The number of asylum seekers waiting for their application to be decided has risen to a record high of more than 160,000 after tripling in the past three years, new figures have revealed.
Suella Braverman’s Home Office statistics show that 160,919 migrants claiming refugee status had yet to receive a decision by the end of December last year.
That is more than triple the 51,228 total at the end of 2020 and follows both a surge in asylum claims and a drop in the number of decisions being made.
The Home Office added that asylum applications, driven significantly by the record number of migrants arriving on small boats across the Channel, had risen by “over double” since 2019, while initial decisions had dropped 10 per cent in the same period.
The rising backlog will intensify the political row over the Government’s handling of the asylum system, which both ministers and opposition politicians have warned is broken.
The Home Office pointed out that beyond the asylum statistics, today’s figures also show that 481,804 people “were offered safe and legal routes into the UK”, including through schemes for Afghans, Ukrainians and people from Hong Kong, as well as family reunion visas.
But the political focus remained on the new figures on the asylum backlog which came as the Government unveiled a new fast-track scheme for asylum seekers from five countries — Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen. They will have their claims processed without the need for face to face interview if they applied before June last year.
Instead, they will have to complete a questionnaire.
It follows controversy over the Government’s handling of asylum cases in the wake of the severe overcrowding revealed last summer at the Manston holding centre in Kent.
Hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent on hotel rooms to house asylum seekers as a result, prompting protests in some parts of the country, including Knowsley in Merseyside where violence erupted earlier this month as protesters and pro-migrant groups clashed and a police van was set on fire.
