Government's asylum figures show uncleared backlog

The government says it has delivered one of Rishi Sunak's pledges - to clear the "legacy backlog" of asylum cases - but its own figures published today show there are still more than 4,500 cases in that backlog.

The government originally defined this "legacy backlog" as all asylum claims - waiting for an initial decision - made before 28 June 2022. In a statement to parliament in December 2022, Mr Sunak said "we expect to abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions" by the end of 2023.

On 1 January 2024, the Home Office said: "The prime minister's commitment of clearing the legacy asylum backlog has been delivered."

But it also released statistics on 2 January that classified 4,537 cases as still "awaiting an initial decision" in a column marked "legacy backlog".

Home Secretary James Cleverly was asked on Today on BBC Radio 4 why the government said the backlog had been cleared and replied: "Because it has".

He said: "In a small number of cases where there are disputes or security concerns or discrepancies, further work needs to be done, but they have all been through that processing, they have all been dealt with in terms of getting through that initial adjudicating process."

The Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the claim that the asylum backlog had been cleared was "just not true".

The Home Office defines an initial decision as being either granting or refusing asylum or another form of protection.

We have asked whether highlighting the 4,500 cases where further work needs to be done counts as an "initial decision", but the Home Office has not responded.

There is no question that the government has made significant progress in tackling the legacy backlog.

There have certainly been more people doing the work - the number of asylum caseworker staff has nearly doubled since December 2022.

But - as we pointed out last month - questions have been raised about how the government has been tackling the backlog.

The latest figures show that 51,469 people were granted asylum in 2023, a figure which Nigel Farage - the former UKIP and Brexit Party leader - has been quick to criticise.

And there were 35,119 "non-substantive decisions" - these include cases where the Home Office has withdrawn an asylum seeker's claim.

This was nearly three times the figure for 2022.

While there have been significant reductions in the legacy backlog (people who arrived before June 2022) the backlog of applications from people who have arrived since then has been growing.

At the end of 2023, the so-called "flow backlog" stood at 94,062 applications awaiting an initial decision, which is actually higher than the legacy backlog was when the prime minister made his pledge.

Additional reporting by Rob England