Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have applied for appointment as a (a) First-Tier Tribunal Judge (Immigration and Asylum) and (b) Upper Tribunal Judge (Immigration and Asylum) in the last 12 months; and how many of those applications (i) were successful, (ii) were rejected and (iii) are outstanding.

We are maintaining investment in the annual recruitment of about 1,000 judges and tribunal members across all courts and tribunals.

Recruitment was completed in 2024 for salaried and fee-paid judges of the FTT, including for the IAC, and for salaried and fee-paid judges of the Upper Tribunal IAC. Deployment to a specific FTT chamber is the responsibility of the Senior President of Tribunals.

The independent Judicial Appointments Commission publishes data once recruitment is completed: https://judicialappointments.gov.uk/completed-exercises/.

Information on the number of judges in post, leavers, new appointments and promotions is published annually at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/judicial-diversity-statistics.

Recruitment exercises which commenced in 2024 for the First-tier Tribunal, including the IAC, are ongoing, with recommendations due later this year. Further recruitment will commence later in 2025. There is no ongoing or currently planned recruitment to the Upper Tribunal IAC.