To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many Afghan asylum seekers cited membership of the Taliban as grounds for (a) claiming asylum and (b) it being unsafe for them to return to Afghanistan in each of the last five years. (145053)

Information about an applicant's reasons for claiming asylum is not collected centrally. The requested information could therefore be obtained only at disproportionate cost by examination of individual case records

Information on asylum applications, initial decisions, appeals and removals for nationals of Afghanistan are published quarterly and annually. Copies of these publications are available from the Library of the House and from the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics website at:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration1.html.