Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 26 March 2019 to Question 235381 on Asylum: Religion, what progress his Department has made on investigating reports that asylum refusals have included quotations from religious texts; and if he will make a statement.

After reports indicated that an asylum decision included quotations from religious texts and was not drafted in accordance with Home Office policy guidance, Asylum Operations conducted an investigation into this matter. A small number of religious conversion cases were sampled, and no further cases were identified during this sampling exercise.

All such decisions are currently subject to further scrutiny, pending the roll out of additional specialist training, which has been developed in collaboration with the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for International Freedom of Religion or Belief.

The Asylum Learning and Development Team started to deliver the specialist training package on religious claims on Monday 8 April, which will be mandatory for all asylum decision-makers.