§ Lord Gainfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have to reinforce asylum decision-taking procedures.
§ Baroness BlatchThe Government intend to undertake a significant reinforcement of the asylum determination system, and of the independent Immigration Appellate Authorities in respect of their responsibility for hearing asylum appeals.
The United Kingdom fully adheres to its obligations towards genuine refugees. But the number of abusive or otherwise undeserving asylum applications has grown massively since the late 1980s. Currently, nearly 80 per cent. of asylum applications are rejected outright, and the great majority of appeals are dismissed. It is not in the interests of genuine asylum seekers for the system to be overloaded with applications from people whose real motives have nothing to do with a well founded fear of persecution.
Additional money is being made available to fund 150 additional determination staff in the Asylum Division of the Home Office, and there will be a corresponding reinforcement in the independent appeal system. Once the additional staff are in post and trained, it will make possible an additional 7,000 initial decisions annually.