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The government will fail to meet its asylum backlog target without a drastic increase in the processing of applications, a Sky News analysis has found.

At present, there are more than 136,000 asylum applications waiting for an initial decision, including 62,000 that were made before 28 June 2022 – the so-called “legacy backlog”.

In December Rishi Sunak pledged to clear the legacy backlog by the end of 2023. Since then, however, the Home Office has processed just 936 such cases per week.

If the prime minister is to meet his target of clearing all 62,000 remaining cases this year, the Home Office will need to work more than three times as fast.

At current rates, there are set to be more than 41,000 legacy backlog cases remaining by the end of the year.

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Home Office figures released today show that the prime minister is struggling to make an impact in another key area of asylum policy: the use of expensive contingency accommodation, such as hotels and B&Bs, to house asylum seekers.

Mr Sunak pledged to end the practice in December, which cost the Home Office £2.3bn in the year to March. However, new data shows the number being housed in hotels has risen from 45,775 to 50,456.

That number is unlikely to be significantly impacted by today’s arrival of the first asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm, a barge purchased by the government to reduce the number of claimants staying in hotels.

Fewer than 50 people are set to board the vessel today, which has a total capacity of 500. The government has said it hopes the barge will reach full capacity by the end of the week.

Even if the barge is filled, however, it will only be able to house about 1% of the 50,456 asylum seekers currently staying in hotels.

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As a result, the barge is unlikely to put much of a dent in the government’s £2.3bn bill for contingency accommodation.

That cost has ballooned in recent years amid the growing asylum backlog and a chronic shortage of accommodation.

There are more than 136,000 asylum applications awaiting an initial decision, up from about 30,000 in 2019 and less than 6,000 in 2010.

Numbers have increased sharply over the past year as a result of a surge in applications, including from thousands arriving via small boats.

Even before the recent increase, however, the Home Office was struggling to keep up with the number of people applying.

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Dr Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, a research institute at the University of Oxford, told Sky News that Home Office caseworkers are struggling to process claims efficiently.

“It used to be that the average decision maker roughly five years ago was making about 100 decisions a year and that’s now fallen to 25,” he said.

“Why? Well, the immigration inspector highlighted use of antiquated IT systems, and also low morale and a lack of training. People are going into the role without any experience of the asylum system.

“And staff turnover is very high. That’s a problem because it takes anywhere between a year and 18 months to become proficient in the role. But people are actually quitting before that period because their morale is so low.”

The fact that applications are coming in at a faster rate than they are being processed means that the backlog is growing – counteracting the government’s progress in dealing with legacy cases.

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Not only has the number of decisions not kept pace with the number of applications, but the government has also been struggling to remove those whose claims are rejected or withdrawn.

The number of asylum seekers removed from the UK fell by more than half (54%) in the five years to 2019, before halving again in 2020 amid pandemic restrictions on air travel.

The number of removals has since risen, but remains far below where it was in previous years.

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“The challenge the government faces is getting countries to take back their citizens if they failed to get asylum in the UK,” says Mr Walsh.

“It’s not entirely clear why that is, but that absolutely is a problem. Countries were not taking people back and the UK doesn’t have the kinds of agreements with countries that would enable them to return citizens to their countries of nationality. It’s a really, really tough challenge the government faces.”

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Could migrants be sent to isolated volcanic island?

Rwanda plan won’t dent the backlog

Another key plank of the government’s plan to deal with the backlog came into force last month.

The government hopes to cut the backlog by removing asylum seekers to Rwanda before they can lodge their claims in the UK, as part of a deal signed with the African state in April 2022.

Legal challenges have prevented any asylum seekers from being sent to Rwanda so far, but if the scheme does get off the ground the Rwandan government has indicated it can handle up to 200 applications per year.

By comparison, the UK received more than 75,000 asylum applications in 2022, including 44,896 from people arriving in small boats.

Had the Rwanda agreement been up and running last year, it would have cut the number of small boat asylum claims processed in the UK by just 0.4%.

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That means the Rwanda plan is unlikely to have any significant effect on the asylum.

Similarly, the opening of the Bibby Stockholm is unlikely to have much of an effect on the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.

In both cases, the government’s hopes are likely to rest not on their direct effect, but on their ability to reduce the number of people applying by presenting the UK as a hostile environment for asylum seekers.

“Part of this is about messaging and the symbolic aspect of the policy,” says Mr Walsh.

