Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost to the public purse is of supporting an asylum seeker in the UK for six months while waiting for an asylum application to be processed.

The United Kingdom has a statutory obligation to provide destitute asylum seekers with accommodation and other support whilst their application for asylum is being considered. The cost of supporting an asylum seeker is dependent on the level of support they receive.

Section 95 allows for accommodation and a cash allowance to a person who would be destitute whilst they have an ongoing asylum claim or appeal. The standard package of support consists of accommodation and a cash allowance of £40.85 per week for each asylum seeker and any dependants in their household when dispersed and £8.24 per person whilst they are accommodated in full board IA. The latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of asylum seekers on Asylum Support. These statistics can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-support.

Accommodation costs are subject to change depending on numbers being accommodated within the asylum system. Accommodation costs are considered to be commercially confidential, therefore the Home Office does not publish this information. However, total expenditure on asylum is published in the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ho-annual-reports-and-accounts.