How to fix our scandalous asylum backlog

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

A substantial majority will qualify for asylum or humanitarian protection in this country, a fact the government stubbornly refuses to recognise (PA)

I sat as a judge of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal for eight years, resigning well before retirement age in despair at an increasingly dysfunctional system. Of the 161,000 people now waiting for an initial decision, the likelihood is that a substantial majority will qualify for asylum or humanitarian protection in this country, a fact the government stubbornly refuses to recognise.

What should be done, then, about initial assessment, given that current delays are so scandalous? One idea would be to have a crash programme supplementing the current assessment process.

Recent law graduates could be recruited, say on a year's contract, to supplement existing Home Office assessors. With their pre-existing legal knowledge, graduates would need a relatively short period of training in specific Refugee Convention and Humanitarian Protection issues. Groups could be seconded to study particular theatres (like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or Eritrea), further honing their expertise. At the end of their contractual period, graduates would have gained invaluable experience, advantageous to career paths.

Drawbacks? Additional hearing centres, many more interpreters, and the cost – but this latter factor must be set against the huge sums Ms Braverman is shelling out on her preposterous Rwanda scheme, plus the price of all those hotel rooms (shared or not), converted air force bases and prison hulks (sorry, barges).

Andrew Rose Farnham, Surrey

Absent examiners are destroying students’ dreams

Having just returned from a joyous celebration of our granddaughter’s graduation from Christ’s College, Cambridge, I’d like to share a tale of frustration that not many may know. Our granddaughter has “graduated” not knowing what her degree is and will not know until October due to a marking boycott [part of the pay dispute between the University and College Union and employers].

She entered Cambridge on October 2018 to read modern languages, only to be told to delay studies in March 2019 because of Covid. She is Australian and returned home. Covid and then the invasion of Ukraine did not help. Her internship was cancelled as it was in St Petersburg. She then managed a year in France as one of the final students on the Erasmus scheme. In October 2022 she returned to Cambridge for her final year only to be denied results to her finals. She is highly intelligent, an extremely hard worker and tenacious to the end.

I do not blame the examiners for trying to improve their situation but this is cruel and unjust to all those students who have seen their dreams delayed and career prospects delayed or denied completely, as employers need to know your qualifications whatever they are. Her parents and sister travelled over from Australia for the event and we determined to make it as special as we could in the circumstances, and we did.

Jim and Pat Henshaw Shropshire

Justice for Jeremy Clarkson

Having read Maya Oppenheim’s analysis of the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s ruling on the infamous Clarkson column in which he roundly abused The Duchess of Sussex, I was struck by the tone of IPSO, which blatantly saw Jeremy Clarkson’s unpleasant words in terms of the “war of the sexes”.

Clearly, in this instance, the sexist language used to denigrate and mock another individual was directed by a man towards a woman but had this vile piece of journalism been perpetrated by an equally vociferous female journalist towards Prince Harry, using the same imagery and language, would it have triggered an inquiry by IPSO?

I think it’s fair to say that it’s unlikely there’d have been the kerfuffle or the outrage if the reverse had happened and, while I’m a firm believer in equality, I fear the tide has turned and our response to abuse and sexism is not even-handed. While Meghan Markle was cruelly wronged by Clarkson, I’d suggest if the reverse had occurred it would have passed without comment... and that’s not fair.

Steve Mackinder Denver, Norfolk