Downing Street insists legacy asylum claims cleared – despite 4,537 remaining to be decided
Downing Street has insisted that the prime minister has achieved his target of clearing the legacy backlog of asylum claims, despite the government’s own data showing that 4,537 remain.
Rishi Sunak pledged in December 2022 that he would “abolish” the legacy backlog of asylum claims made before 28 June of that year, with the Home Office being given the target of the end of 2023.
On Monday, the department said the pledge had been “delivered”, having processed more than 112,000 asylum claims overall in 2023.
There were more than 92,000 asylum claims made before 28 June 2022 requiring a decision, but 4,537 remain, according to the government’s official data.
Analysis: Sunak’s asylum backlog claim isn’t true – according to the government’s own statistics
It seems the government has shot itself in the foot by misleadingly focusing on a specific promise made by the PM which hasn’t quite been met.
Speaking to journalists this morning, the prime minister’s spokesperson said the legacy backlog of asylum claims has, in fact, been cleared as promised because all cases have been reviewed, and the remaining ones simply “require additional work”.
The spokesperson said: “We committed to clearing the backlog, that is what the government has done. We are being very transparent about what that entails.
“We have processed all of those cases and indeed gone further than the original commitment. We’re up to 112,000 decisions made overall.
“As a result of that process, there are a small minority of cases which are complex and which, because of our rigorous standards, require further work.
“But nonetheless, it is a significant piece of work by Home Office officials to process such huge numbers in a short period of time while retaining our rigorous safety standard.”
The government has said that the remaining 4,537 more complex cases typically involve “asylum seekers presenting as children – where age verification is taking place; those with serious medical issues; or those with suspected past convictions, where checks may reveal criminality that would bar asylum”.
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Home Secretary discusses government’s work to process asylum claims
However, the CEO of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, said it is “misleading for the government to claim that the legacy backlog has been cleared as there are thousands still waiting for a decision”.
And Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper labelled the claim that the backlog has been cleared “totally false”.
She told broadcasters: “They made a whole series of promises about clearing the asylum backlog and they haven’t delivered them.
“Instead, the asylum backlog is still nearly 100,000 cases, and we’ve still got thousands of people, record numbers of people in asylum hotels. So, the government’s just failing on all counts.”
Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson has rejected accusations that the government has made “misleading” claims
The prime minister’s spokesperson was also asked about an apparent suggestion from Home Secretary James Cleverly on LBC radio this morning that the government’s goal is to stop small boat crossings entirely in 2024.
Downing Street said they are “not going to set out a deadline”, but said the Rwanda bill – that is due to return to the Commons “this month” – is a “key part” of stopping small boat crossings.
Mr Cleverly did not make the suggestion that boats would be stopped this year elsewhere, and a source close to him said: “Tackling illegal migration is by virtue of what it is, a product of criminal people smuggling gangs, should always be a mission to zero, and as quickly as possible.
“We’ll do what it takes, using a whole range of tactics to get to zero to break the business model of these ruthless smugglers who don’t care if people live or die, just as long as they pay.”
It comes after Mr Sunak admitted to parliament’s Liaison Committee just before Christmas there is no “firm date” to stop small boat crossings entirely.
Up until today, there had been fears for months that the prime minister’s target would not be achieved, and in an appearance before the Commons Liaison Committee in December, the prime minister was unable to say when the remaining overall backlog of asylum claims would be cleared.
In February last year, the Home Office said thousands of asylum seekers would be sent questionnaires which could be used to speed up a decision on their claims, and about 12,000 people from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Libya and Yemen, who had applied for asylum in the UK and were waiting for a decision, were understood to be eligible under the policy.
In June, the National Audit Office (NAO) said efforts to clear the backlog needed to significantly increase to clear the backlog and questioned whether the plans were sustainable.
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The spending watchdog also estimated £3.6bn was spent on asylum support in 2022-23, which amounted to almost double the previous year.
More caseworkers had been tasked with processing applications, which the Home Office has previously said was “tripling productivity to ensure more illegal migrants are returned to their country of origin, quicker”.
But the department’s top civil servant, Sir Matthew Rycroft, revealed in a letter to MPs that just 1,182 migrants who had crossed the Channel had been returned to their home country since 2020, out of a total of more than 111,800 who arrived in that time period.
The majority of those returned were from Albania, with whom the UK has a returns agreement.
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Nigel Farage will kick off Reform UK’s policies in South Wales on Monday, where he is poised to put pressure on the Tories over immigration and tax.
The Reform leader will launch his party’s “contract with the people” – which they will not call a manifesto – in Merthyr Tydfil to highlight “what happens to a country when Labour is in charge”.
The Senedd in Cardiff is the devolved legislature of Wales and is currently run by a Labour-administration.
The launch will follow a productive few days for Reform that saw his party overtake the Conservatives for the first time – prompting Mr Farage to declare his party the “opposition” to Labour.
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His fortunes increased further after another poll by Survation for The Sunday Times showed the Tories could be reduced to just 72 seats in the next parliament, while a separate survey by Savanta for The Sunday Telegraph showed Reform up another three points.
Reform has consistently pushed the Conservatives to adopt a more hardline stance on immigration and tax cuts.
In a flavour of the policies that will be unveiled tomorrow, the party said earlier this month that it would like to see a tax on businesses who employ overseas workers.
