Asylum
Home Department

Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress her Department has made in clearing outstanding legacy asylum cases.

Damian Green (Minister of State (Immigration), Home Office; Ashford, Conservative)

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) committed to review all older unresolved cases by summer 2011. A total of 500,500 cases were reviewed as part of the programme. As Jonathan Sedgwick, then acting chief executive of the UK Border Agency, reported to the Home Affairs Committee on 12 September 2012, 479,000 of the 500,500 cases in the legacy programme have been fully concluded.

23,000 remaining cases were fully reviewed but, due to various barriers, could not be brought to a final conclusion. UKBA established the Case Assurance and Audit Unit (CAAU) to remove such barriers and bring the remaining cases to a final conclusion. Rob Whiteman reported to the HASC on 22 December 2011 that the number of live cases had now reduced to 17,000. CAAU will continue to monitor these cases and resolve them as barriers are lifted.

CAAU is also responsible for the active monitoring of 98,000 controlled archive cases and, as Rob Whiteman reported to the HASC on 22 December 2011, this has now reduced to 93,000.