§ Mr. IrvingTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give the sources of the figure quoted by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) in replying to the debate on new clause 2 of the Immigration Bill that West Germany has some 800,000 outstanding applications for asylum,Official Report column 882, 16 February, in the light of official figures released by the Federal Republic of Germany's Federal Agency for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees showing that, at the end of December 1987, there were 51,561 outstanding 256W applications for asylum involving 81,725 individuals in the Federal Republic of Germany; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. RentonThe source of the figure, which should have been 700,000, was a report issued on 12 August 1987 by the London embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. This account was overtaken by a survey published in February this year by the Federal Interior Ministry giving a similar figure as the total number of refugees and displaced persons living in West Germany, and saying that of these 165,000 were asylum seekers whose applications were still pending. The point made in the debate therefore still stands.