Why the Government must provide more safe and legal routes for asylum seekers - Greg Wright

However, the Prime Minister’s pledge to “abolish” the backlog of asylum claims by the end of 2023 has been called into question after officials admitted only a portion of applications would be cleared. Setting out a five-point plan to tackle the crisis in the Common, Rishi Sunak said “unless we act now, and decisively, this will only get worse”.

Among new measures unveiled to curb Channel crossings, he told MPs “we expect to abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of next year” after hiring more caseworkers and overhauling the system for processing applications. But within hours Downing Street appeared to downgrade the target, insisting the Prime Minister had only committed to clearing the backlog of claims made before June.

The scale of the problem was made clear in the latest published Home Office figures, which showed in the year to September there were more than 143,000 asylum seekers waiting for a decision on their claims, with nearly 100,000 waiting more than six months. Mr Sunak told the Commons: “Our plan is to clear the initial asylum backlog by the end of next year. It’s about 117,000 currently on published statistics.”

Later, his official spokesman told reporters the Prime Minister was committing only to getting rid of clearing a backlog of 92,601 initial asylum claims made before June, when the Nationality and Borders Act came into force.

“It wouldn’t be right to prioritise those more recent claims, it would be right to focus on the legacy claims that predate the introduction of the Act,” he added.

The spokesman could not give a deadline to tackle all the claims, nor could he give a figure for a planned quota for asylum seekers.

A Government spokesperson later said the plans to clear the “initial asylum decision backlog of legacy cases” involves “making an initial decision in all cases that have been outstanding since before June 28 2022, which is when we changed the system through the Nationality and Borders Act to reform how we process cases”.

“This allows us to differentiate claims for the first time depending on whether people come to the UK through legal or illegal routes.”

Under Mr Sunak’s plans, the number of asylum caseworkers who assess claims will double and there will be more funding for the NCA (National Crime Agency) to tackle organised immigration crime in Europe and plans to ramp up immigration raids on illegal workers.

The sceptics challenging the proposals included Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, who said the Prime Minister had failed to set out any concrete plans to expand safe routes through a resettlement programme or an expansion in family reunion visas.

Sile Reynolds, head of asylum advocacy at Freedom From Torture, said that, instead of taking the opportunity to fast-track grants for clearly well-founded claims to clear the backlog, the Prime Minister was simply recycling unworkable gimmicks. Britain has a proud history of providing asylum to people fleeing persecution, who have enriched their adopted home. The Government must create more safe and legal routes for those who wish to reach the UK to claim asylum legitimately. This approach offers the best hope of avoiding further tragedies.

Greg Wright, deputy business editor The Yorkshire Post