The work of the Immigration Directorates (Q2 2015)

We welcome the fact that in Q1 2015, over 99% of straightforward Tier 4 student visa cases and over 99% of straightforward Tier 2 work visas were processed within the standard 8 weeks. However, we are concerned that in the same quarter over 40% of all temporary and permanent migration cases—the non-straightforward cases—were not covered by those service standards. The Department has said it is committed to transparency in this area, and it does publish the data on the number of cases to which the service standards apply. We welcome this. At the same time, the Department needs to do more to explain why it is appropriate to say 99% of cases are within service standards when that figure only applies to 60% of all cases. This appears to be so arbitrary as to mean nothing when there is such a large proportion of cases, the non-straightforward ones, to which the service standards are not even applicable.

Our predecessor Committee commented on the proportion of post-license visits that were unannounced in all sponsor Tiers. We will continue to monitor this and reiterate our previous recommendation that the Home Office should aim to undertake 100% unannounced visits on sponsors where it suspects non-compliance. The Committee is currently conducting a separate inquiry into immigration and skill shortages. We will revisit the issue of work permits and sponsorship licences when we publish our report on skill shortages.

We congratulate the Government on making progress on the number of asylum claims given an initial decision within six months. Furthermore, we welcome their intention to introduce service standards for straightforward cases within six months and for non-straightforward cases within 12 months. We look forward to the Home Office publishing these service standards and its performance against them, both for straightforward and non-straightforward cases.

We note that in 2013 and 2014 the proportion of decisions giving Eritreans asylum, or some sort of humanitarian protection, were consistently on a level with those from Syria. However, there was a considerable drop in grants of protection for applicants from Eritrea in Q2 2015. In their response to this report, the Government should explain this.

We welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment made on 7 September 2015 to resettle 20,000 Syrians before the end of this Parliament. To meet this undertaking would require an average of 4,000 Syrians to be resettled each year. According to the Government’s own figures, in the last 10 years the highest number of refugees 38 The work of the Immigration Directorates (Q2 2015) resettled in any one year is 1,039 in 2012. At no point in the recent past has the UK come near to resettling 4,000 refugees in one year. To maintain an even flow throughout the five years of the Parliament, this would equal 333 Syrians resettled each and every month, although it is not the Government’s intention to proceed in this way, as the Minister for Syrian Refugees made clear in oral evidence, telling us that while “the mathematical calculation is correct, in practice some quarters may be up and some quarters may be down”.1 We are concerned that the UK will not be able to increase its capacity to manage such numbers at short notice. The Prime Minister told the House on 19 October that “we want to see 1,000 [Syrian] refugees brought to Britain by Christmas”.2 We welcome the Prime Minister’s statement, and recommend that the Government set out clearly how it intends to expand the current provision for resettling Syrian refugees to meet the volume that it has said the UK will take.

The Minister for Immigration and the Minister for Syrian Refugees both confirmed that the resettlement programme will meet the UNHCR international call for 130,000 places for vulnerable Syrian refugees by the end of 2016. We note that unlike other countries the UK has not provided the UNHCR with a specific pledge of the number of places for the end of 2016 but has relied upon the end of Parliament figure of 20,000. We recommend that the Government publishes as soon as practicable the number of confirmed places that will be made available by the end of 2016.

When the Minister for Syrian refugees appeared before the Committee he was asked several times how many Syrians had arrived in the UK since the Prime Minister’s announcement on 7 September. Although he informed us that he had the figure, he refused to disclose it. We consider this unsatisfactory. The Minister’s stated reason for not providing the number of Syrian refugees that have arrived in the UK since the Prime Minister’s announcement that 20,000 would be taken was that the apparatus for taking an expanded number of refugees was still being set up. The Government should inform us, in response to this Report, when that apparatus has been set up, and then provide regular updates on the number of Syrian refugees the UK has taken. Although we appreciate that these are early days, the best way to reassure and inform the public, as well as our European partners, that we are pledged to fulfil our commitments to refugees, in the context of the wider humanitarian effort, is to be open and transparent about this information. Failure to do so will allow those to believe incorrectly that there is another agenda. Merely to refer the Committee to the quarterly statistics does not meet our concerns.

We welcome the creation of the Ministerial Committee on Syrian Refugees and support the Minister’s stated aim of ensuring a coordinated approach between central Government, local government and the voluntary sector. We agree this is the best way to ensure the resettlement process works effectively for those Syrians who come to the UK. We applaud the offers made by many members of the public, and institutions such as faith groups, who would like to help welcome refugees to the UK and also provide ongoing support. The Minister said he was not able to accept offers made by individuals for Syrian refugees to stay in private homes, because of the risks arising to both the refugee, and the potential host, due to the 1 Qq 111-112 2 HC Deb 19 October 2015, col 661 The work of the Immigration Directorates (Q2 2015) 39 vulnerability of the refugees being taken. We consider that this is something that needs to be further examined and we welcome the Minister’s commitment to look at it again. The Government should do more to explore how members of the public can help provide that ongoing support, in particular in the provision of housing which is likely to be one of the bottlenecks on where refugees will be able to be resettled.

