Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the time taken to process asylum and refugee claims.

The Home Office is 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 at 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.