Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her Department's objectives are for the timeframe in which to accept, investigate and come to a final adjudication on asylum applications.

We are working hard to improve the level of service we provide to those who claim asylum. A new Accelerated Service Standard is being developed and we are testing the impact of several coordinated initiatives, including enhanced screening, case triage, centralised workflow and streamlined decision templates. The expected benefits include improved interview processing times, increased decisions on paper without the need for interviews (where appropriate), reduced time taken to complete a decision and productivity improvements.