollard (Labour (Co-op) - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department is taking steps to increase the legal (a) aid and (b) advice provision for individuals with (i) immigration and (ii) refugee law queries in (A) Plymouth and (B) the South West.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Legal aid is available for immigration and asylum cases, including those involving victims of domestic abuse and modern slavery, for separated migrant children, and for cases where someone is challenging a detention decision.
Earlier in November, the Legal Aid Agency published a list of immigration legal services providers that are willing and able to provide remote advice to clients in the South West of England; the list is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-providers-south-west-support-directory.
The ongoing Review of Civil Legal Aid is considering the broader economic context of the civil legal aid market as a whole across eleven categories (including immigration) so that it can operate sustainably in the long-term; the Review’s final report is expected in March 2024. When the Illegal Migration Act 2023 is implemented, individuals who receive a removal notice under the IMA will have access to free legal advice in relation to that notice.
Section 27(2) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 allows the Lord Chancellor to make arrangements for legal services to be provided by telephone or by other electronic means. Whether legal advice in a particular case is delivered remotely or in-person is down to the discretion of the legal provider. As set out in the Government’s response of 28 September 2023 to the consultation on legal aid fees for IMA work, which included an equality impact assessment (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/legal-aid-fees-in-the-illegal-migration-bill/outcome/legal-aid-fees-in-the-illegal-migration-act-government-response), a great deal of legal advice is already provided “remotely”, largely by telephone. The Government intends to allow advice to be provided remotely at Detained Duty Advice Scheme surgeries for those detained at Immigration Removal Centres. The Government acknowledges and agrees with stakeholder feedback on the need for some clients to continue to be seen face-to-face. Accordingly, conducting remote advice will be enabled at provider discretion, thus ensuring the continuation of appropriate decisions on the delivery of advice in relation to vulnerable clients.
The Department does not have data on how the advice is ultimately provided to the clients (whether face-to-face or remotely) because the decision on how to provide the service is at the discretion of the service providers, taking into account the best interests of the client. Data on the number of legal aid matters started on immigration and asylum is publicly available as part of the quarterly legal aid statistics (see tables 5.1 and 6.2 in the tables published at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-april-to-june-2023). Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, all immigration advisers must be registered with the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) or be regulated by a Designated Qualifying Regulator (DQR). The OISC and the DQRs are responsible for ensuring immigration advisers are fit, competent, and act in their clients’ best interests. In relation to work funded under legal aid, the “Standard Civil Contract 2018: Immigration and Asylum Specification” includes a number of measures to ensure immigration and asylum advice is only provided by caseworkers who hold appropriate accreditation.
Asked by: Luke Pollard (Labour (Co-op) - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of the remote provision of immigration and asylum advice; and whether he has carried out an Equality Impact Assessment on the remote provision of such advice.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Legal aid is available for immigration and asylum cases, including those involving victims of domestic abuse and modern slavery, for separated migrant children, and for cases where someone is challenging a detention decision.
Earlier in November, the Legal Aid Agency published a list of immigration legal services providers that are willing and able to provide remote advice to clients in the South West of England; the list is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-providers-south-west-support-directory.
The ongoing Review of Civil Legal Aid is considering the broader economic context of the civil legal aid market as a whole across eleven categories (including immigration) so that it can operate sustainably in the long-term; the Review’s final report is expected in March 2024. When the Illegal Migration Act 2023 is implemented, individuals who receive a removal notice under the IMA will have access to free legal advice in relation to that notice.
