§ Mr. FraserTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the current size of the backlog of asylum applications. [108289]
§ Mrs. RocheThe current estimate for the backlog of asylum claims which were awaiting an initial decision at 31 December 1999 was 102,870.
§ Mr. FraserTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures he is taking to reduce the backlog of asylum applications. [108288]
§ Mrs. RocheA dedicated team has been set up to deal with pre-July 1993 applications and those between July 1993 and December 1995, in accordance with the criteria set out in the White Paper. We have nearly cleared the backlog of pre-1993 cases and expect to clear the backlog of 1993–95 cases by the summer of this year at the latest.
We have developed new processes to speed up the consideration of asylum applications and recruited numerous additional decision makers to process both new applications and those in the backlog dating from 1996 onwards. Output of asylum decisions has recently increased to record levels.