Asked by Lord Roberts of Llandudno To ask Her Majesty’s
Government what steps they are taking to improve performance on
immigration matters by the Home Office. The Minister of State, Home
Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con) My Lords, the
Home Secretary has publicly stated that he is committed to a fair
and humane immigration system....Request free trial
Asked by
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking
to improve performance on immigration matters by the Home
Office.
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of
Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the Home Secretary has publicly stated that he is
committed to a fair and humane immigration system. Although
the latest published data shows that the immigration system
is meeting published service standards on the majority of
high-volume routes and at the border, we are continually
seeking to improve our performance. We are reviewing the
operational assurance regime across the immigration system
to ensure that it is effective and reflects best practice.
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(LD)
Is the Minister not ashamed that three young Eritrean men
in their late teens who came to the UK committed suicide
because of our immigration procedures? Is she not ashamed
that 40% of immigration decisions made by the Home Office
are overturned on appeal? Is it not time that this was
looked at, possibly by an outside agency independent of
government, to overhaul the procedures and bring us an
immigration system that is fit for purpose?
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The case raised by the noble Lord is obviously very sad,
but he will understand that I cannot comment on individual
cases, other than by saying that 94% of straightforward
asylum claims are processed within service standards.
However, we are committed to reaching asylum decisions as
quickly as we can, while ensuring that those often complex
cases are given proper consideration. He talked about
appeals, and I do not disagree with him: we wish that the
appeals rate was better. However, I am sure he understands
that quite often information is brought at the last minute
which enables an appeal to be granted.
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(Lab)
My Lords, given the support last week from around the House
during the debate on a Motion on this, what steps are the
Government now taking to ensure that no child who belongs
in this country is dragged into the immigration control
system because they cannot afford the fee to register their
entitlement to citizenship, which the Home Secretary
himself described as “huge”?
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I half expected to see the noble Baroness at the debate last
week, but I know her absolute commitment to this. The Home
Secretary has made it very clear that there will be a far
more humane system in the Home Office. I know that children
who come here and who are under local authority care are
treated as they would be if they were citizens of this
country. There is complexity in this, obviously, and when a
child turns 17 and a half, their case has to be looked at
again. However, I cannot give her any further update on fees
for children.
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(Con)
My Lords, I am pleased that the Home Office has made efforts
to improve its performance in assessing claims for asylum
based on religious persecution by developing a dedicated
training model with the help of the APPG for International
Freedom of Religion and Belief and the asylum advocacy group.
To ensure that this knowledge is integrated into departmental
work, will my noble friend include this training in the
compulsory foundation training course provided to all Home
Office caseworkers?
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On a number of occasions over the past couple of weeks, I
have described the types of decision-making in UKVI that we
are seeking to improve. That includes improving the training
and mentoring programmes for new caseworkers, as well as the
wider assurance process, which my noble friend would expect
us to do. The assurance process follows the three lines of
defence and at each stage of an assessment there is scrutiny
of the effectiveness of the decision-making process.
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(CB)
My Lords, last week’s announcement of the changes in the tier
2 visa regime for NHS staff was urgently necessary and much
appreciated. Will the Minister now look at some of the
bureaucratic processes of the Home Office which are still
causing problems, particularly for general practitioners
already working in this country, and providing valuable
services to patients, when their continued service is at
risk? Will she also take the opportunity to confirm that the
Department of Health and the NHS have a clear code of conduct
on international recruitment to prevent unethical recruitment
from developing countries, a concern which has been raised in
the House?
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I thank the noble Baroness for that question. In and of
itself, the fact that doctors and nurses have been taken out
of the cap will improve the bureaucratic processes and help
decisions to be made more quickly. As to those doctors and
nurses who are not in the occupation shortage list, the
sponsor still has to go through the resident labour market
test. I expect this to go more smoothly and to free up the
numbers within the cap for other occupations.
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(Lab)
In response to a question from my noble friend about tier
2 visas and recruiting medical professionals from overseas,
the Government said:
“It is appropriate to take doctors only from countries that
have their own very effective medical systems. To take them
from third-world and developing countries is not
acceptable”.—[Official Report, 12/6/18; col. 1575.]
That reply indicates there must be a government list of some
sort of both third-world and developing countries from which
it is deemed not acceptable to take doctors. There will be
interest in which nations are included in the list of
developing countries, in particular, from which it is
considered not acceptable by the Government to take doctors;
and, not least, how many and which countries from the Indian
subcontinent are on that government list. Can the Minister
make sure that the government list in question—in whatever
form it exists and to which reference on this issue was made
by the Government last week—is made available to Members of
this House.
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I can answer the question about doctors from India because we
issue a huge number of visas to them. As to recruitment from
third- world countries—I did not answer the question from my
noble friend —rather than guess at
it I shall get back to the noble Lord on those countries,
although I suspect that there is not such a list.
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