Section 27(2) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 allows the Lord Chancellor to make arrangements for legal services to be provided by telephone or by other electronic means. Whether legal advice in a particular case is delivered remotely or in-person is down to the discretion of the legal provider. As set out in the Government’s response of 28 September 2023 to the consultation on legal aid fees for IMA work, which included an equality impact assessment (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/legal-aid-fees-in-the-illegal-migration-bill/outcome/legal-aid-fees-in-the-illegal-migration-act-government-response), a great deal of legal advice is already provided “remotely”, largely by telephone. The Government intends to allow advice to be provided remotely at Detained Duty Advice Scheme surgeries for those detained at Immigration Removal Centres. The Government acknowledges and agrees with stakeholder feedback on the need for some clients to continue to be seen face-to-face. Accordingly, conducting remote advice will be enabled at provider discretion, thus ensuring the continuation of appropriate decisions on the delivery of advice in relation to vulnerable clients.
The Department does not have data on how the advice is ultimately provided to the clients (whether face-to-face or remotely) because the decision on how to provide the service is at the discretion of the service providers, taking into account the best interests of the client. Data on the number of legal aid matters started on immigration and asylum is publicly available as part of the quarterly legal aid statistics (see tables 5.1 and 6.2 in the tables published at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-april-to-june-2023). Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, all immigration advisers must be registered with the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) or be regulated by a Designated Qualifying Regulator (DQR). The OISC and the DQRs are responsible for ensuring immigration advisers are fit, competent, and act in their clients’ best interests. In relation to work funded under legal aid, the “Standard Civil Contract 2018: Immigration and Asylum Specification” includes a number of measures to ensure immigration and asylum advice is only provided by caseworkers who hold appropriate accreditation.
Asked by: Luke Pollard (Labour (Co-op) - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of asylum seekers who have had access to confidential remote legal advice in the last 12 months.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Legal aid is available for immigration and asylum cases, including those involving victims of domestic abuse and modern slavery, for separated migrant children, and for cases where someone is challenging a detention decision.
Earlier in November, the Legal Aid Agency published a list of immigration legal services providers that are willing and able to provide remote advice to clients in the South West of England; the list is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-providers-south-west-support-directory.
The ongoing Review of Civil Legal Aid is considering the broader economic context of the civil legal aid market as a whole across eleven categories (including immigration) so that it can operate sustainably in the long-term; the Review’s final report is expected in March 2024. When the Illegal Migration Act 2023 is implemented, individuals who receive a removal notice under the IMA will have access to free legal advice in relation to that notice.
Section 27(2) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 allows the Lord Chancellor to make arrangements for legal services to be provided by telephone or by other electronic means. Whether legal advice in a particular case is delivered remotely or in-person is down to the discretion of the legal provider. As set out in the Government’s response of 28 September 2023 to the consultation on legal aid fees for IMA work, which included an equality impact assessment (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/legal-aid-fees-in-the-illegal-migration-bill/outcome/legal-aid-fees-in-the-illegal-migration-act-government-response), a great deal of legal advice is already provided “remotely”, largely by telephone. The Government intends to allow advice to be provided remotely at Detained Duty Advice Scheme surgeries for those detained at Immigration Removal Centres. The Government acknowledges and agrees with stakeholder feedback on the need for some clients to continue to be seen face-to-face. Accordingly, conducting remote advice will be enabled at provider discretion, thus ensuring the continuation of appropriate decisions on the delivery of advice in relation to vulnerable clients.
The Department does not have data on how the advice is ultimately provided to the clients (whether face-to-face or remotely) because the decision on how to provide the service is at the discretion of the service providers, taking into account the best interests of the client. Data on the number of legal aid matters started on immigration and asylum is publicly available as part of the quarterly legal aid statistics (see tables 5.1 and 6.2 in the tables published at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-april-to-june-2023). Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, all immigration advisers must be registered with the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) or be regulated by a Designated Qualifying Regulator (DQR). The OISC and the DQRs are responsible for ensuring immigration advisers are fit, competent, and act in their clients’ best interests. In relation to work funded under legal aid, the “Standard Civil Contract 2018: Immigration and Asylum Specification” includes a number of measures to ensure immigration and asylum advice is only provided by caseworkers who hold appropriate accreditation.
