Written questions by O'Brien.

How much she expects will be loaned in refugee integration loans this year.

Refugee Integration Loans were introduced in 2007 following a public consultation and have operated over the last seventeen years to help recipients with the costs of integrating into UK society. They are funded by the Home Office, who make the initial decisions on applications. They are then administered and recouped by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Single applicants can borrow between £100 and £500 and if applying jointly the maximum amount increases to £780. The Home Office work with DWP to administer the loans across different IT platforms. Consequently, data on the level of loans provided on an annual basis is not held in an easily reportable format and would require a manual search of records that could only be conducted at a disproportionate cost.

What the cost to the public purse of the asylum system was in each year since 2005; and what estimate she has made of the cost for 2024.

Data on asylum costs has been disclosed each year since 2013-14 in the Home Office’s Annual Report and Accounts. However, data for Financial Year 2024-25 is not yet published and will be available when the 2024-25 Annual Report and Accounts is published. Data for asylum costs was not published prior to Financial Year 2013-14.Please refer to the below page references which are available through the following link:Home Office annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)Financial Year 2023-24 page 243 (page 247 on the PDF reader)Financial Year 2022-23 page 244Financial Year 2021-22 page 171Financial Year 2020-21 page 159Financial Year 2019-20 page 150Financial Year 2018-19 page 135Financial Year 2017-18 page 124Financial Year 2016-17 page 115Financial Year 2015-16 page 132 (page 133 on the PDF reader)Financial Year 2014-15 page 124 (page 127 on the PDF reader)Financial Year 2013-14 page 110 (page 127 on the PDF reader)

How many applications for asylum were (a) granted and (b) refused by (i) year of age, (ii) sex and (iii) country of origin in the last 12 months.

The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum applications by age, sex, and nationality are published in table Asy_D01 of the ‘Asylum Applications, Decisions and Resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data is up to March 2024.