Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum decisions were made per decision maker per week in the last quarter of 2022.

The number of asylum decisions made per decision maker per week (1) in the first two months of 2023 and (2) in the last quarter of 2022 is not routinely published, as it is not held in a reportable format.

The Home Office does publish data on monthly productivity levels based on the number of decisions and interviews completed between February 2020-December 2022 which can be found at Asy_05 (M) : Immigration and protection data: Q4 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The same data set also provides information on the number of Asylum caseworking staff.

The rise in the number of small boat crossings has placed significant pressures on the asylum system. We take the safety and welfare of those in our care seriously and the Home Office has robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure those in our accommodation are as safe and supported as possible as we seek urgent placements with a local authority.

We are taking immediate action to accelerate decision-making. We have already doubled our decision makers over the last 2 years, and we are continuing to recruit more. As part of transforming the asylum system, we are focused on increasing productivity by streamlining, simplifying, and digitising processes to speed up decision making.