Written question asked by Lord Grayling (Conservative) on Wednesday, 24 February 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 26 February 2010. It was answered by Alan Johnson (Labour) on Thursday, 25 March 2010 on behalf of the Home Office.

Asylum

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many people of each sex in each age group from each country have been awaiting a decision on an application for asylum at each location in each year since 1997;

Answer: Information is published quarterly on the number of asylum applicants awaiting an initial decision and as at the end of December 2009, the latest published period, the total was 6,900 (excluding dependents). This figure is derived from the cumulative effect of applications received, decisions made, and applications withdrawn, applied to the total outstanding cases figure produced from the manual count at the end of August 2001. Figures are rounded to nearest 100. The original manual count was a total figure only and consequently the figure cannot be broken down by nationality, gender and age.Information on asylum applications is published annually in the Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom bulletin and on a quarterly basis in the Control of Immigration Quarterly Statistical Summary.These publications are available from the Library of the House and from the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate website at:"www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration-asylum-stats.html"

Secondary information