Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle delays to (a) interviews and (b) asylum decisions for asylum seekers processed by her Department.

The Home Office is pursuing a wide range of programmes which will transform our systems and processes alongside a number of business improvement initiatives to speed up decision making, reduce the time people spend in the system and reduce the numbers who are awaiting an interview where required or a decision.

Additionally to transformation, in response to the raising number of asylum claims and delays, we are working to increase decision makers as well as 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.