The government’s own statistics make clear that Rishi Sunak’s legacy asylum backlog claim just isn’t true

Published

6 months ago

January 2, 2024

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The Home Office has started the New Year proudly trumpeting its progress in dealing with the huge number of outstanding asylum cases.

It claimed in a press release issued last night to have “cleared” the legacy backlog as promised by the prime minister in December 2022.

The whole premise of the “legacy backlog” is a rather arbitrary term invented by the Home Office by which they mean claims made before June 2022.

It was only set out after Rishi Sunak made a much broader-sounding promise to MPs to “abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of next year”.

This focused the target on a fixed number of 92,601 outstanding older cases, rather than all the additional claims made since that date.

But last night’s bold headline that the government has cleared that so-called legacy backlog was itself immediately attacked by Labour as “false” and by the Refugee Council as “misleading”.

The government’s own statistics published this morning make it clear this boast just isn’t true. The legacy backlog hasn’t been cleared – there are still 4,537 cases remaining on it.

The Home Office says these are “complex cases” which require “additional checks or investigations” before a final decision can be made – due to the applicants presenting as children but needing age verification for example, or suffering serious medical issues.

But while the cases have been “reviewed” – they’re not yet resolved.

What’s more, we know that at least 17,000 cases were “withdrawn” by the Home Office last year.

This morning the home secretary, James Cleverly, was forced to admit to Sky’s Kay Burley that many of these individuals had “slipped out” of the system and might be working illegally, although he argued others would have chosen to go home and that enforcement activity against dodgy employers is on the increase too.

All of this obfuscation means that the headlines this morning have focused on the misleading nature of the legacy backlog claim – rather than the underlying fact the Home Office has successfully sped up its decision-making process by hiring an extra 1,200 staff, setting targets and changing its systems.

Last year, 112,000 claims were dealt with – including nearly 87,000 of those legacy cases, as well as some of the more recent applications. This is the highest number in 20 years.

The overall backlog now stands at 98,000, down a third from this time last year – and it suggests that if the rate of asylum claims stays the same, or even reduces, the Home Office would finally be on track to get on top of incoming cases.

Of course the government’s trying to discourage people from coming to the UK to claim asylum at all, by banning people from doing so if they’ve arrived by illegal routes and packing them off back home, to Rwanda or a safe third country.

Getting the emergency legislation needed to override the Supreme Court’s objections through parliament to finally deliver the controversial policy is going to be the PM’s biggest challenge for the new year.

But it feels like the government has rather shot itself in the foot in its efforts to highlight progress in reducing the asylum backlog by misleadingly focusing on a specific promise made by the PM which hasn’t quite been met – rather than the bigger picture.

Politics

Scale of gambling scandal for Tories is different magnitude to Labour’s issue

Published

2 hours ago

June 26, 2024

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Scale of gambling scandal for Tories is different magnitude to Labour's issue

After days of furore directed at Rishi Sunak for the election betting scandal, now a Labour candidate is under investigation by the Gambling Commission for his own betting activity – and is immediately suspended.

Is this an equaliser in one of the grubbiest electoral sagas of recent elections? Quite possibly not.

There is no doubting the utter dismay in Labour HQ at the revelation that they too have a candidate caught up in the betting scandal.

Politics live: Labour to return £100k donation to suspended candidate

It lends itself to the easy narrative that there’s a plague on all politicians’ houses – everyone as bad as each other.

However, if the facts are as presented, the scale of the challenge for the Tories is of a different order of magnitude to that now facing Labour.

Labour’s Kevin Craig was suspended immediately after the party was informed by the Gambling Commission of the probe.

We are told that he placed a bet – not on the election date, but that he would lose his race in a general election.

He is certainly guilty of gross stupidity, as he admitted in a statement on Tuesday evening.

However, if this scenario is as presented, it is hard to see an allegation being mounted that he had insider intelligence on the race – unless it can be proved he was deliberately setting out to lose.

An under-pressure Gambling Commission will investigate every candidate’s name on the spreadsheet from gambling companies of those who placed bets – but it is unclear from available facts where this will go.

The Tory betting saga, however, is more complicated and now on its 13th day.

It was almost two weeks ago that Craig Williams – Rishi Sunak’s closest parliamentary aide and former Montgomeryshire MP – admitted he had placed a bet on the election date – a date he might have known before the public at large.

He denies he committed any offence, and remains under investigation.

Laura Saunders, standing for the Tories just south in Bristol North West, has also been suspended for putting a bet on the date when her partner worked in Conservative headquarters on the election.

For most of that time, Mr Sunak has been insisting he could not suspend either candidate because of the ongoing probe by the Gambling Commission.

Ministers, as well as opponents, weighed in.

And on Tuesday he reversed that decision under that pressure.

This means there are questions about the prime minister’s own judgement and unwillingness to act on top of questions about the behaviour of those closest to him.

This story has had massive cut through with the public, topping the charts for any news story in the UK – according to YouGov’s AI news tracker – for the last four days.

There is dismay from the cabinet downwards.

Labour’s own problems have undermined their own ability to go on the attack. But it is not clear that voters will see the two issues on the same scale.

The full list of the candidates running for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich is:

Charlie Caiger, independent;
Tony Gould, Reform UK;
Mike Hallatt, independent;
Brett Alistair Mickelburgh, Lib Dems;
Dan Pratt, Greens;
Patrick Spencer, Conservatives.

The full list of candidates for Bristol North West is:

Caroline Gooch, Lib Dems;
Darren Jones, Labour;
Scarlett O’Connor, Reform UK;
Mary Page, Green Party;
Ben Smith, SDP.

The full list of candidates for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr is:

Jeremy Brignell-Thorp, Green Party;
Oliver Lewis, Reform UK;
Glyn Preston, Lib Dems;
Elwyn Vaughan, Plaid Cymru;
Steve Witherden, Labour.

Politics

US politicians who may be spinning the news with crypto

Published

11 hours ago

June 25, 2024

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US politicians who may be spinning the news with crypto

Donald Trump seems to have doubled down on digital assets after he was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York.

Politics

Four men arrested at Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire home

Published

11 hours ago

June 25, 2024

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Four men arrested at Rishi Sunak's North Yorkshire home

Four men have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass in the grounds of the prime minister’s home, police have confirmed.

The incident took place at Rishi Sunak’s constituency address in Kirby Sigston, North Yorkshire, while he was attending events in London to mark the Japanese state visit.

A police statement said officers were “with the four men within one minute of them entering the grounds”.

Politics live: Labour to return £100k donation to suspended candidate

The arrests are connected to a protest by campaigners from Youth Demand. It describes itself as a group of young people who want “the Tories and the Labour Party commit to a two-way arms embargo on Israel, and to stop all new oil and gas licences”.

A spokesperson for the group said three of those arrested were taking part in the demonstration, while the fourth person was an independent photographer.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “They were detained at around 12.40pm before being escorted off the property and arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass.

“The men, aged 52 from London, 43 from Bolton, 21 from Manchester, and 20 from Chichester, remain in police custody for questioning and enquiries are ongoing.”

It comes after a separate incident last summer, when protesters scaled the roof of Mr Sunak’s home.

They held up banners which said “NO NEW OIL” and draped the building in fabric. It happened while the prime minister and his family were away on holiday in California.

Amy Rugg-Easey, 33, Alexandra Wilson, 32, Michael Grant, 64, and Mathieu Soete, 38, have pleaded not guilty to criminal damage, with a two-day trial set to take place in July.