Asylum bill doubles to nearly £4bn as Sunak says cost is ‘unacceptable’
The taxpayer bill on asylum almost doubled in a year to nearly £4bn as Rishi Sunak said the cost was “unacceptable” and warned the system is under “unsustainable pressure”.
Home Office spending on asylum rose by £1.85bn, from £2.12bn in 2021/22 to £3.97bn this year.
A decade ago, in 2012/13, the total cost to the taxpayer was £500.2m.
Channel crossings topped 19,000 for the year so far, Home Office figures showed, despite Mr Sunak’s promise to voters that he would “stop the boats” bringing migrants across the English Channel.
About 80% of asylum seekers are waiting longer than six months for an initial decision, government statistics show.
Mr Sunak has also pledged by the end of 2023 to clear the backlog of around 92,601 so-called “legacy” cases which had been in the system as of the end of June last year.
But in the six months since Mr Sunak made his promise, the figure reduced by just less than a quarter.
He told the Daily Express: “The best way to relieve the unsustainable pressures on our asylum system and unacceptable costs to the taxpayer is to stop the boats in the first place.
“That’s why we are focused on our plan to break the business model of the people smugglers facilitating these journeys, including working with international partners upstream to disrupt their efforts, stepping up joint work with the French to help reduce crossings and tackling the asylum backlog.”
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‘Government broke asylum system’
Overall, a total of 175,457 people were waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of June 2023, up 44% from 122,213 for the same period a year earlier – the highest figure since current records began in 2010.
Of these, 139,961 had been waiting longer than six months for an initial decision, up 57% year on year from 89,231 and another record high.
Labour said the record-high asylum backlog amounts to a “disastrous record” for Mr Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman, while campaigners called for claims to be processed more efficiently.
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover from a Border Force vessel
But the prime minister defended the government’s progress, saying: “We’ve already reduced the legacy backlog by over 28,000 – nearly a third – since the start of December and we remain on track to meet our target.
“But we know there is more to do to make sure asylum seekers do not spend months or years – living in the UK at vast expense to the taxpayer – waiting for a decision.”
Amnesty International UK said it was “utterly disgraceful that new asylum laws are being introduced to actually prevent the processing of claims altogether, which will make this backlog, its cost and the limbo it imposes on people even worse”.
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Politics
Sir Keir Starmer vows to defend budget decisions ‘all day long’ as farmers slam ‘disrespectful’ PM
Sir Keir Starmer has said he will defend the decisions made in the budget “all day long” amid anger from farmers over inheritance tax changes.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last month in her key speech that from April 2026, farms worth more than £1m will face an inheritance tax rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40% applied to other land and property.
The announcement has sparked anger among farmers who argue this will mean higher food prices, lower food production and having to sell off land to pay for the tax.
Sir Keir defended the budget as he gave his first speech as prime minister at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales, where farmers have been holding a tractor protest outside.
Sir Keir admitted: “We’ve taken some extremely tough decisions on tax.”
He said: “I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality. I will defend the tough decisions that were necessary to stabilise our economy.
“And I will defend protecting the payslips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy, and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales. Finally, turning the page on austerity once and for all.”
He also said the budget allocation for Wales was a “record figure” – some £21bn for next year – an extra £1.7bn through the Barnett Formula, as he hailed a “path of change” with Labour governments in Wales and Westminster.
And he confirmed a £160m investment zone in Wrexham and Flintshire will be going live in 2025.
‘PM should have addressed the protesters’
Among the hundreds of farmers demonstrating was Gareth Wyn Jones, who told Sky News it was “disrespectful” that the prime minister did not mention farmers in his speech.
He said “so many people have come here to air their frustrations. He (Starmer) had an opportunity to address the crowd. Even if he was booed he should have been man enough to come out and talk to the people”.
He said farmers planned to deliver Sir Keir a letter which begins with “‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.
Farmers’ tractor protest outside the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales
Mr Wyn Jones told Sky News the government was “destroying” an industry that was already struggling.
“They’re destroying an industry that’s already on its knees and struggling, absolutely struggling, mentally, emotionally and physically. We need government support not more hindrance so we can produce food to feed the nation.”
He said inheritance tax changes will result in farmers increasing the price of food: “The poorer people in society aren’t going to be able to afford good, healthy, nutritious British food, so we have to push this to government for them to understand that enough is enough, the farmers can’t take any more of what they’re throwing at us.”
Mr Wyn Jones disputed the government’s estimation that only 500 farming estates in the UK will be affected by the inheritance tax changes.
“Look, a lot of farmers in this country are in their 70s and 80s, they haven’t handed their farms down because that’s the way it’s always been, they’ve always known there was never going to be inheritance tax.”
On Friday, Sir Keir addressed farmers’ concerns, saying: “I know some farmers are anxious about the inheritance tax rules that we brought in two weeks ago.
“What I would say about that is, once you add the £1m for the farmland to the £1m that is exempt for your spouse, for most couples with a farm wanting to hand on to their children, it’s £3m before anybody pays a penny in inheritance tax.”
Read more:
Ex-Labour adviser suggests doing to farms ‘what Thatcher did to coal mines’
Farmers ‘could block ports and disrupt food supply’
Welsh farmer Gareth Wyn Jones
Ministers said the move will not affect small farms and is aimed at targeting wealthy landowners who buy up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.
But analysis this week said a typical family farm would have to put 159% of annual profits into paying the new inheritance tax every year for a decade and could have to sell 20% of their land.
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The Country and Land Business Association (CLA), which represents owners of rural land, property and businesses in England and Wales, found a typical 200-acre farm owned by one person with an expected profit of £27,300 would face a £435,000 inheritance tax bill.
The plan says families can spread the inheritance tax payments over 10 years, but the CLA found this would require an average farm to allocate 159% of its profits each year for a decade.
To pay that, successors could be forced to sell 20% of their land, the analysis found.
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