Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she will include Kurds from Iraq and Iran in the streamlined asylum process.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
From 23 February, legacy claims from nationals of Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen will be considered through the Streamlined Asylum Process.
This is on the basis of their current high-grant rate of protection status (refugee status or humanitarian protection). All these nationalities have a grant rate of over 95% and over 100 grants of protection status in the year-ending September 2022. Please see Migration statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for more information.
Upon arrival, all asylum seekers undergo a screening interview, as well as robust security checks in which they will provide biometric information.
Separate work is ongoing to more efficiently process all other asylum claims admitted to the UK asylum system awaiting consideration. To further accelerate decision making we will further drive productivity improvements by simplifying and modernising our system. This includes measures like shortening interviews, removing unnecessary interviews, making guidance simpler and more accessible, dealing with cases more swiftly where they can be certified as manifestly unfounded (e.g. Albania) and recruiting extra decision makers.
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential threat posed to ethnic Arabs in Iran by the Iranian Government.
Answered by Mark Field
We continue to be concerned by reports of substantial violations of the rights of ethnic minorities and their defenders in Iran, including but not limited to Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, Turkmen, and Azerbaijani Turks.
We regularly raise the treatment of religious and ethnic minorities in Iran with the Iranian Government, and we continue to take action with the international community to press Iran to improve its poor record on all human rights issues.