Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his Oral contribution of 25 October 2015 on Immigration: DNA Tests, Official Report, column 467. whether he plans to reinstate funding for DNA tests in refugee family reunion applications.

Those applying for refugee family reunion are not required to provide DNA evidence to prove their family relationship and can rely on other evidence to support their application. However, if they wish to do so, they can voluntarily provide DNA evidence at their own expense and this will be considered alongside all other supporting evidence provided.

Our guidance on considering family reunion applications highlights the challenges that applicants may face in obtaining documents to support their application and makes clear the types of evidence that can be provided. This is available on Gov.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/family-reunion-instruction.

We have no current plans to change the policy, but we will keep our approach to DNA evidence in refugee family reunion cases under review.