HL Deb 07 February 2000 vol 609 cc61-3WA
Lord Avebury

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the testing of the Immigration and Nationality 'Directorate's casework system was

  1. (ii) the percentage of working days lost in that year due to injuries sustained by police officers as a result of assaults;
  2. (iii) the number of police working days lost in each force in that year due to sickness; and
  3. (iv) the percentage of police working days lost in that year due to sickness.

completed as scheduled in November 1999; whether the piloting of the system to confirm that it is robust under normal operating conditions has been completed; whether they cleared the pre-1993 backlog by the end of 1999 as scheduled; how many of the 1993–95 cases remain to be cleared; and whether they are still confident that the White Paper target of deciding applications on average in two months by April 2001 will be met. [HL703]

Lord Bassam of Brighton

Testing of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate casework programme information technology system is still continuing and is not now expected to be completed before Easter. We have almost cleared the backlog of pre-1993 cases: 240 remained at the end of December 1999. At the end of December some 10,975 of the 1993–95 cases were remaining.

We remain committed to meeting the two-month target for deciding all new asylum applications from April 2001.