Rory Stewart – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rory Stewart on 2014-06-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Afghan interpreters have been granted asylum since he announced in 2013 that the resettlement package for Afghan interpreters would extend to any interpreter serving for a year continuously up to December 2012.

Mr Mark Francois

The ex- gratia redundancy scheme for locally engaged civilians (LECs) which was announced on 4 June 2013, includes a bespoke immigration arrangement specifically for Afghan LECs which is unrelated to the UK asylum system.

The ex-gratia scheme includes an offer of relocation to the UK for LECs who meet the relevant eligibility criteria. We estimate that up to 600 LECs will be eligible to apply for relocation via the ex-gratia scheme; the majority of these individuals will have been interpreters. Two have been granted visas; visa applications are being processed for another 269. Further applications will be processed as our remaining LECs are made redundant. We expect the first LECs to arrive in the UK later this summer.