Thousands of asylum seekers living in hotels cannot be told refugee status

Exclusive: Labour slams ‘ridiculous bureaucracy’ as Home Office rules mean people in hotels can’t be formally granted refugee status

Thousands of asylum seekers living in hotels cannot be told if they have been granted refugee status, The Independent can reveal.

Rishi Sunak has pledged to “abolish” a record backlog of asylum decisions that has left more than 140,000 people waiting to learn their fate, blaming the figure on a rise in small boat crossings and migrants “exploiting our system”.

And the home secretary has accused civil servants of assessing asylum claims too slowly, telling a parliamentary committee: “Frankly, their productivity is too low.”