Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time is for a decision on an asylum case where the asylum seeker claims to have been a potential victim of human trafficking in the latest period for which figures are available.

The Home Office does not publish data on the average waiting time for a decision on an asylum case where the asylum seeker claims to have been a potential victim of trafficking.

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_04, of the published Immigration Statistics September 2019: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2019/list-of-tables#asylum-and-resettlement

The Home Office are committed to ensuring that asylum claims are considered without unnecessary delay, to ensure that individuals who need protection are granted asylum as soon as possible and can start to integrate and rebuild their lives, including those granted at appeal.

Whilst we take steps to increase capacity and focus on process improvements to deliver better quality decisions more efficiently, we have moved away from the 6-month service standard to concentrate on older claims, cases with acute vulnerability and those in receipt of the greatest level of support, including Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC). Additionally, we are prioritising cases where an individual has already received a decision, but a reconsideration is required. The intention is for this approach to bring balance back to the asylum system.