Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department has issued to staff who (a) examine and (b) process asylum claims on the implementation of background checks.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
Asylum caseworkers receive extensive training and mentoring for the role. All asylum claimants are subject to mandatory security checks to establish their identity and to link it to their biometric details for the purpose of immigration, security and criminality checks - including war crimes, crimes against humanity and terrorism.
The Home Office performs mandatory identity verification and security checks on individuals applying to enter or remain in the UK. These checks are set out in comprehensive, internal guidance called the UK Visas and Immigration Operating Mandate (OM). To protect the integrity of the specific identity and security checking processes that are conducted under the OM, the information contained within it is not disclosed publicly.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people evacuated from Gaza under the medical treatment scheme have since applied for or been granted (a) asylum, (b) humanitarian protection and (c) leave to remain in the United Kingdom.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The children medically evacuated to the UK, alongside their immediate family members, have been issued with visas and granted leave to remain for up to two years. These families have the ability to access public funds, including treatment and wraparound support in the UK.
Should these individuals wish to remain in the UK beyond the initial two years, they can apply for further permission to stay under existing routes within the Immigration Rules.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's accredited official statistics entitled How many people claim asylum in the UK?, published on 21 August 2025, what assessment she made of the potential implications for her policies of the 8,900 asylum applications from people with a visitor visa.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
In the year ending June 2025, UK Visas and Immigration issued 2.2 million Visitor visas. Applicants must satisfy the decision-maker that they are a genuine visitor who will leave the UK at the end of their Visit, and if not the decision-maker will refuse the visa application.
The UK keeps its visa system under regular review, and the government has been clear that we will do whatever it takes to tackle the issue of visa abuse.
Asked by: Lord Godson (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address challenges faced by agencies and the police in identifying individuals within the asylum system who may pose a threat to national security.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The first priority of government is protecting national security.
The Home Office uses various tools to detect and disrupt travel by individuals of national security interest and by individuals excluded from the UK; previously deported from the UK; or using lost, stolen or revoked documents and visas. This includes the use of domestic and international watchlists.
All applications for UK immigration status, including asylum claims, are subject to comprehensive security checks. Where an individual is assessed as presenting a risk to our country, we take swift and robust action.
It is longstanding policy not to discuss either the specific data held on the watchlist, the source of the data or how it is used, as to do so would be counterproductive and harmful to the national security of the UK.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of levels of immigration on the availability of (a) social housing and (b) private rental housing stock over the next Parliament.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government is determined to address the dire inheritance left by its predecessor and restore order to the asylum and immigration systems, delivering lower net migration.
The factors affecting supply and demand in the private rented sector are complex and difficult to disentangle. As well as demographic change, they include house prices, rent levels, taxation policy, interest rates, and the movement of tenants into homeownership and social rented housing. It is not possible to isolate the specific impact of each of these factors.
Eligibility for social housing is already tightly controlled. If a person’s visa means that they cannot access state benefits or local authority housing assistance, they are not eligible for an allocation of social housing. Migrants arriving in the UK on student or work visas are not eligible and nor are those who arrive in the country illegally with no leave to remain.
The most sustainable long-term method to improve housing availability and affordability is to increase the supply of housing. That is why the government’s Plan for Change includes a hugely ambitious milestone of building 1.5 million safe and decent homes in England in this Parliament.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time was for asylum applications in the latest period for which data is available; and what steps her Department plans to take to reduce the time taken to process asylum applications.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Available data on processing of asylum claims is published in table ASY_01 of the ‘Immigration and Protection data’. The latest data is as of 31 March 2025.
The Home Office continues to invest in a programme of transformation and business improvement, to speed up decision making and improve the quality and consistency of our work.
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications were (a) received, (b) granted and (c) rejected for (i) asylum, (ii) Spousal Visas and (iii) Skilled Worker Visas in the last financial year.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas by visa type, including Partner and Skilled Worker visas, in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on visa applications are published in table ‘Vis_D01’ whilst data on the outcomes of visa applications are published in table ‘Vis_D02’ of the ‘detailed entry clearance dataset’. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. Data is from January 2005 up to the end of March 2025.
The Home Office also publishes data on the number of people claiming asylum and the number of initial decisions is published in tables Asy_D01 and Asy_D02 of the ‘Asylum claims and initial decisions detailed datasets’. The latest data relates to the year ending March 2025.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the average processing time for asylum applications for people based in Upper Bann constituency; and how many applications have been refused in the last five years.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The average time taken to process a substantive decision is not currently available from published data.
However, the Home Office does publish data on the number of asylum claims awaiting an initial decision by duration in table Asy_D03 of the ‘Asylum detailed datasets’, as part of the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Additionally, data on the percentage of applications processed within 6 months is published in table ASY_01 of the ‘Immigration and Protection’ data of the Migration Transparency Data collection.
The Home Office publishes data on asylum claims that have been refused at initial decision in Asy_D02 of the ‘Asylum detailed datasets’. The latest available data relates to the year ending March 2025.
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers subsequently submitted an application for family reunion by (a) age, (b) gender and (c) country of origin in each of the last five years; and how many family members were included in each application.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Home Office publishes statistics relating to family visas in the Immigration system statistics publication. Data on family visas can be found in the Entry clearance visa data tables. Table Vis_D01 relates to applications of entry clearance visas granted for family reasons, by nationality. Data on family reunion grants by age and sex can be found in the family reunion detailed dataset.
The Home Office does not publish statistics regarding sponsorship detail.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the lessons learned from international examples of the use of limited humanitarian visas to allow people to apply for asylum from their country of origin.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK has a proud history of providing protection for those who need it through a number of safe and legal routes. However, there is no provision within our Immigration Rules for someone to be allowed to travel to the UK to seek asylum or temporary refuge. Whilst we sympathise with people in many difficult situations around the world, we are not bound to consider asylum claims from the very large numbers of people overseas who might like to come here. Those who need international protection should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach – that is the fastest route to safety.
The UK continues to welcome refugees and people in need through our existing global resettlement schemes which include the UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS), Community Sponsorship and the Mandate Resettlement Scheme. Alongside these schemes, we operate specific schemes for those fleeing Ukraine and Afghanistan, and an immigration route for British National (overseas) status holders from Hong Kong.
There are additional safe and legal routes for people to come to the UK should they wish to join family members here, work or study.