HC Deb 15 March 2000 vol 346 cc180-1W
Mr. Cox

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate how many children arrived in the United Kingdom in 1999 as members of an asylum seeking family. [114251]

Mrs. Roche

The information requested is not available. Information on principal applicants and dependants is published on an annual basis. It is planned that the figures for 1999 will be included within the next Asylum Bulletin which is due to be published in June of this year. It is not possible separately to identify dependent children without the examination of individual case records at disproportionate cost.

Mr. Gerrard

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many asylum seekers have applied for permission to work, having been in the UK for six months or more; and how many of these have been granted permission, in each of the last three years for which figures are available. [114565]

Mrs. Roche

Statistics on the number of asylum seekers granted permission to work are not recorded centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.