We are concerned that over a third of the legacy immigration cases have been found to be duplicates. While we welcome the gradual reduction of the legacy immigration caseload, we note that the number of conclusions fell dramatically from Q2 2014, and at the same time the number of cases entered onto the system actually rose slightly between Q4 2014 and Q1 2015. We request that, in response to this Report, the Home Office explains why the number of cases entered onto the legacy system has started to rise again.

In its response to this report, the Home Office should set out the number of applications, on behalf of a spouse, for entry clearance and settlement, that were made since the introduction of new £18,600 threshold, and how this compares to previous years.

We will consider holding an inquiry into spouse visas if we continue to receive examples of hardship. Our predecessor Committee stated that it found it unacceptable that an EU citizen is able to bring a spouse from outside the EU into the UK without having regard to the £18,600 limit, whereas a British citizen living next door would have to abide by this rule. British ministers have shared the concern about the unacceptable way in which the EU rules operate, and we invite the Government to set out, in response to this Report, what steps can be taken to regularise this situation, whether those steps have been taken and, if not, why not.

Sarah Rapson, Director General of UKVI, has told the Committee in the past that customer service remains her key priority. Members of Parliament are asked to contact their ‘account manager’ on immigration cases. We have received no evidence that additional resources have bolstered the work of the account manager who is not a decision maker but merely passes on correspondence to caseworkers. In their response to this report, we ask the Government to set out how many levels of management exist between the account manager and the Director General. Cutting bureaucracy and increasing efficiency will result in a reduction in the number of letters sent by MPs.

In its response to this report the Home Office should set out: • How many face to face interviews were conducted in 2014 in contrast to the number of applications made; • How many interviews were conducted on shore in the UK through the Sheffield hub as a percentage of overall numbers; • The number of Entry Clearance Officers in each UKVI post outside the UK.

The Committee notes with concern the increasing number of asylum seekers and other migrants detained for administrative purposes. The Government should publish the Stephen Shaw review of the immigration detention estate and its response as soon as possible to inform the remaining stages of the Immigration Bill.

In 2012, under 8% of people were released following a Rule 35 Report. The percentage for the first half of 2015 is over 18%. This appears to show some improvement in the care shown to those who have suffered trauma due to torture elsewhere and then find themselves in immigration detention in the UK.

It is unacceptable that after the Government said it would stop placing children in detention, and there were signs that it was maintaining very low figures throughout 2014, there was then a sudden increase at the beginning of 2015. In its response to this report, the Government should explain why, at the beginning of 2015, there was a sudden increase in the number of children being detained for immigration purposes, and why the proportion being held for longer than three days has also increased.

In its response to this Report, we request that the Government set out what action it is taking place to improve the return of Foreign National Offenders, specifically to other EU member states, and provide statistics on the number of successful returns to each EU member state in the last 12 months.

In its response to this Report, we request that the Home Office state: • How many people have made complaints to its enforcement section about illegal activity, • How many of those complaints led to an arrest, and • How many of those people were subsequently removed from the UK. The process of enforcement is unnecessarily slow. Those members of public who complain about breaches of immigration law that they have reported to the Home Office need to be kept informed of progress in the investigation. Failure to do so may undermine confidence in the system.

We consider that an immigration target with an arbitrary figure is difficult to achieve when you simply cannot control the number of people who leave the country and have very limited ability to control migration from EU member states. We also consider that the Government should look again at the issue of whether student numbers should be included in that figure as our predecessor Committee said. We will return to this subject during this Parliament.

Backlogs at the UKVI have always been a concern to this Committee under successive governments. The current backlog of cases remains at 318,159. There has therefore been an increase between Q1 and Q2. As we have said previously, the biggest contributor to the backlog is the Migration Refusal Pool. In its response to this Report, we expect the Home Office to set out a timetable for further reduction of this backlog. We are now coming to the end of the £4 million contract awarded to Capita with the view to the Migration Refusal Pool backlog being reduced. We would like a full assessment of this contract before there is any possibility of renewal.

We are deeply concerned that there has been a 111% increase in 12 months on the number of cases to be uploaded onto CID. Putting cases on this database should be a priority and this dramatic increase is unacceptable. The Government should explain why this figure has increased to such an extent. As MPs write in, the case files should be inputted immediately. We repeat our previous recommendations that clearing these backlogs must be a priority.