The backlog of asylum claims within the UK has hit a brand new report excessive, in response to Home Office figures.
A complete of 175,457 individuals have been ready for an preliminary resolution on an asylum utility within the UK on the finish of June 2023, up 44% on the finish of June 2022 and the very best determine since present data started in 2010.
The variety of individuals ready greater than six months for an preliminary resolution stood at 139,961 on the finish of June, up 57% year-on-year from 89,231 and one other report excessive.
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In complete, there have been 134,046 circumstances being handled by the Home Office in relation to the 175,457 individuals ready for an preliminary resolution on the finish of June 2023.
At the top of July 2023, the variety of circumstances being dealt with had risen to 136,779 – however the information doesn’t present how many individuals this associated to.
The variety of individuals lodging asylum claims has additionally risen to a two-decade excessive.
Some 78,768 purposes have been made within the 12 months to June 2023 – once more, there could be multiple particular person lined by every utility.
This is nineteen% greater than the earlier 12 months, and better than the European migration disaster, the place 36,546 purposes have been made in a 12-month interval.
Stephen Kinnock, Labour’s shadow immigration minister, stated: “These new statistics set out in stark terms the complete chaos the Tories have created in the immigration and asylum system.
“The asylum backlog has reached a brand new report excessive, with 175,000 individuals now ready for selections. Only 1% of final 12 months’s 45,000 small boats circumstances have acquired a choice and the variety of failed asylum seekers being returned can also be down a whopping 70% since 2010. This is a disastrous report for the prime minister and residential secretary.
“With this level of mismanagement, there is very little prospect of reducing the eye-wateringly high bill for hotel rooms for all those left in limbo, currently costing the British taxpayer £6 million a day.”
There has additionally been a pointy rise within the variety of employee visas issued previously 12 months in comparison with the earlier 12 months.
The new statistics printed by the Home Office additionally present a 63% rise within the variety of individuals coming to the UK on work visas within the 12 months to June 2023, in comparison with the 12 months to June 2022 – which means 538,887 arrived to work previously 12 months.
The variety of research visas issued is up 34% to 657,208.
Both these figures embody dependents introduced into the UK on the programmes alongside the principle visa holder.
This signifies that 208,295 extra individuals got here to the UK on work visas within the 12 months to June 2023 and 165,968 extra individuals entered on research visas.
It comes regardless of a Tory 2019 manifesto dedication to “bring overall numbers down”.
The authorities has modified the regulation to imply that, from January 2024, individuals on pupil visas will not have the ability to deliver dependents with them.
A sizeable proportion of these coming into on work visas are well being and care employees, for whom the federal government created a brand new pathway in 2020.
Jonathan Gullis, a Tory MP and member of the New Conservatives group, advised Sky News: “I think a lot of people will rightly be concerned to see another huge rise in skilled worker visas particularly as the thresholds in education have been reduced, so we will probably be continuing to rely on cheap foreign labour into the future, whenever there is a shortage.
“We needs to be taking massive companies head on and forcing them to upskill younger individuals and adults seeking to retrain to develop our personal workforce inside the UK.
“Brexit for me was about taking back control of our borders. Not shutting off the world, that would be ludicrous, but looking in our own country and helping young people in places like the Midlands and the North to train up for these skilled jobs and deliver on our pledges from when we were elected in 2019.”
Marley Morris, the Institute for Public Policy Research’s affiliate director for migration, commerce and communities, stated: “The government is still far-off from getting on top of the asylum backlog. While the Home Office is bringing down the ‘legacy backlog’ of older cases, this is being offset by new applications from recent arrivals.
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“Moreover, many of the most recent decisions by the Home Office are withdrawals rather than grants or refusals. In the long run, this could backfire on the government, as people whose applications are withdrawn end up being pushed underground or make fresh asylum claims.
“Once the federal government implements the Illegal Migration Act, this might make issues even worse. Even if the Rwanda scheme is dominated to be lawful by the Supreme Court, it’s doubtless that the variety of arrivals will outpace the variety of removals, making a rising ‘perma-backlog’ of asylum seekers trapped in limbo. This might value the Home Office billions annually.”
Source: information.sky.com”