Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many refugees from Afghanistan have been accepted into the UK for each of the past six months.

The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the 'Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release', which can be found on gov.uk. Data on the initial decisions made on asylum applications are published in table ASY_D02 of the 'asylum and resettlement detailed datasets' which can be found in the attached Annex. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data cover up to the end of September 2021. Additionally, the Home Office publishes a high-level overview of the data in the 'summary tables'. The ‘contents’ sheet contains an overview of all available data on asylum and resettlement.

The data show in the 6 months from April to September 2021, 246 Afghans (including dependants) were offered protection in the form of asylum, alternative forms of leave, or resettlement in the UK. Of these, 199 were granted asylum, 26 resettlement, and 37 were granted alternative forms of leave (such as humanitarian protection, discretionary leave).

Please note these statistics do not include the resettlement of those under the Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) or similar Afghan schemes for locally engaged civilians, or those brought to the UK as part of Operation Pitting.

The UK evacuated around 15,000 individuals to the UK from Kabul during Operation Pitting. This is in addition to circa 2000 arrivals under ARAP between the end of June 2021 and when the evacuation began on 14 August.

Data on the ACRS and other schemes will be included in future statistical releases.