HC Deb 21 November 2001 vol 375 cc354-5W
Mr. Allan

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what procedures are being followed in respect of awarding the contract for smart cards for asylum seekers. [16054]

Angela Eagle

There is no new contract for the Application Registration Card application. This will be an expansion of the existing Immigration and Asylum Fingerprint System as allowed under the original terms of the associated Official Journal of the European Community (OJEC) Notice of 30 November 1999. Compatibility with this system is essential, as existing equipment will be used to check the cards. Procurement will be effected by way of a Change Control Notice to the existing contract.

Mr. Allan

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the value of the contract for providing smart cards for asylum seekers. [16053]

Angela Eagle

The price for changing the existing Immigration and Asylum Fingerprint System contract has yet to be fixed. Budgetary estimates do exist but these could not be published without compromising our negotiating position with suppliers.

It is not normal practice to place budgetary estimates in the public domain.

Norman Baker

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many failed asylum seekers have been returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1 May 1997. [15821]

Angela Eagle

[holding answer 19 November 2001]: The available information relates to the nationality of persons removed. Published statistics show that 60 nationals of the Democratic Republic of Congo who had sought asylum at some stage were removed from the United Kingdom in 1997 and 20 in 1998. A breakdown of the nationality of persons removed in 1999 to 2001 is not available due to data recording problems; these problems are being investigated and it is hoped that nationality information will be available at some stage in the future.

Mr. Cox

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for political asylum were waiting to be heard on 1 February 2000. [15749]

Angela Eagle

There were 121,700 asylum applications awaiting an initial decision on 31 January 2000. This figure has been revised from 103,495 after a manual count of all asylum cases, and is rounded to the nearest hundred. A physical count was ordered by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to ensure the reliability of the statistics. Problems with the backlog figures had arisen from an accumulation of errors since the last manual count of outstanding asylum applications in 1996. The comparable figure for 31 August 2001 was 43,100.

Information on the number of cases awaiting an initial decision is published regularly on the Home Office website at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration1.htm.

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