“Maybe it might have some deterrent effect. Of course, that’s not clear yet. But in terms of just the raw numbers, 500 doesn’t make a particularly big dent.

“So, if small boat arrivals continue at the rate that they are at present, that accommodation could very quickly be used up requiring the government to continue to use hotels, to continue to invest resources in retrofitting these disused military facilities and so on and so forth.

“This is really just a sticking plaster in the grand scheme of things.”


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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Peers back assisted dying bill – but battles lie ahead

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Peers back assisted dying bill - but battles lie ahead

The controversial assisted dying bill is still very much alive, having received a second reading in the House of Lords without a vote.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Day two of debate on the bill in the Lords was just as passionate and emotional as the first, a week earlier.

And now comes the hard part for supporters of Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, as opponents attempt to make major changes in the months ahead.

The Lords’ chamber was again packed for the debate, which this time began at 10am and lasted nearly six hours. In all, during 13 hours of debate over two days, nearly 200 peers spoke.

According to one estimate, over both days of the debate only around 50 peers spoke in favour of the bill and considerably more than 100 against, with only a handful neutral.

The bill proposes allowing terminally ill adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death. Scotland’s parliament has already passed a similar law.

Pro-assisted dying campaigners outside parliament earlier this month. Pic: PA
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Pro-assisted dying campaigners outside parliament earlier this month. Pic: PA

In a safeguard introduced in the Commons, an application would have to be approved by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior lawyer and psychiatrist.

The bill’s sponsor in the Lords, Charlie Falconer, said while peers have “a job of work to do”, elected MPs in the Commons should have the final decision on the bill, not unelected peers.

One of the most contentious moments in the first day of debate last Friday was a powerful speech by former Tory prime minister Theresa May, who said the legislation was a “licence to kill” bill.

That claim prompted angry attacks on the former PM when the debate resumed from Labour peers, who said it had left them dismayed and caused distress to many terminally ill people.

The former PM, daughter of a church of England vicar, had claimed in her speech that the proposed law was an “assisted suicide bill” and “effectively says suicide is OK”.

But opening the second day’s debate, Baroness Thornton, a lay preacher and health minister in Tony Blair’s government, said: “People have written to me in the last week, very distressed.

“They say things such as: ‘We are not suicidal – we want to live – but we are dying, and we do not have the choice or ability to change that. Assisted dying is not suicide’.”

Throughout the criticism of her strong opposition to the bill, the former PM sat rooted to her seat, not reacting visibly but looking furious as her critics attacked her.

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Assisted Dying: Reflections at the end of life

There was opposition to the bill, too, from grandees of the Thatcher and Major cabinets. Lord Deben, formerly John Gummer and an ex-member of the Church of England synod, said the bill “empowers the state to kill”.

And Lord Chris Patten, former Tory chairman, Hong Kong governor and Oxford University chancellor, said it was an “unholy legislative mess” and could lead to death becoming the “default solution to perceived suffering”.

Read more:
Paralympian targeted with abuse for opposing assisted dying bill
The assisted dying debate has been politics – but not as we know it

Day two of the debate also saw an unholy clash between Church of England bishops past and present, with former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey claiming opponents led by Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell were out of touch with public opinion.

While a large group of bishops sat in their full robes on their benches, Lord Carey suggested both the Church and the Lords would “risk our legitimacy by claiming that we know better than both the public” and the Commons.

“Do we really want to stand in the way of this bill?” he challenged peers. “It will pass, whether in this session or the next. It has commanding support from the British public and passed the elected House after an unprecedented period of scrutiny.”

But Archbishop Cottrell hit back, declaring he was confident he represented “views held by many, not just Christian leaders, but faith leaders across our nation in whom I’ve been in discussion and written to me”.

And he said the bill was wrong “because it ruptures relationships” and would “turbocharge” the agonising choices facing poor and vulnerable people.

A campaigner in opposition of the bill. Pic: PA
Image:
A campaigner in opposition of the bill. Pic: PA

One of the most powerful speeches came from former Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, awarded a peerage by Rishi Sunak after a dramatic Commons comeback after losing his arms and legs after a bout of sepsis.

He shocked peers by revealing that in Belgium, terminally ill children as young as nine had been euthanised. “I’m concerned we want to embed an option for death in the NHS when its modus operandi should be for life,” he said.

