Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum claim questionnaires her Department plans to send to claimants in each month from February 2023 to December 2023.

On 13 December 2022, the Prime Minister pledged to clear the backlog of the 92,601 initial asylum ‘legacy’ claims – this relates to historical asylum claims made before 28 June 2022.

The Streamlined Asylum Process is one way in which we will clear the backlog and policy guidance on this was published on 23 February 2023 (Streamlined asylum processing - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)). On the same day, questionnaires began to be sent out to legacy claimants from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen to their most recently recorded correspondence address. These countries have been included in the streamlined asylum process on the basis of their high-grant rate of 95% or higher and over 100 grants in the year-ending September 2022 of protection status (refugee status or humanitarian protection). All questionnaires should be dispatched to eligible claimants by the end of March 2023. Claimants must inform the Home Office of any changes to their contact details, to ensure that they continue to receive all relevant communications regarding their claim.

The asylum claim questionnaires are in English as is generally the case for immigration paperwork across the Department. If necessary, claimants can utilise legal representatives, Non-Government Organisations and other support networks to help them respond to the questionnaire. For those who are unable to return the questionnaire within 20 working days, a reminder will be sent to the claimant allowing a further 10-working days to complete and return it to the Home Office. A further extension can be requested where the timeframe cannot be met, for example because the claimant has serious medical conditions which is impacting their ability to respond to the questionnaire.

The intention of these questionnaires is to enable claimants to provide any further information about their claims after their initial screening interview which, in turn, could lead to a positive decision being taken without an additional interview.