Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 13 July (HL1405), whether they plan to collect data on the number of people claiming asylum at the Home Office building in Belfast, the means by which they entered the UK, and from which country they entered the UK; and if not, why not.

Official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile the statistics, as well as quality and availability of data. These reviews allow us to balance the production of our regular statistics whilst developing new statistics for future release.

Asylum statistics are published quarterly in the Home Office’s Immigration System Statistics, but they do not identify the specific UK location where a claim is made, the countries individuals claiming asylum travelled from before entering the UK, or a Northern Ireland breakdown of the means by which people entered the UK.

On 01 July 2026 Minister Norris responded to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and provided operational management information which indicates that 1,517 asylum claims were made in 2025 where that claim could be associated with a location in Northern Ireland. This data has not been subject to the same level of assurance as official statistics, and it is subject to change as it has been taken from live operational systems.

This letter is published online: committees.parliament.uk/publications/53976/documents/300881/default/

Asylum seekers are routinely asked to outline their journey to the UK during their screening interview. The published Screening and routing guidance (pp.70 – 73) lists the type of questions asylum seekers are asked at screening, and provides additional guidance to the interviewing officer.

Information on the means of entering the UK, including countries individuals travelled from before entering the UK, or the specific building they claimed asylum at is held in individual case files and case notes. This information is “free-text” and could only be retrieved through a manual review of cases which would involve a disproportionate use of resource.