Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of her Department's pause on processing asylum claims for people in Syria on the welfare of those people.

Following the fall of the Assad regime, the Home Office withdrew the Country Policy Information Notes and guidance relating to Syria and has temporarily paused all asylum interviews and decisions. However, we continue to register new claims from Syrians in the UK who wish to claim asylum.

This was, and remains, a necessary step. As long as there is no stable, objective information on which to base an accurate assessment of a claimant’s risk on return to Syria, we are unable to make robust, reliable decisions on claims for international protection.

The pause is being kept under constant review and when there is a clear basis upon which to make decisions, we will resume the processing of them.