Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers have applied to work in a job on the restricted occupation list after waiting over 12 months for their asylum application to be processed; and how many of these applications were granted, in each year since 2010.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the UK unless their claim has been outstanding for at least 12 months through no fault of their own. Those who are granted permission to work are restricted to jobs on the Shortage Occupation List, which can be found in the Immigration Rules Appendix K: shortage occupation list (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-k-shortage-occupation-list)

The data requested on the number of asylum seekers granted permission to work is only held on paper case files or within the notes sections of the Home Office's databases. Therefore the number of asylum seekers granted permission to work who have also been granted asylum and/or humanitarian protection is not aggregated on a national level nor is it held in a reportable format.