Asked by: Luke Pollard (Labour (Co-op) - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of remote advice provision in asylum seeker accommodation sites.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Legal aid is available for immigration and asylum cases, including those involving victims of domestic abuse and modern slavery, for separated migrant children, and for cases where someone is challenging a detention decision.
Earlier in November, the Legal Aid Agency published a list of immigration legal services providers that are willing and able to provide remote advice to clients in the South West of England; the list is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-providers-south-west-support-directory.
The ongoing Review of Civil Legal Aid is considering the broader economic context of the civil legal aid market as a whole across eleven categories (including immigration) so that it can operate sustainably in the long-term; the Review’s final report is expected in March 2024. When the Illegal Migration Act 2023 is implemented, individuals who receive a removal notice under the IMA will have access to free legal advice in relation to that notice.
Section 27(2) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 allows the Lord Chancellor to make arrangements for legal services to be provided by telephone or by other electronic means. Whether legal advice in a particular case is delivered remotely or in-person is down to the discretion of the legal provider. As set out in the Government’s response of 28 September 2023 to the consultation on legal aid fees for IMA work, which included an equality impact assessment (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/legal-aid-fees-in-the-illegal-migration-bill/outcome/legal-aid-fees-in-the-illegal-migration-act-government-response), a great deal of legal advice is already provided “remotely”, largely by telephone. The Government intends to allow advice to be provided remotely at Detained Duty Advice Scheme surgeries for those detained at Immigration Removal Centres. The Government acknowledges and agrees with stakeholder feedback on the need for some clients to continue to be seen face-to-face. Accordingly, conducting remote advice will be enabled at provider discretion, thus ensuring the continuation of appropriate decisions on the delivery of advice in relation to vulnerable clients.
The Department does not have data on how the advice is ultimately provided to the clients (whether face-to-face or remotely) because the decision on how to provide the service is at the discretion of the service providers, taking into account the best interests of the client. Data on the number of legal aid matters started on immigration and asylum is publicly available as part of the quarterly legal aid statistics (see tables 5.1 and 6.2 in the tables published at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-april-to-june-2023). Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, all immigration advisers must be registered with the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) or be regulated by a Designated Qualifying Regulator (DQR). The OISC and the DQRs are responsible for ensuring immigration advisers are fit, competent, and act in their clients’ best interests. In relation to work funded under legal aid, the “Standard Civil Contract 2018: Immigration and Asylum Specification” includes a number of measures to ensure immigration and asylum advice is only provided by caseworkers who hold appropriate accreditation.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department provides support to Palestinian people living in the UK to (a) work and (b) study; and whether his Department provides support to Palestinian people resident in the UK to provide homes for family residing in (i) Gaza and (ii) the West Bank.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Since 2015, over half a million people were offered safe and legal routes into the UK. This includes over 28.600 individuals resettled to the UK under our global resettlement schemes. We continue to provide the most vulnerable refugees in need of protection a route to safety directly from regions of conflict and instability through these schemes, which include the UK Resettlement Scheme, Community Sponsorship and the Mandate Resettlement scheme. This represents one of the most generous resettlement offers in the UK's history. However, the U.K. only has finite capacity. We cannot provide a safe and legal route for every conflict in the world.
There are no plans to introduce bespoke arrangements for people arriving from the region, and we are not considering establishing a separate route for Palestinians to come to the UK. Immediate family members of British citizens, and those settled in the UK, who wish to come and live in the UK and do not have a current UK visa, can apply under one of the existing family visa routes. The UK's efforts are focussed on ensuring aid reaches those who need in most. The Prime Minister announced on Monday 23 October that the UK will provide a further £20 million of humanitarian aid for civilians. This latest funding is in addition to the £10 million of aid announced by the Prime Minister last week.
