Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Post Grant Appointment Service in ensuring that refugees are able to access the welfare system following a decision to grant asylum.

As described by the British Red Cross in their report ‘Still an ordeal: the move-on period for new refugees’, the Post Grant Appointment Service is effective in setting up an early appointment for the refugees with their local Jobcentre, thus enabling them to make an application for mainstream benefits before they leave the asylum support system.

We will provide more information about the service when we respond to the British Red Cross report in due course