Number of applicants awaiting decisions on asylum rises 300% in four years

Asylum processing times plunge despite Home Office pledge to speed up decision-making

The number of people waiting for a decision on their asylum claim in the UK has surged by more than 300 per cent in four years, new figures show.

A total of 109,735 asylum seekers were awaiting a decision at the end of March 2022, more than double the number two years before and up from 27,256 – a 303 per cent rise – on March 2018.

Campaigners have described the rise as “desperately worrying” and called on ministers to invest in an efficient process to fairly decide asylum applications and urgently ramp up the UK’s resettlement scheme.

Despite pledging to speed up the processing of asylum claims, the Home Office made 29 per cent fewer initial decisions last year than it did two years earlier, according to government data published on Thursday.

More than 73,207 men, women and children have been waiting for a decision for more than the service standard of six months, compared with 31,516 in 2018.

Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said the figures “expose a Home Office in special measures”, adding: “Priti Patel has allowed the asylum backlog to reach a record high by halving the number of decisions taken in the Home Office compared to five years ago.

“As a result, a record number of cases are now taking more than six months, more people are stuck in limbo, and these disgraceful delays are pushing up the taxpayer’s bill.”

He accused the home secretary of “chasing headlines instead of getting the basics right” and urged ministers to “urgently get a grip”.

The increase in decision-making times coincides with a rise in asylum applications, with 65,008 people submitting claims in the year ending March 2022, 56 per cent more than two years before and the highest number for almost two decades.

There were 4,540 people detected arriving by small boats in January to March 2022, more than three times higher than the same three months in 2021 (1,363). One in four (24 per cent) small boat arrivals were from Afghanistan.

There were 85,007 individuals in receipt of asylum support at the end of March 2022, a 39 per cent rise in two years. Tens of thousands of these individuals are being housed in hotels, at a cost to the taxpayer of around £3.6m per day.

The vast majority of people claiming asylum in the UK are banned from working, meaning they are forced to rely on state support.

Among those claiming asylum in the first three months of this year were 241 Ukrainian nationals – more than for the whole of 2021 – demonstrating that some of those who have fled or cannot return to the invaded country have sought refuge via the asylum route.

There has been an increase in the rate of positive decisions, with three-quarters of the initial decisions in the year ending March 2022 grants of asylum or protection – the highest grant rate in over 30 years. The number of refusals was roughly a third of what it was two years ago.

In 2021, Germany received the highest number of asylum applicants (148,165) in Europe, followed by France (103,780). The UK received the fourth-largest number of applicants in Europe.

The data also shows that just 0.6 per cent of asylum seekers the Home Office tried to deport to the EU were actually deported last year.

The department identified 13,473 asylum claimants for consideration on “inadmissibility grounds” – meaning they attempted to send them back to EU countries they travelled through – and 12,277 subsequently had their asylum claims put on hold.

However, the figures reveal that only 75 of these were actually returned to the continent, raising questions about the efficacy of the new inadmissibility rules, introduced in January 2021.

The Home Office says these rules will be used to deport thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda under a new policy announced last month. It is yet to be seen how it will work in practice.

Despite claims from Priti Patel and Boris Johnson stating safe and legal routes are a central part of the government’s approach to asylum, the number of people brought to the UK under resettlement routes has plunged by 67 per cent in two years, with just 1,651 people granted protection through these pathways.

The data does not include numbers relating to the individuals relocated under the Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), which was due to resettle 5,000 people in its first year.

Marley Morris, associate director for migration, trade and communities at think tank IPPR, said the fact that Afghan nationals made up the largest proportion of small boat crossings reveals that many have “felt they have been left with no option but to take this dangerous route to make it to the UK”.

He added: “Now the government’s new plans in response to the Channel crossings could mean that Afghan asylum seekers will be sent to Rwanda. This would be an unimaginably awful outcome for people who have already faced such great hardship.”

He called on ministers to urgently ramp up the UK resettlement scheme, invest in an efficient process to fairly decide asylum applications and rethink its plans to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the sharp rise in people waiting for a decision on their asylum application was “desperately worrying”.

“This leaves thousands of vulnerable men, women and children trapped in limbo, adults banned from working, living hand-to-mouth on less than £6 a day and left not knowing what their future holds,” he said.

“This is simply not good enough. With the UNHCR recently announcing that a staggering 100 million people globally have been forcibly displaced, it is unsurprising asylum applications in the UK continue to rise, and that the number of people submitting claims in the year ending March 2022 is the highest number for almost two decades.”

A Home Office spokesperson said it was “working urgently” to speed up the processing of claims, including via a new asylum action group.

They added: “The government has delivered on its promise to the British people to take back control of our immigration system. As we move out of the pandemic, these statistics show our global points-based system is working.

“We have also helped thousands of people through our generous Safe and Legal routes including those fleeing Putin’s war in Ukraine, refugees from Afghanistan and our BN(O) Hong Kong route.”