Asked by: Steven Bonnar (Scottish National Party - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a resettlement scheme for Palestinian refugees.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Since 2015, over half a million people were offered safe and legal routes into the UK. This includes over 28.600 individuals resettled to the UK under our global resettlement schemes. We continue to provide the most vulnerable refugees in need of protection a route to safety directly from regions of conflict and instability through these schemes, which include the UK Resettlement Scheme, Community Sponsorship and the Mandate Resettlement scheme. This represents one of the most generous resettlement offers in the UK's history. However, the U.K. only has finite capacity. We cannot provide a safe and legal route for every conflict in the world.
There are no plans to introduce bespoke arrangements for people arriving from the region, and we are not considering establishing a separate route for Palestinians to come to the UK. Immediate family members of British citizens, and those settled in the UK, who wish to come and live in the UK and do not have a current UK visa, can apply under one of the existing family visa routes. The UK's efforts are focussed on ensuring aid reaches those who need in most. The Prime Minister announced on Monday 23 October that the UK will provide a further £20 million of humanitarian aid for civilians. This latest funding is in addition to the £10 million of aid announced by the Prime Minister last week.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on access to justice for vulnerable people of local authorities, charities and advice agencies being unable to apply for a Court of Protection panel deputy for those whose assets are so low that professional private sector deputies consider that their estate is insufficient to meet their costs.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Most often, a deputy is a close relative or friend of the person or a local authority which is working with them rather than a private sector deputy. Additionally, in cases where the assets are low, the Court of Protection may decide that a full deputyship is not even required and may grant a one-off order.
Professional private sector deputies are of course aware when they take up the role that costs are payable out of an estate and will be proportionate to the value of the assets to be managed. The role of a panel deputy is to take on cases where no other person is willing or able to act, including cases with low assets.
The Department is not aware of any impact on access to justice for vulnerable people who lack capacity due to the inability of the court to appoint a family member, friend, professional private sector deputy or panel deputy to manage their affairs. Consequently, no specific assessment has been made.
Legal aid is available for advice and assistance under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 subject to the applicant passing the legal aid means and merits tests. Legal Aid is not available for the ongoing costs of a professional private sector deputy.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to providing legal aid to people who require a Court of Protection deputy but whose assets are so low that professional private sector deputies consider that their estate is insufficient to meet their costs.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Most often, a deputy is a close relative or friend of the person or a local authority which is working with them rather than a private sector deputy. Additionally, in cases where the assets are low, the Court of Protection may decide that a full deputyship is not even required and may grant a one-off order.
Professional private sector deputies are of course aware when they take up the role that costs are payable out of an estate and will be proportionate to the value of the assets to be managed. The role of a panel deputy is to take on cases where no other person is willing or able to act, including cases with low assets.
The Department is not aware of any impact on access to justice for vulnerable people who lack capacity due to the inability of the court to appoint a family member, friend, professional private sector deputy or panel deputy to manage their affairs. Consequently, no specific assessment has been made.
Legal aid is available for advice and assistance under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 subject to the applicant passing the legal aid means and merits tests. Legal Aid is not available for the ongoing costs of a professional private sector deputy.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the difficulty of appointing a Court of Protection deputy for those people whose assets are so low that professional private sector deputies consider that their estate is insufficient to meet their costs.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Most often, a deputy is a close relative or friend of the person or a local authority which is working with them rather than a private sector deputy. Additionally, in cases where the assets are low, the Court of Protection may decide that a full deputyship is not even required and may grant a one-off order.
Professional private sector deputies are of course aware when they take up the role that costs are payable out of an estate and will be proportionate to the value of the assets to be managed. The role of a panel deputy is to take on cases where no other person is willing or able to act, including cases with low assets.
The Department is not aware of any impact on access to justice for vulnerable people who lack capacity due to the inability of the court to appoint a family member, friend, professional private sector deputy or panel deputy to manage their affairs. Consequently, no specific assessment has been made.
Legal aid is available for advice and assistance under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 subject to the applicant passing the legal aid means and merits tests. Legal Aid is not available for the ongoing costs of a professional private sector deputy.