Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the estimated annual cost to the public purse is of the proposal to electronically tag and monitor asylum seekers arriving in the UK.

The government is undertaking a pilot which will operate for a period of 12 months with the purpose of establishing whether electronic monitoring is an effective way to improve and maintain regular contact management with asylum claimants who arrive in the UK via unnecessary and dangerous routes, in order to progress their immigration case.