Asked by: Peter Heaton-Jones (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum-seekers crossed the Channel between November 2018 and January 2019 inclusive; and of those how many (a) were returned to France for processing of their asylum applications, (b) have been granted asylum in the UK and (c) have applications being processed in the UK.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office has published data on the number of migrants who crossed the Channel between November 2018 and January 2019.This information can be found at the link below:
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/home-affairs/Correspondence-17-19/19-03-05-Letter-from-Sir-Philip-Rutnam-KCB-Permanent-Secretary-Home-Office-Migrant-boats-in-the-channel.pdf
The department does not routinely publish breakdowns of asylum claims by method of arrival or type of claim. This information is recorded but not in a format that can easily be retrieved and could only be obtained at disproportionate costs.
The Home Office does publish data on the number of applications for asylum in the UK, in its quarterly Immigration Statistics release, the latest release published 24th May 2019. The number of asylum applications for main applicants by country of nationality, made since January 2019 can be found in table as_01_q for main applicants:
Latest edition available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-march-2019/list-of-tables#asylum
Since January, more than 50 people who arrived illegally in the UK in small boats have been returned to Europe.