§ Lord McNairasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will state the number of requests for asylum which have been received in each of the last five years for which figures are available and the number of those requests which have been granted.
§ Lord BelsteadComprehensive statistics on such applications were not kept before 1st January 1979. In 1979, 1,550 individual applications were received, 708 of which were granted in that year and 619 were under consideration at the end of the year. In 1980, 3,044 applications were received; 1,413 applications were granted and 1,566 remained under consideration at the end of the year. The above figures do not include people admitted under the special programmes for Vietnamese and Latin American refugees. In 1979, 5,094 Vietnamese refugees were granted asylum in the United Kingdom. The figure for 1980 was 6,953. Sixty people were admitted in 1979 under the special Latin American refugee programme and 96 in the first part of 1980. This programme was closed at the end of 1979.