Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many asylum seekers given leave to remain in the UK over the last five years have committed (1) minor, and (2) serious, offences; and of this number, how many ultimately applied for and received indefinite leave to remain.

Asylum seekers who are granted refugee status or humanitarian protection will usually be granted a period of limited leave (for 5 years) along with any dependants included on the claim. When their leave is due to expire, they must apply for further leave for themselves and any qualifying dependants if they want to remain in the UK.

After 5 years limited leave, an individual becomes eligible to apply for settlement in the UK (which constitutes indefinite leave to remain) but this is a privilege and not an automatic right.

Settlement may be refused where protection is no longer required; or where there is evidence of criminality or concerns about their character, conduct or associations such that they should be denied the benefits of permanent residence in the UK. Those who no longer need protection can return home in safety or apply to stay under other provisions of the Immigration Rules. Those who are still at risk of serious harm in their country are not expected to return there and where appropriate they will be granted limited leave if they do not qualify for settlement.

The available published data on asylum-related grants of settlement (indefinite leave to remain) are published in settlement tables se_02_q and se_02 in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. The published data do not show whether the applicant had previously committed 1) minor, and (2) serious, offences.

To capture the numbers requested would require a manual trawl of data and to do so would incur disproportionate cost. There are no plans to identify these individuals separately within our published statistics.