Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the (1) shortest, and (2) longest, time taken to process applications for asylum.

The Home Office is unable to state what the shortest and longest processing time is for asylum applications as this information is not published and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost because it would require a manual search through individual records.

However, the Home Office does publish data on the number asylum applications awaiting an initial decision by duration, for main applicants only. This data can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics: List of tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Home Office also publish data on the percentage of asylum applications processed within 6 months of the date of claim. Data showing the number of asylum claims received from 2014 – 2022 that were processed within 6 months can be found at Asy_01 of the Asylum Transparency Data: Immigration and protection data: Q3 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).