The UK’s asylum backlog continued to go up in the final months under the Tories – with nearly 119,000 people left in limbo at the end of June.
Home Office figures reveal a slight rise between March and June this year, with 118,329 waiting for an initial decision just before the General Election. The previous Government was accused of being “distracted by the Rwanda plan” after failing to bring down the huge backlog.
The swathe of data also shows that people fleeing Afghanistan and Iran made up almost a third of small boat arrivals in the past year. One in six of the 35,000 who who made the dangerous crossing in the 12 months to June were Afghan nationals.
Home Office figures also revealed a sharp rise in Vietnamese people making the perilous journey, now accounting for one in 10. Asylum seekers from Turkey and Syria made up the rest of the top five nationalities.
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PA)
More than 80% of those who arrived in the UK without authorisation came by small boat – while more than 3,400 came by air without the right documents. But there was a sharp drop in the total number of people arriving illegally, with 38,784 recorded – down 26% compared to the previous year.
The Tory failure to tackle the asylum backlog has sparked sharp criticism. The 118,882 people waiting for an initial decision was slightly up from 118,329 at the end of March 2024. But it was down from 175,457 at the end of June 2023 when Suella Braverman was Home Secretary.
Marley Morris, from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), said: The new data out today demonstrate how tough the new government’s inheritance is on asylum and migration. Despite the previous Home Secretary making progress on clearing the backlog of asylum claims last year, the backlog has barely changed in recent months as ministers were distracted by the Rwanda plan. The government has done the right thing in cancelling the Rwanda deal and unblocking asylum processing, but further reform will be necessary to bring down the backlog and close down eye-wateringly expensive asylum hotels.”
And Imran Hussain, an executive director at the Refugee Council, said: “Today’s figures again show that the last government left an asylum system in meltdown as a result of the Rwanda plan and the Illegal Migration Act, which effectively banned asylum in the UK. The chaos resulted in more than 118,000 men, women and children waiting for an initial decision on their claim and productivity of Home Office decision makers in the months before the election was at its lowest since the height of the Covid pandemic.
“The new Government’s course change to serious reform on asylum policy is necessary and welcome, but it will take time to move the system from a state of crisis to being fit for purpose.