An Asylum Amnesty?

In the House of Commons research note on the Case Resolution Directorate Programme the UK Border Agency is quoted as saying that:

This is not an amnesty for individuals whose cases are unresolved. We will consider the cases in same way as new applications, using the same rules to decide whether applicants qualify for permission to stay in the United Kingdom or should be refused asylum and removed from the country. Human rights factors will be part of this assessment.

 In its own report on the CRD in June 2011 the Home Affairs Select Committee suggesting that the grant rate "amounts to an amnesty"(BBC). The argument to suggest that the tens of thousands granted status in the UK as a result of this was not an amnesty is that these cases were considered in the same way as all other cases but that because they had been unresolved longer many had more accrued human rights.

In relation to that request we asked UKBA what we thought was quite a simple question - how many of the 161,000 granted had previously been refused asylum, how many had not had a decision and how many had never claimed asylum.  

UKBA responded that they did not know and could not tell how many cases had been previously discovered, a decision upheld on appeal.