Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if it remains his Department's policy to increase the Infected Blood Support Schemes in line with inflation from 1 April 2023.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Department has committed to increasing the financial support to beneficiaries of the Infected Blood Support Schemes in line with inflation from 1 April 2023.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many passport applications took longer than three weeks to process in (a) 2019, (b) 2022 and (c) the final quarter of 2019.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
In 2019*, 382,390 passports issued through standard UK or international services, which was 6% of the total printed, were from applications that had taken longer than three weeks. In the final quarter of 2019, 102,647 passports issued through standard UK or international services, which was 9.7% of the total printed, had taken longer than three weeks. The published processing guidance for standard UK applications at that time was three weeks, with the exception of adults applying for their first British passport who were advised that it took six weeks.
In 2022, 2,620,038 passports issued through the standard UK or international services, or 34.5% of the total printed, had taken longer than three weeks. However, no application in 2022 was subject to a three-week processing timeframe. With approximately 5 million people having delayed their passport application due to the restrictions upon international travel caused by COVID-19, this led to unprecedented passport demand in 2022. Since April 2021 the published processing guidance for all standard UK applications has been ten weeks.
Across January and February 2023, 95.5% of standard UK passport applications were processed within three weeks.
*The data held for 2019 is in working days, and the data held for 2022 in calendar days. This includes an assumed delivery period once the passport is printed (two days in the UK, seven days overseas).
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of asylum caseworkers employed by her Department at the end of the (a) second, (b) third and (c) final quarter of 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The number of asylum caseworkers employed by the Home Office for each financial year between 2010/11 to 2021/22 can be found in the ASY_04 tab of the published immigration statistics located here: Immigration and protection data: Q4 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Information for the financial year ending March 2023 is not yet released.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum caseworkers were employed by her Department in January (a) 2021, (b) 2022 and (c) 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The number of asylum caseworkers employed by the Home Office for each financial year between 2010/11 to 2021/22 can be found in the ASY_04 tab of the published immigration statistics located here: Immigration and protection data: Q4 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Information for the financial year ending March 2023 is not yet released.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the attrition rate for asylum caseworkers was in January (a) 2021, (b) 2022 and (c) 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The latest data on the attrition rate of decision makers are not routinely published but have been released to the Home Affairs Select Committee. The response can be found here: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/31774/documents/178754/default/.
To reduce attrition rates and help maintain our decision-making experience we have implemented a recruitment and retention allowance. We have already doubled our decision makers over the last 2 years, and we are continuing to recruit more. This will take our expected number of decision makers to 1,800 by summer and 2,500 by September 2023.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the attrition rate was for passport office caseworkers in 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The attrition rate for case-working staff only is not held in a reportable format.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to respond to Question 162494 tabled by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North on 10th March 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
A response will be provided in due course.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has completed an (a) impact assessment, (b) equality impact assessment, or (c) children's rights impact assessment on the Illegal Migration Bill.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
We will publish the impact assessment, equality impact assessment and children’s rights impact assessment in respect of the Illegal Migration Bill in due course.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on what date she will publish the impact assessments for the Illegal Migration Bill.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
We will publish the impact assessment, equality impact assessment and children’s rights impact assessment in respect of the Illegal Migration Bill in due course.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to progress update by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health on its Access to contraception inquiry, published in September 2022, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of that report.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Education)
The Department welcomed publication of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health’s inquiry report on access to contraception. We recognise that there is more to do to improve women’s reproductive health and have published a new Women’s Health Strategy for England. As part of the strategy, we are investing £25 million in women’s health hubs, so that women can get better access to care for essential services including contraception.
We will consider the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health’s report as we take forward work to improve sexual and reproductive health services in England.