This would see firms pay a higher 20% rate of national insurance for foreign workers, up from the current 13.8%.
Reform is also opposed to Labour’s plans to end private school tax exemptions, and wants the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, overseen by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, in order to use offshore processing centres for illegal immigrants and prevent them from claiming asylum.
Some Tory candidates and former MPs on the right of the party have been agitating for Mr Sunak to advocate for an exit from the ECHR – something he has been reluctant to do but has left the door open to.
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Other Reform policies include offering vouchers to go private if you can’t see a GP in three days, scrapping interest on student loans, increasing police numbers, keeping “woke ideologies out of the classroom”, abolishing the TV licence fee, reforming the Lords and reducing “wasteful spending”.
Mr Farage used an article in The Sunday Telegraph to criticise Lord Cameron, the foreign secretary, for an interview he gave to The Times on Friday in which he urged voters to reject the Reform leader’s “inflammatory language” and “dog whistle” politics.
In response, Mr Farage wrote: “If Lord Cameron is worried about damaging divisions, he should look a bit closer to home.
“The terminally divided Tory party has proved itself incapable of effective government over the past 14 years – and is set to be even more hopelessly split in opposition, after it gets hammered on 4 July.”
The Reform leader will also turn his fire on Labour, saying he had chosen Wales to launch his “contract with the people” “because it shows everyone exactly what happens to a country when Labour is in charge”.
“Schools are worse than in England, NHS waiting lists are longer than in England, COVID restrictions were even tighter than in England and now Welsh motorists are being soaked by literally hundreds of speed cameras to enforce the deeply unpopular new 20mph blanket speed limit in towns and villages,” he said.
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“Meanwhile, the Tories have been the official opposition almost solidly since 2016 and have achieved zilch, which probably explains why we are neck-and-neck with them in the polls in Wales.
“So, if you want a picture of what the whole country will be like with a Starmer government and a feeble Conservative opposition, come to Wales and then hear us unveil a better future for all of Britain”.
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Rishi Sunak has repeatedly said a vote for Mr Farage’s party amounted to handing a “blank cheque” to Labour, whom the polls predict will form the next government from 4 July.
The full list of candidates standing in Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare are:
- Workers Party of Britain – Anthony Cole
- Communist Party of Britain – Bob Davenport
- Independent – Lorenzo de Gregori
- Green Party – David Griffin
- Conservative Party – Amanda Jenner
- Labour Party – Gerald Jones
- Liberal Democrats – Jade Smith
- Reform UK – Gareth Thomas
- Plaid Cymru – Francis Whitefoot
An extra 250,000 children will be hit by the two-child benefit cap next year, rising to an extra half a million by 2029, a leading thinktank has warned.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the number of children who will fall under the cap – which limits child benefits for the first two children in most households – will reach 670,000 by the end of the next parliament if the policy is not reformed.
The two-child benefit cap, which restricts Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit to the first two children, was brought in by the Conservative government in 2017.
Campaigners have long called for it to be abolished on the grounds it would lift thousands of children out of poverty.
It comes as a separate study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found 40% of people who work in primary schools and GP surgeries have considered quitting their job because of a “shameful” level of hardship among the population.
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The JRF found the service providers were “staggering under the weight of hardship” by having to provide extra support to the nearly four million people struggling to pay for essentials including food, heating and clothing.
The IFS said the two-child cap has helped drive up the share of children in large families who are in relative poverty from 35% in 2014-15 to 46% in 2022 – a period when poverty for families with one or two children fell.
The Labour Party has faced pressure to drop the cap – including from former prime minister Gordon Brown – but has so far refused to commit to ending it, citing the current state of the country’s finances.
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The pressure intensified further after figures on the right, including former home secretary Suella Braverman and Reform leader Nigel Farage, both called for the cap to be scrapped.
Abolishing the cap does not appear in either the Tory or Labour manifestos, with only the Green Party and Liberal Democrats making the commitment in their offers to the public.
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The IFS said removing the cost of the limit would cost the government about £3.4bn a year, equivalent to freezing fuel duties for the next parliament.
The limit currently affects two million children and more children are added each year because it applies to those born after 5 April 2017.
The IFS said when fully rolled out, the cap will affect one in five children, rising to 38% of those in the poorest fifth of households.
It said 43% of children in households with at least one person of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin will be affected, while those who fall under it on average will lose £4,300 per year – representing 10% of their income.
IFS research economist Eduin Latimer said: “The two-child limit is one of the most significant welfare cuts since 2010 and, unlike many of those cuts, it becomes more important each year as it is rolled out to more families.”
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Mubin Haq, chief executive of the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, which funded the research, said: “The limit has been a significant contributor to child poverty amongst large families during a period when poverty for families with one or two children fell.
“If the next government is serious about tackling child poverty, it will need to review the two-child limit.”
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Alison Garnham, the chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said the “biggest driver” of child poverty in the UK was the two-child limit.
“Any government serious about making things better for the next generation will have to scrap the two-child limit, and do so quickly.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “We are under no illusions about the scale of the task ahead if we win the election.
“Labour has already set out how we would make a start, with free breakfast clubs in every primary school, cutting fuel poverty and bringing down energy bills, banning exploitative zero hours contracts, making work pay, ending no-fault evictions and creating more good jobs right across the country.”
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