Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of asylum claims her Department has (a) granted and (b) refused to non-religious people fleeing Afghanistan from fear of persecution in the latest period for which data is available; and whether her Department has issued guidance on handling asylum claims for (a) religious and (b) non-religious persecution.

The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on initial decisions on asylum claims by nationality can be found in table Asy_D02 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. The Home Office does not publish initial decisions on asylum claims by religion.

Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relates to the year ending June 2024. Data for the year ending September 2024 will be published on 28 November 2024.

All asylum and human rights claims, including those based on religious persecution, are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with our international obligations. Our guidance for considering asylum claims is available on GOV.UK at: Assessing credibility and refugee status: caseworker guidance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Each individual assessment is made against the background of relevant case law and the latest available country of origin information. This is based on evidence taken from a wide range of reliable sources, including reputable media outlets; local, national, and international organisations, such as human rights organisations; and information from the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office. Our assessment of the situation of a given group in a given country, is set out in the relevant country policy and information note, which is available on GOV.UK at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/country-policy-and-information-notes.