Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Sri Lankan nationals have sought asylum in each year since 1 January 2007; and how many were successful.

The Home Office publishes data on the number of applications and initial decisions, broken down by nationality, in the quarterly Immigration Statistics publication. The latest figures, up until 2017, are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2017

Table as_01 (asylum tables, vol. 1) contains the number of asylum applications, from main applicants, and initial decisions each year, broken down by nationality.

Data in table as_01 relate to initial decisions only. The number of ‘successful’ applications will increase when taking into account those granted after appeal. Table as_06 shows the number of decisions in a given year that have led to an appeal, by appeal outcome. Data in this table are not directly comparable over time as more recent years will have a high number of cases where a final decision has not yet been made.

1. Grants include grants of asylum, discretionary leave, humanitarian protection, and grants under family and private life rules.

2. Decisions made in a given year does not necessarily relate to the number of applications in the same year. Applications are based on the date of application and decisions are based on the date of initial decision.