§ Mr. Gordon PrenticeTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance he is offering Mozambique in connection with the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. [87858]
§ Mr. Tony LloydPresidential and parliamentary elections are due to take place in Mozambique before mid-December. The EU has committed 21 million euros (£13 million) to the election process, of which around372W times as cases which have been outstanding for too long are brought to account. Thirdly, the new performance indicators will provide a better picture of exactly how the caseload is being affected by the changes, which are being phased in over the coming months. And, additionally, the new appeals processes presently being introduced would in any event mean that future clearance times statistics were not directly comparable with those for past years.
This dual strategy has already paid dividends in terms of performance in the last few months. At the end of February, ITS/The Appeals Service figures showed that the backlog contained 70,348 cases and represented almost 50 per cent. of the caseload. By the end of May, the backlog had been reduced to 34,194 cases. During April and May, a total of 64,647 cases were cleared. Due to the changes which came on stream in April, the intake of appeals in April and May has been much lower than usual—ITS/The Appeals Service has taken full advantage of this opportunity and the cumulative effect of the record clearances and lower intake has been that, by the end of May, the outstanding caseload has fallen below 100,000, to 99,410, for the first time since November 1995.