Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the reasons are for the reduction in the number of asylum seekers returned under the Dublin Convention in each year since 2010.

The Dublin Regulations have allowed the UK to return over 12,000 asylum claimants to other EU countries since coming in to force in 2003. Litigation is a significant factor preventing or delaying transfers – in particular, the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in 2011 that returns to Greece breached Article 3 of the Convention, halting returns there.