Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the reasons are for the delays in processing asylum applications; and what steps she is taking to tackle the backlog of applications in the asylum system.

The asylum system has been under mounting pressure for several years, but this has been exacerbated by the pandemic. At the start of the COVID outbreak, whilst intake reduced, so did interview and decision making capacity. We put in place recovery plans and continue to develop these in light of recent intake surges.

The Home Office is pursuing a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives which will speed up decision making, reduce the time people spend in the system and reduce the numbers who are awaiting an interview or decision. This includes increasing the number of decision makers and providing improved training and career progression opportunities to aid retention of staff. This investment in our people will speed up processing times and increase the throughput of asylum decisions.

We are continuing to develop existing and new technology to help build on recent improvements such as digital interviewing and move away from a paper-based system. We are streamlining and digitalising the case working process to enable more effective workflow, appointment booking and decision-making. Asylum Operations are also working to reintroduce a service standard and will be looking towards aligning potentially with changes being brought about by the New Plan for Immigration