Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she will include Kurds from Iraq and Iran in the streamlined asylum process.

From 23 February, legacy claims from nationals of Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen will be considered through the Streamlined Asylum Process.

This is on the basis of their current high-grant rate of protection status (refugee status or humanitarian protection). All these nationalities have a grant rate of over 95% and over 100 grants of protection status in the year-ending September 2022. Please see Migration statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for more information.

Upon arrival, all asylum seekers undergo a screening interview, as well as robust security checks in which they will provide biometric information.

Separate work is ongoing to more efficiently process all other asylum claims admitted to the UK asylum system awaiting consideration. To further accelerate decision making we will further drive productivity improvements by simplifying and modernising our system. This includes measures like shortening interviews, removing unnecessary interviews, making guidance simpler and more accessible, dealing with cases more swiftly where they can be certified as manifestly unfounded (e.g. Albania) and recruiting extra decision makers.