Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of (a) pending, (b) rejected and (c) approved applicants to the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy are residing in Afghanistan as of 5 February 2024.

As of 6 February 2024, our records indicate that approximately 600 principal applicants deemed eligible for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme (ARAP) are recorded as residing in Afghanistan. This figure does not include family members. These figures fluctuate as we continue to identify eligible individuals.

In terms of applications pending, we do not confirm the location of an applicant before an eligibility decision is made. At this stage we focus exclusively on determining the applicant's ARAP eligibility. Once eligibility is determined we confirm the location of the applicant as we prepare to support their onward movement along the relocation journey.

We do not track the location of rejected applicants, having received over 95,000 unique applications to the scheme, and are therefore unable to provide this number.

Furthermore, this number does not yet include any applicants who may be found to be eligible as a consequence of the review into Category 4 decisions I announced to the House on 1 February.