§ Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthornasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will give some degree of priority in the processing of asylum applications to those applicants of five or more years' standing who have not yet received an initial decision. [HL964]
§ Lord Williams of MostynWe are currently looking at ways of tackling the backlog of undecided cases without allowing newer cases to create further backlogs.
§ Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthornasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Williams of Mostyn on 26 February (WA 114), why they are unable to provide year-by-year statistics of applicants seeking asylum prior to 1993; and whether they will now take steps to ascertain how many applicants are still awaiting initial decision who applied in each specific year prior to 1994; and [HL962]
Whether there are any cases of applicants for asylum who made application prior to 1988 and who have not yet received an initial decision, and, if so, how many. [HL965]
§ Lord Williams of MostynA breakdown, by year of application, of those asylum applicants awaiting an initial decision which date from 1994 onwards (following the introduction of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993) can be estimated from centrally recorded information but, regrettably, the same source does not provide reliable data for earlier cases. This is due to the low level of recording of initial decisions made during the early 1990s, which results in an over-stating of the number of such applications yet to be decided. Although the overall number of outstanding cases which pre-date 1994 can be estimated (around 10,000 at the end of 1997), an accurate breakdown, by year of application, could only be achieved at disproportionate cost by examination of individual case files. For these reasons, it is also not possible to establish accurately the number of undecided applications, if any, which were lodged prior to 1988.
There are no plans to carry out a detailed breakdown of outstanding asylum applications in advance of the computerisation project being implemented in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, which will eventually supply a centralised computer record for each asylum application.
§ Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthornasked Her Majesty's Government:
How they can conduct their current review of the asylum system and the processing of asylum 103WA applications, or evaluate its efficiency, without a detailed breakdown by year of application of the progress of all cases; and what progress has been made towards the development of a central computerised record for asylum applications and decisions. [HL963]
§ Lord Williams of MostynThe procedures which are being reviewed, including how undecided asylum applications are recorded and monitored, are those which we inherited from our predecessors. The key issue is how to speed up consideration of all asylum applications whilst tackling the root causes of delays in the system as a whole. A detailed breakdown by year of application, although not essential, would have been helpful to our consideration, but is not provided for at present. A centralised computerised record for asylum applications and decisions will be an eventual product of the computerisation project being implemented in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.