Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress the Government has made on applications under all four categories of the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Programme.

Of the estimated 16,500 ARAP eligible individuals to which we owe debt of grattitude, we have relocated 11,437 individuals. This figure includes principals and dependants. Data fidelity does not allow for this figure to be broken down by ARAP categories or professions.

We continue to receive a high number of applications, however the majority of these are duplicates or are ineligible. We are now actively processing and issuing decisions on more applications per month than we are receiving, allowing us to make progress on clearing the backlog.

Our primary focus is on identifying and relocating the estimated remaining 5,300 eligible individuals, using HMG employment records to target our efforts. Significant progress has been made to accelerate the process in recent months, including additional Defence resource being made available and an enhanced casework system.