The asylum claims backlog and prospects for clearing it
Another increase in new asylum claims
Asylum statistics published at the end of February included the number of claims, number of grants, and number of cases in the asylum system. On the number of claims, 2024 saw a record high of 108,138 people claiming asylum in the UK, 84,231 of those were main applicants and 23,907 were dependants. The total was 18 per cent more than in 2023 and five per cent more than the previous high of 103,081 in 2002. This is still far below countries many other European countries, however, especially Germany.
At the same time, visa grants to live in the UK dropped by a third over the past year, driven by a policy clampdown and labour market slowdown. This suggests that projections of a decline in net migration (see article above) might be realistic. The biggest falls were in visas for health and social care work.
Labour ‘will never clear’ Britain’s asylum claims backlog
The figures show that at the end of 2024 there were 41,987 asylum appeals in the tribunal courts’ backlog, up from 7,173 at the start of 2023 (see chart). Solicitor Colin Yeo projects the backlog to reach 100,000 cases by the end of 2025.
Free Movement comments that the appeals backlog is the predictable outcome of a huge increase in refusals, as the grant rate in 2024 fell to 47 per cent, down 20 per cent on the year before, meaning that most asylum cases are now refused.
Almost half of the asylum appeals to the First-tier Tribunal are successful (46 per cent in the period October to December 2024), so poor Home Office decision-making is to blame, exacerbated by the lack of legal aid lawyers available to help people through the system.
Writing in UnHerd, Henry Hill argues that the backlog of asylum appeals is the result of a generation of politicians failing to tackle the fundamental causes of the problem. Increasing legal aid fees may help bring more lawyers in to work on the cases. But the flagship announcement — that “ministers are planning to change the law to introduce a mandatory 24-week legal deadline for all asylum appeals” — is probably meaningless.
Hill argues that: “For Labour’s proposal to have any teeth, there would need to be actual consequences for missing the deadline, at least for institutions but ideally for specific individuals within those institutions whose duty it is to ensure the new law is complied with.
“Crucially, however, those institutions or individuals must also have it within their power to comply with the law, both to maximise the chances of driving the change required and as a matter of basic justice. You cannot fairly hold someone responsible for breaking a legal obligation they had no chance of upholding.”
Thousands on axed Rwanda scheme list to have asylum claims processed in UK
Home Office issued guidance hours before a legal challenge on behalf of asylum seekers who were left in limbo when the Rwanda scheme was abandoned. Their delayed claims are expected to be dealt with by the end of 2025. While this is good news, Free Movement points out that claimants from Afghanistan and Syria, whose claims can now proceed, face much higher rejection rates than would have applied if their claims had been dealt with earlier.
Asylum system putting enormous pressure on Glasgow homelessness services
Glasgow City Council has expressed alarm at the impact of refugee homelessness in the city.
The asylum system risks “damaging social cohesion” with homeless refugees putting “unprecedented pressure” on Glasgow services, the city council has warned.
Glasgow City Council had welcomed asylum seekers for decades, said the city convener for homelessness, Allan Casey. But the “unique” circumstances of Scotland’s stronger housing rights, such as a statutory duty to accommodate single adult males, combined with the last Conservative government’s changes to batch-processing claims, means “the current cost to the city is running into the tens of millions, with no end in sight”.
“Glasgow is the largest dispersal area in the UK, and we currently house over 4,000 asylum seekers here, and [the housing services provider] Mears have capacity for over 7,000,” he wrote. “This is putting unprecedented pressure on our housing system. We will continue to believe that asylum dispersal is good for our city, and we have been enriched by it. But the system you are presiding over is damaging social cohesion here, and we want to meet with you to discuss that.”
Casey pointed out that the circumstances in Glasgow were unique “because of Scotland’s world leading homelessness legislation”.
The asylum system is pushing people into homelessness in England, too, Kirstie Cook, chief executive of the King’s Arms Project charity, told Inside Housing. Despite the clear intersection between the asylum system and homelessness, funding streams for both remain largely separate and insufficient to meet growing demand.