---

Home Office

Answer

Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement setting out the reasons for the difference between the number of asylum appeals (a) received by his Department and (b) referred by his Department to the Immigration Appellate Authority during 2000. [149571] Mrs. Roche: The data recently published are provisional. The main reasons for the difference between the number of asylum appeals received in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate and the number referred to the Immigration Appellate Authority are: (a) increased work in progress on the appeals received within the Immigration and Nationality Directorate as decision output has risen; (b) a number of cases in which a non-compliance decision was originally made but it has subsequently emerged that a statement of evidence form had been received in time. We have undertaken to reconsider these cases; and (c) because the current data on appeals lodged are taken from manual records and we believe that they overstate the actual number of appeals lodged. The Immigration and Nationality Directorate is in the process of transition from manual to electronic records for appeals. The total number of appeals lodged is likely to be revised downwards once the reliability of new electronic data have been established.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

362 c669W; 149571

Session

2000-01

Subjects

Appeals Asylum Applications Software Immigration Statistics Refugees Immigration Appellate Authority

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk