Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average wait time is for people awaiting an initial asylum decision; and what plans her Department has to reduce that time.

The Home Office does not publish data on the average time taken to make an initial decision on an asylum application.

However, the Home Office does publish data on the number asylum applications awaiting an initial decision, by duration for more of less than 6 months. This data can be found at Asy_04, of the published Immigration Statistics September 2019: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2019/list-of-tables#asylum-and-resettlement

The Home Office are committed to ensuring that asylum claims are considered without unnecessary delay, to ensure that individuals who need protection are granted asylum as soon as possible and can start to integrate and rebuild their lives, including those granted on appeal.

Whilst we take steps to increase capacity and focus on process improvements to deliver better quality decisions more efficiently, we have moved away from the 6-month service standard to concentrate on older claims, cases with acute vulnerability and those in receipt of the greatest level of support, including Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC). Additionally, we are prioritising cases where an individual has already received a decision, but a reconsideration is required. The intention is for this approach to bring balance back to the asylum system.