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Home Office

Answer

Mr. Best: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many Iraqi asylum applications have been refused in each of the last five years. [125101] Beverley Hughes: The table shows the number of Iraqi asylum applicants, excluding dependants, refused asylum or exceptional leave to remain in the United Kingdom between January 1998 and December 2002. These statistics relate to initial decisions only and exclude the outcome of appeals or other subsequent decisions. Initial decisions on applications received for asylum in the United Kingdom1 for nationals of Iraq--1998 to 2002 Number of principal applicants _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Cases considered under normal procedures3 Backlog clearance exercise4 Initial Granted asylum Granted ELR Refused Granted asylum Refused under decisions2 or ELR under backlog backlog criteria criteria5 1998 1,100 510 500 90 -- -- 1999 745 315 320 100 5 * 2000 5,530 845 2,455 2,220 10 * 20016 8,880 815 1,855 6,210 -- -- 20026 11,785 700 8,130 2,955 -- -- _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1 Figures rounded to the nearest 5, with * = 1 or 2. 2 Information is of initial decisions, excluding the outcome of appeals or other subsequent decisions. 3 Cases considered under normal procedures may include some cases decided under the backlog criteria. 4 Cases decided under measures aimed at reducing the pre-1996 asylum application backlog. 5 Includes some cases where the application has been refused on substantive grounds. 6 Provisional data. Information on initial decisions on asylum applications is published quarterly. The next publication will cover the period up to June 2003, and will be available provisionally from 28 August 2003 on the Home Office Research Development and Statistics Directorate website at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ rds/immigration1.html

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

125101; 409 c266W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Asylum Iraq Refugees

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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