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THE HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
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27.
(i) The Home Office should make a commitment to adjust the staffing of the Refugee Unit whenever necessary in response to changing levels of work, to prevent undue delay to asylum applications.
(ii) The Home Office should set itself targets for lengths of time taken to determine initial applications for asylum and use these to monitor the adequacy of the Refugee Unit's staffing. (Para 113).
28. Maximum permitted times should be established within the Immigration and Nationality Department for routine operations in connection with asylum applications, such as notification of decisions, and excessive delays should be monitored and acted upon to prevent backlogs. (Para 114).
29. Asylum seekers whose initial application has not been determined within six months should, if they request it, be given an insurance number and permission to work (Para 115).
30. Persons who begin a course while their application is pending should be retrospectively treated as home students if their application is granted, and the DES should issue instructions to this effect to local education authorities. (Para 116).
31. The Home Office should re-examine the extent to which it reveals the sources of its background country information and the ways in which such information has affected the appellant's case, and should make greater use of presenting officers specialising in asylum cases. (Para 119).
32. There should be a presumption in favour of giving permanent settlement to those with exceptional leave to remain after seven years. (Para 123).
33. The DES should issue instructions to local education authorities that those with exceptional leave to remain are to be treated as favourably as those with full refugee status in allocating grants. (Para 124). ·
34. Sympathetic consideration should be given to granting British citizenship to children of those with exceptional leave to remain, or with asylum without settlement, who would otherwise be stateless. (Para 124).
35. Statistics relating to immigration and those relating to the granting of asylum should be clearly separated, if possible in separate documents. (Para 127). SEAD
36. The Government should promote and participate fully in international co- operation and consultation concerning refugees. (Para 128).
Netherlands
ANNEX
European Visit Monday 19 October-Friday 2 November 1984
On Monday 29th October the Committee visited the refugee reception centre at Apeldoorn, in the company of officials of the Ministry of Welfare, Public Health and Culture. The aim of reception policy in the Netherlands is to make the refugees independent, both financially and mentally, as soon as possible. Time spent in the centre
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