To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department makes an assessment of the (a) location and (b) cost of temporary accommodation when determining the order in which asylum seekers in that accommodation are given interviews.

The Home Office do not make an assessment of the location or cost of temporary accommodation when determining the order in which asylum seekers are given interviews; our usual tasking priorities are followed.

We are currently concentrating on deciding older claims, cases with acute vulnerability and those in receipt of the greatest level of support, including Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children. Additionally, we are prioritising cases where an individual has already received a decision, but a reconsideration is required.

Asylum Operations have also introduced a digital interviewing capability as part of the wider Home Office digital transformation programme. This enables us to maximise our capacity to conduct interviews in locations across the UK and progress cases in a more efficient and cost-effective way.