Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the UK's withdrawal from the EU on (a) supermarket and (b) domestic energy prices.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
It is for the Office for Budget Responsibility to provide economic and fiscal forecasts.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment his Department has made of the efficacy of universal credit in supporting families with children during the school summer holidays.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
No such assessment has been made.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 7 July 2023 to Question 191605 on Asylum: Staff, what steps her Department has taken to (a) streamline, (b) digitalise and (c) simplify the asylum processing system.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We are accelerating decision-making and rapidly speeding up asylum processing times. We are driving productivity improvements by simplifying and modernising our system. This includes shorter, more focussed interviews; removing unnecessary interviews; making guidance simpler and more accessible; dealing with cases more swiftly where they can be certified as manifestly unfounded; targeted training; and recruiting extra decision makers.
Another way in which we will achieve that is via the Streamlined Asylum Process which is centred around accelerating the processing of manifestly well-founded asylum claims.
We have developed existing and new technology to help build on recent improvements such as digital interviewing and move away from a paper-based system. We are also developing digital tools to support case working, including appointment booking, case prioritisation, allocation tools and a document exchange portal.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of whether the planned increase in the number of asylum decision-makers to 2,500 by September 2023 will enable her Department to clear all legacy asylum claims made before 28 June 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
There is currently work underway to redesign the training of Asylum decision makers. The current plan will see the initial training reduced from 9 to 2-3 weeks with further training given as the decision maker progresses.
As of 01 May 2023, there are 1,280 full time equivalent (FTE) Asylum Decision Makers. This information is published online: Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Bill on GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Please note that this data is provisional and includes the number of asylum decision makers employed from the beginning of each month from August 2019 to May 2023.
The latest Home Office statistics show asylum decisions are up in the year ending March 2023, with a 35% increase in asylum decisions from the previous year which may be in part due to the increase in the number of asylum decision makers employed by the Home Office.
We are on track to clear the legacy asylum backlog by the end of 2023.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the answer of 7 July 2023 to Question 191605 on Asylum: staff, what progress she has made on recruiting asylum decision makers to take their number to 2500 by September 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
There is currently work underway to redesign the training of Asylum decision makers. The current plan will see the initial training reduced from 9 to 2-3 weeks with further training given as the decision maker progresses.
As of 01 May 2023, there are 1,280 full time equivalent (FTE) Asylum Decision Makers. This information is published online: Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Bill on GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Please note that this data is provisional and includes the number of asylum decision makers employed from the beginning of each month from August 2019 to May 2023.
The latest Home Office statistics show asylum decisions are up in the year ending March 2023, with a 35% increase in asylum decisions from the previous year which may be in part due to the increase in the number of asylum decision makers employed by the Home Office.
We are on track to clear the legacy asylum backlog by the end of 2023.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 7 July 2023 to Question 191605 on Asylum: staff, how long it takes to train a newly recruited decision maker.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
There is currently work underway to redesign the training of Asylum decision makers. The current plan will see the initial training reduced from 9 to 2-3 weeks with further training given as the decision maker progresses.
As of 01 May 2023, there are 1,280 full time equivalent (FTE) Asylum Decision Makers. This information is published online: Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Bill on GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Please note that this data is provisional and includes the number of asylum decision makers employed from the beginning of each month from August 2019 to May 2023.
The latest Home Office statistics show asylum decisions are up in the year ending March 2023, with a 35% increase in asylum decisions from the previous year which may be in part due to the increase in the number of asylum decision makers employed by the Home Office.
We are on track to clear the legacy asylum backlog by the end of 2023.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department is on track to clear all legacy asylum claims made before 28 June 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
There is currently work underway to redesign the training of Asylum decision makers. The current plan will see the initial training reduced from 9 to 2-3 weeks with further training given as the decision maker progresses.
As of 01 May 2023, there are 1,280 full time equivalent (FTE) Asylum Decision Makers. This information is published online: Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Bill on GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Please note that this data is provisional and includes the number of asylum decision makers employed from the beginning of each month from August 2019 to May 2023.
The latest Home Office statistics show asylum decisions are up in the year ending March 2023, with a 35% increase in asylum decisions from the previous year which may be in part due to the increase in the number of asylum decision makers employed by the Home Office.
We are on track to clear the legacy asylum backlog by the end of 2023.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of the asylum decision makers hired in May 2023 have been fully-trained to process asylum claims to completion.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We are increasing the productivity of caseworkers by streamlining, digitalising, and simplifying our process. We have already doubled our decision makers over the last 2 years, and we are continuing to recruit more. This will take the headcount of our expected number of decision makers to 2,500 by September 2023.
Provisional data indicates that, as of 01 May 2023, there are 1,280 full time equivalent (FTE) Asylum Decision Makers. This information is published online in the IMB_06 tab of the Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Bill - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). IMB_06 is not broken down in terms of how many decision makers are allocated to each Decision-Making Unit nor how many have been trained to work independently.
The latest Home Office statistics show asylum decisions are up in the year ending March 2023, with a 35% increase in asylum decisions from the previous year.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the number of asylum decision-makers her Department will have hired by (a) summer 2023 and (b) September 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We are increasing the productivity of caseworkers by streamlining, digitalising, and simplifying our process. We have already doubled our decision makers over the last 2 years, and we are continuing to recruit more. This will take the headcount of our expected number of decision makers to 2,500 by September 2023.
Provisional data indicates that, as of 01 May 2023, there are 1,280 full time equivalent (FTE) Asylum Decision Makers. This information is published online in the IMB_06 tab of the Statistics relating to the Illegal Migration Bill - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). IMB_06 is not broken down in terms of how many decision makers are allocated to each Decision-Making Unit nor how many have been trained to work independently.
The latest Home Office statistics show asylum decisions are up in the year ending March 2023, with a 35% increase in asylum decisions from the previous year.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum claims were waiting (a) between one and two years and (b) over two years for a decision to be made in May (i) 2022 and (ii) 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum applications awaiting initial decision can be found in table Asy_D03 of the ‘Asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Please note that data is broken down by duration awaiting decision of ‘6 months or less’ and ‘more than 6 months’. Additionally, data is published quarterly and reflect the number of people awaiting a decision as at the end of the period, rather than the total throughout the period.
Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relate to the year ending March 2023.
Data for the year ending June 2023 is scheduled to be published on 24 August 2023. Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Alternatively, operational data on the total awaiting asylum initial decision WIP can be found in table ASY_02 of the ‘Immigration and protection data’ published as part of the ‘Migration transparency data’ release. This data includes further breakdown of duration awaiting decision (less than 3 months, 3-6 months, 6-12 months and 12 months+) and refers to applications made after 1st October 2006.