Asylum backlog at record high, Home Office figures show

The number of asylum seekers waiting for a decision on their case in the UK has soared to record levels, with about 166,000 people in the backlog.

Almost 110,000 have been waiting for six months or more, according to Home Office data published on Thursday.

The new figures show about 89,000 people claimed asylum in the UK in 2022, the highest for 19 years.

On Wednesday the Home Office announced plans to streamline the system by scrapping interviews in some cases.

The move aims to reduce the asylum backlog which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to see largely eradicated by the end of this year.

Instead of a face-to-face interview, some 12,000 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen will fill in a 10-page questionnaire in English.

Applicants from these countries already have 95% of their asylum claims accepted, says the Home Office.

Officials say claimants will undergo a face-to-face interview if caseworkers are not satisfied with the information provided in the questionnaire.

There were higher numbers of asylum claims in some European countries than in the UK in 2022, statistics indicate. For example, there were nearly 218,000 claims in Germany, more than 137,000 in France and 116,000 in Spain.

The Home Office figures show in the UK overall, more than three quarters (75%) of asylum decisions made in 2022 were in favour of granting asylum, the highest in more than 30 years.

However the actual number of decisions made in 2022 was 10% below the level before the pandemic.

And the figures also suggest that while the number of asylum caseworkers has doubled since the pandemic, each worker is less productive. In early 2020, seven decisions were made by each worker each month, now it is four decisions a month.

The 166,000 backlog includes people waiting for the outcome of appeals as well as for initial decisions. This figure is a rise of 60% on last year and is more than 160,000 for the first time.

Of those whose applications were refused, 2,192 people were returned - either forcibly or voluntarily - in the year to the end of September. This number is much lower than in previous years.

In 2010, 10,663 failed asylum seekers were returned, although Home Office officials say the way asylum returns data is collected has recently improved.

When forcible returns are considered separately, the figure for last year was 489, compared with almost 6,800 in 2010.

Conservative party chairman Greg Hands said: "We need to get to grips with the backlog... Absolutely we're committed to the safety and security of this country.

"There's still a very strong process in place. We're talking here about cases that would be granted, we're just going to do it more quickly in a more streamlined way whilst making sure that public safety is secure."

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "After 13 years of failure, today's figures underline the shocking mess the Conservatives have made of the asylum system."

Ms Cooper said Labour would "take more decisions, secure new agreements with Europe, and crack down on the criminal gangs".

"Rishi Sunak needs to stop posturing and start getting the basics right."

Additional reporting by Maryam Ahmed, Harriet Agerholm and Jack Rodgers