Home Office to tell refugees to complete questionnaire in English or risk refusal

Exclusive: Claimants will have only 20 days to respond or face rejection

Plans to cut the asylum backlog by sending questionnaires to refugees instead of conducting official interviews will demand that claimants reply in English within 20 working days or risk refusal, a leaked document shows.

The Home Office will on Thursday begin sending out copies of the 11-page document to about 12,000 people from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen as part of Rishi Sunak's plans to cut the legacy backlog" of 92,000 asylum claims.