Small boats crisis: Just 13% of migrant asylum claims dealt with in five years

The Home Office has decided only 13 per cent of asylum claims lodged by migrants who arrived in small boats since the beginning of 2018, government figures have revealed.

Between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2022, there were 83,236 migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats, of whom 76,134 applied for asylum. Yet only 10,188 applications have been processed, which is about 2,000 asylum decisions a year or 170 a month.

The Home Office has completed a total of 89,385 asylum applications since 2018, 17,877 a year, according to figures published by the department.

It means that between 2018 and 2022, only about 11 per cent of asylum decisions have related to small boats.

The figures expose the extent to which the Home Office’s failure to process asylum claims from small boat arrivals has clogged up the system. And the soaring number of migrants arriving in small boats has led the asylum backlog to soar to more than 166,000.

The number who have crossed the Channel in small boats this year passed the 5,000 mark on Monday after 113 arrived in three boats. The total for this year stands at 5,049, although this is 1,300 lower than this time last year.

The low number of small boat asylum claims being processed also lays bare the scale of the Home Office’s challenge to meet Rishi Sunak’s pledge to clear a backlog of 92,000 asylum claims by the end of this year, a commitment he made in December.

Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, told MPs in March that the Home Office was “on track” to achieve the pledge but the department has not disclosed how many claims from the backlog have been settled so far.

It is understood that about 12,000 asylum claims of the 92,000 have been processed but Home Office sources said once enough people were trained and better processes were put in place, this number would accelerate rapidly.

The Home Office has set a target of more than doubling the number of asylum caseworkers from 1,200 in December to 2,500 by this August.

Labour said the low number of claims from Channel migrants being processed was to blame for the high number of asylum seekers stuck in hotels.

More than 51,000 migrants are being put up in hotels while they wait for their claims to be processed, at a cost of more than £6 million a day to taxpayers.

The UK has about 50,000 places in longer-term, cheaper dispersal accommodation across the UK, used for asylum seekers granted the right to stay.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “The Conservatives talk about a broken asylum system, but they are the ones that broke it. The total failure to process claims quickly — including those from small boats — is shocking and has directly led to huge hotel costs footed by the taxpayer.”

Downing Street has insisted there is no “quick fix” to meet Sunak’s promise. His official spokesman said it would require a “combination of a number of different approaches from the government” to “solve this long-standing problem”. Those measures included “the partnership with Rwanda” and the Illegal Migration Bill.

The Home Office said: “The unacceptable number of people risking their lives by making these dangerous crossings is placing an unprecedented strain on our asylum system.

“The government is taking immediate action to clear the asylum backlog by doubling the number of asylum caseworkers to 2,500 and streamlining interviews and paperwork.”