Lord Roberts of Llandudno – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Roberts of Llandudno on 2016-04-12.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the correction by Lord Bates on 24 March to his Written Answer on 19 October 2015 (HL2297), why they gave incorrect figures for the number of young asylum seekers deported on reaching their 18th birthday in their initial answer, and why it took them five months to correct those figures.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The incorrect figures given in the original response to Question HL2297 resulted from the use of an incorrect definition which excluded former Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children who now had linked dependants and cases made prior to October 2006. This error was identified following the correction of PQ 13206 in February 2016, which prompted a review of other related answers resulting in correction of this and five related House of Commons answers.
Such mistakes are rare and when they occur they are taken very seriously. It is regrettable that human error caused the original response to be incorrect. Improvements have been put in place to ensure that such mistakes will not be made in future. The appropriate definition has been reviewed, confirmed and made clear to the officials involved.