And appearing via video link, a self-confessed “severely disabled” Tory peer, Kevin Shinkwin, was listened to in a stunned silence as he said the legislation amounted to the “stuff of nightmares”.

He said it would give the state “a licence to kill the wrong type of people”, adding: “I’m the wrong type. This bill effectively puts a price on my head.”

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Assisted Dying vote: Both sides react

After the debate, Labour peer and former MP Baroness Luciana Berger, an opponent of the bill, claimed a victory after peers accepted her proposal to introduce a special committee to examine the bill and report by 7 November.

“The introduction of a select committee is a victory for those of us that want proper scrutiny of how these new laws would work, the massive changes they could make to the NHS and how we treat people at the end of their lives,” she told Sky News.

“It’s essential that as we look at these new laws we get a chance to hear from those government ministers and professionals that would be in charge of creating and running any new assisted dying system.”

After the select committee reports, at least four sitting Fridays in the Lords have been set aside for all peers – a Committee of the whole house – to debate the bill and propose amendments.

Report stage and third reading will follow early next year, then the bill goes back to the Commons for debate on any Lords amendments. There’s then every chance of parliamentary ping pong between the two Houses.

Kim Leadbeater’s bill may have cleared an important hurdle in the Lords. But there’s still a long way to go – and no doubt a fierce battle ahead – before it becomes law.

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UK and Ireland agree deal to address ‘unfinished business’ of the Troubles

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UK and Ireland agree deal to address 'unfinished business' of the Troubles

The UK and Irish governments have agreed a new framework to address the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

The framework, announced by Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn and the Irish deputy prime minister, Simon Harris, at Hillsborough Castle on Friday, replaces the controversial Legacy Act, introduced by the Conservative government.

“I believe that this framework, underpinned by new co-operation from both our governments, represents the best way forward to finally make progress on the unfinished business of the Good Friday Agreement,” said Mr Benn.

He added that it would allow the families of victims killed during violence in Northern Ireland between the 1960s and 1990s, to “find the answers they have long been seeking”.

The proposed framework includes a dedicated Legacy Commission to investigate deaths during the Troubles, a resumption of inquests regarding cases from the conflict which were halted by the Legacy Act.

There will also be a separate truth recovery mechanism, the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval, jointly funded by London and Dublin.

“Dealing with the legacy of the Troubles is hard, and that is why it has been for so long the unfinished business of the Good Friday Agreement,” said Mr Benn.

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Mr Harris described the framework as a “night and day improvement” on the previous act. Scrapping the Legacy Act, introduced in 2023, was a Labour government pledge.

What this means

A section of the Legacy Act offered immunity from prosecution for ex-soldiers and militants who cooperate with a new investigative body. This provision was ruled incompatible with human rights law.

The 2023 law was opposed by all political parties in Northern Ireland, including pro-British and Irish nationalist groups.

The agreement replaces a controversial law. (Pic: PA)
Image:
The agreement replaces a controversial law. (Pic: PA)

The Irish government, which brought a legal challenge against Britain at the European Court of Human Rights, also opposed it.

Both governments said the new plans will ensure it is possible to refer cases for potential prosecutions.

Sir Keir Starmer's Labour government had pledged to improve relations with Ireland. (Pic: PA)
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Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government had pledged to improve relations with Ireland. (Pic: PA)

It will ‘take time’ to win families’ confidence

Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Harris, said in a statement that the framework could deliver on Ireland’s two tests of being human rights-compliant and securing the support of victims’ families, if implemented in good faith.

He added that winning the confidence of victims’ families would take time.

Dublin will revisit its legal challenge against Britain if the tests are met, it said.

Restoring strained relations

The UK’s Labour government had sought to reset relations with Ireland, after they were damaged by the process of Britain leaving the European Union.

The Conservative government had defended its previous approach, arguing prosecutions were unlikely to lead to convictions, and that it wanted to draw a line under the conflict.

A number of trials have collapsed in recent years, but the first former British soldier to be convicted of an offence since the peace deal was given a suspended sentenced in 2023.

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Gary Gensler doubles down on crypto approach amid SEC sea change

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Gary Gensler doubles down on crypto approach amid SEC sea change

Gary Gensler doubles down on crypto approach amid SEC sea change

The former SEC chair and Paul Atkins, the current head of the agency, both made media appearance this week to address significant policies proposed by US President Donald Trump.

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