HC Deb 27 January 1999 vol 324 cc248-9W
Mr. Coleman

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if a person who has been refused political asylum but granted indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom has the right to appeal to a special adjudicator about the decision to refuse political asylum. [67109]

Mr. Mike O'Brien

There is no right of appeal against a refusal to grant asylum in these circumstances.

Mr. Coleman

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research has been carried out on the comparative costs of(a) current arrangements for funding asylum seekers and (b) restoring benefits for asylum seekers, during the period that his Department takes to process an application. [67043]

Mr. Mike O'Brien

The evidence available suggests that the removal of access to benefits to those asylum seekers who do not make their claim at their port of entry leads to a significant reduction in the numbers of asylum seekers. The Government believe that cash is a strong factor in encouraging economic migrants and that the restoration of benefits would lead to a significantly higher number of asylum seekers thereby leading to a much greater cost than the current arrangements. These conclusions come from an examination of the publicly available data.

Mr. Coleman

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were granted(a) refugee status and (b) exceptional leave to remain following a successful appeal against refusal of that status in each year since 1993, broken down by country of origin. [67112]

Mr. Mike O'Brien

I regret that this information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Information on the number of allowed asylum appeals over the period 1994 to 1998 is available and this is given in the table.

Asylum appeals under the 1993 and 1996 Acts determined by

adjudicators of the Immigration Appeals Authority,

excluding dependants, 1994 to 1998
Year Appeals determined 2 Appeals allowed 3 Percentage of appeals allowed
1993 n/a n/a n/a
1994 2,440 105 4
1995 7,035 230 3
1996 13,792 515 4
1997 21,090 1,180 6
19981 25,320 2,750 11
1 Provisional data
2 Based on information collected by the Lord Chancellor's Department
3 Estimates based on information collected by the Asylum Directorate