In December, Rishi Sunak said in the House of Commons that half of the asylum claims – 132,000 – had been left behind by the outgoing Labor executive in 2010. This indicates that in 2010 it was around 260,000
In the same month, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick and Parliamentary Secretary Sarah Dines told MPs that 450,000 to 500,000 cases were out of date and had been dropped by David Cameron’s government in 2010.
However, the Department of Statistics feels that the reports “do not reflect the figures shown by the Ministry of Home Affairs”.
Robert Chote, head of the Department of Statistics, said the backlog of asylum claims in 2010 was 19,000, meaning the number of pending applications had actually increased almost ninefold to 166,000.
Choate was responding to Shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock calling in three government officials to correct the record.
According to Robert Choate, the immigration minister and parliamentary secretary were referring to figures from the former head of the UK Border Agency, which showed a large number of duplicates, errors or requests transferred to the “controlled file”, which contained asylum seekers. could not be found, or became EU citizens through another country.
“Given the data quality issues at the time, it would be unreasonable to suggest that this UK Border Agency administrative information backdated exactly half a million genuine and undecided asylum claims at the time.”Robert Choate said.
The official revealed that he had contacted Sunak, Jenrick and Tynes to draw their attention to errors in the numbers and to “share the UK Statistics Authority’s expectations regarding the use of official statistics and data in public debate”.
In a published note reality For Sunnock, Kinnock, the Labor MP for Aberavon, said failure to correct the records would be a breach of ministerial law.
“I strongly urge you to lead by example and correct the misuse of numbers in that declaration at your earliest convenience and appeal to the Immigration Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary.”, reads the letter.
After the Statistics Controller ruled that asylum claims had increased by 147,000 since 2010 (not halved as the Prime Minister claimed!), I asked the Prime Minister to correct the record.
Under the Tories this was more than 8 times the 166,000 workers pic.twitter.com/Q5ak3Xn8hW
— Stephen Kinnock (@SKinnock) April 4, 2023
In a press release timesDowning Street said: “We are taking immediate action to reduce the asylum backlog. We have put in place new plans to eliminate delays in early adjudication of inheritance cases by the end of next year.”
“We have doubled the number of asylum seekers to more than 1,000 and will double it again as we launch a successful nationwide pilot program to increase the number of applications processed,” he added.
Henry Blackwell is a contributor at Mediarunsearch.co.uk, covering a wide range of topics including news, politics, business, technology, sport, entertainment, and lifestyle. He focuses on delivering clear, balanced reporting and useful information that helps readers stay informed about current events and emerging developments. His work highlights stories that matter to everyday audiences, with an emphasis on accuracy, relevance, and accessible journalism.