Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to set a target for determining the outcome of asylum applications.

We are taking immediate action to speed up asylum processing so that asylum seekers do not wait months or years, at vast expense to the taxpayer, waiting for a decision. The Prime Minister has made a commitment to clear the backlog of legacy asylum claims, those made before 28 June 2022, by the end of this year.

A new accelerated service standard is being developed and we are testing the impact of several coordinated initiatives, such as enhanced screening and case triage.

To further accelerate decision making we are driving productivity improvements by streamlining interviews, simplifying processes, and dealing with cases more swiftly where they can be certified as manifestly unfounded.

We have already doubled our decision makers over the last 2 years, and we are continuing to recruit more. This will take our expected number of decision makers to 1,800 by summer and 2,500 by September 2023.