Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for what reasons she will no longer fund the detention element of the Choices service from 1 April 2014; whether an alternative assisted voluntary returns programme will be made available to immigration detainees; and what assessment she has made of the potential effects of this decision on the number of (a) assisted voluntary returns and...
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many immigration detainees left the UK through the assisted voluntary returns programmes in each of the last five years.
Sarah Teather: I have tabled a series of manuscript amendments today to seek clarification from the Minister. I hope that he will have an opportunity to respond to my points at the end of the debate. Let me deal first with amendment (a) to Lords amendment 8, which is my principal concern. The ending of routine detention of children in the immigration system is one of the areas of which I am most proud in my...
Sarah Teather: I am sorry that the Minister is upset, but it means that he has heard me. If an unaccompanied, vulnerable child turns up at a police station, the police do not put them in a cell, but get in touch with social services. Why can we not do the same for unaccompanied children who come here as migrants or to apply for asylum? Why do we need to detain them? Surely our duty is to protect them. There...
Sarah Teather: rose—
Sarah Teather: Will the Minister comment on the time frame in which he thinks it is reasonable to expect somebody to obtain another citizenship? In the Government’s mind, would somebody be stateless for two years, five years or 10 years? Is there any sense of how long the process could go on for?
Sarah Teather: I want to follow up the Minister’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). The Minister said that the issue was about having a route in law to secure another citizenship, but he rather glossed over the practical barriers that many people face in obtaining another citizenship. Will he put on the record more information that might help those of us with concerns about...
Sarah Teather: Is the Minister able to clarify the numbers involved and how the Secretary of State and, indeed, her predecessors have used those powers? The Joint Committee on Human Rights has repeatedly asked for those data, but has been unable to access them. I have asked similar questions and have also been unable to get the data, so could the Minister tell us how many people have had the power used...
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department with reference to the National Audit Office Report, COMPASS contracts for the provision of accommodation for asylum seekers, published in January 2014, what steps she has taken in response to recommendations f, g and h in that report.
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 24 March 2014, Official Report, column 16W, on asylum: deportation, to which countries the enforced removals of adults previously classified as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were made in each such year.
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many unaccompanied migrant children have been forcibly removed to another country in each of the last five years.
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will publish the number of individuals held at HM Prison The Verne solely for immigration purposes as part of the quarterly immigration statistics.
Sarah Teather: (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State if she will make a statement on support provided to meet the essential living needs of asylum seekers under sections 95 and 98 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
Sarah Teather: The Minister is correct to say that yesterday’s judgment did not comment on the generosity of the levels, but it was absolutely damning about the process that the Home Secretary had used in order to come to her decision. It found that she had misunderstood or misapplied information, that she did not know, or ignored, basic aspects of her Government’s education policy, and that she had...
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will place in the Library a copy of the report entitled “The medical implications of vehicle-mounted water cannon with special reference to the Ziegler Wasserwerfer 9000 (WaWe 9) system”, published by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in 2013.
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of how much each local authority returned to his Department in unused discretionary housing payment funding in 2013-14.
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which prisons are holding individuals solely under immigration powers.
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what his plans are for HMP The Verne.
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 29 January 2013, Official Report, column 772W, on Judicial Review, what further assessment has been made of the reasons for the increase in the number of applications for judicial review.