Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much she expects will be loaned in refugee integration loans this year.
Refugee Integration Loans were introduced in 2007 following a public consultation and have operated over the last seventeen years to help recipients with the costs of integrating into UK society. They are funded by the Home Office, who make the initial decisions on applications. They are then administered and recouped by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Single applicants can borrow between £100 and £500 and if applying jointly the maximum amount increases to £780.
The Home Office work with DWP to administer the loans across different IT platforms. Consequently, data on the level of loans provided on an annual basis is not held in an easily reportable format and would require a manual search of records that could only be conducted at a disproportionate cost.