Dawn Butler – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dawn Butler on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of language analysis testing of asylum applicants; and if she will carry out a review of her Department’s policy on such testing.

James Brokenshire

The Government has no current plans to revise the existing Equality Act exemptions relating to language analysis testing.

No further nationalities have been added to the Equality Act exemption authorisation since it was introduced in 2013.

A review on language analysis use was undertaken in 2011 and published in 2012.

(https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/257177/language-analysis.pdf).

No further such review is presently planned. However, we do monitor the use of language analysis regularly to ensure it is used as effectively as possible and to identify new trends in nationality swapping.