Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department keeps official records (a) the average number of days it takes to process claims for unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK and (b) trends in the number of days it takes her Department to reach a decision on children seeking asylum claims in (i) 2021, (ii) 2020 and (iii) 2019; and if she will make a statement.

The Home Office are unable to state the average number of days it takes to process claims for unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK or provide trends in the number of days it takes to reach a decision in 2021, 2020 and 2019 as this information is not held in a reportable format and could only be obtained at disproportionate costs.

However, the Home Office does publish data on the number asylum applications awaiting an initial decision by duration. This data can be found at Asy_D03, (broken down by nationality and applicant type) in the asylum and resettlement detailed datasets:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets

The Home Office have established two dedicated case working Hubs for deciding children’s asylum claims which are now fully operational. The hubs have established improved focus on and greater control of children’s cases to build expertise, identify efficiencies and provide a consistency of decision making (and quicker outcomes) for our customers.

We continue to work collaboratively with Local Authorities nationally on the remote interview process for Accompanied and Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and young people utilising digital interviewing video capabilities to complement in person interviews.

Since May 2021 we have increased Local Authority opt in for digital interviewing to 108 Local Authorities helping to speed up processes, reduce delays and the numbers of children and young people who have an outstanding claim.

We are continuing to recruit additional decision-makers who will be trained to process children’s asylum claims.