Charity forecast comes as Home Office reviews reopening hotels to refugees because of spike in Channel crossings
More than 60,000 migrants will be granted asylum in the UK in the next year after Sir Keir Starmer scrapped the Tories’ Rwanda scheme, according to an analysis.
The Refugee Council charity has forecast that 62,800 people, including Channel migrants, will be granted refugee status out of nearly 119,000 individual asylum seekers whose claims Labour inherited from the Tories.
The migrants were blocked from asylum in the UK by laws introduced by Rishi Sunak that stipulated that anyone who arrived illegally should be detained and deported to a safe country such as Rwanda.
But Labour has used powers within the Tories’ Illegal Migration Act to lift the ban on migrants claiming asylum and to scrap the duty on the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to remove them to a third country.
The Refugee Council estimated nearly 53 per cent of the 118,882 migrants awaiting a decision on their asylum claim will be successful, based on previous rates for the nationalities of those seeking refuge in the UK.
A third of them come from Afghanistan where 96 per cent of claimants are successful, Iran (82 per cent), Syria (99 per cent), Eritrea (99 per cent) and Sudan (99 per cent).
Figures exclude latest Channel crossings
The 118,882 claims relate to asylum seekers awaiting a decision at the end of June, so exclude the 13,500 migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats since Labour won the election on July 4. This includes 973 on October 5, the highest daily total for nearly two years.
The forecast was revealed as it emerged that the Home Office is reviewing whether to reopen some asylum hotels previously closed by the Conservatives because of a spike in illegal Channel crossings. There are currently nearly 30,000 migrants being accommodated in hotels at a cost of £3 million per day.
Tom Pursglove, the former Tory migration minister, said Labour should revive the partnership agreement with Rwanda for it to take deported migrants as it was still the best option to tackle the migration crisis.
“They should get on the phone, talk to the Rwandans, apologise profusely for the way that they were treated following the General Election and try to deliver this partnership because it is a way of shifting the dial, making it much more difficult for these criminal gangs,” he said.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, announced this week that the EU was to consider setting up Rwanda-style deportation camps outside the bloc where it could send failed asylum seekers.
She said it would be modelled on Italy’s deal with Albania, under which up to 36,000 migrants a year will be sent to have their asylum claims processed in camps in the Balkan state.
A Home Office source said Labour had inherited a record asylum backlog with a “chaotic landscape” of expensive hotel contracts and had taken “quick action” to clear it by restarting asylum processing.
“We have started processing asylum claims, which had ground to a halt under the Tories, leading to a record asylum backlog and a £5 billion black hole in the Home Office budget,” said the source.
“The Home Office regularly reviews our asylum accommodation footprint to reduce costs, build flexibility and deliver value for money for taxpayers.”
Migrants ‘switching to lorries’
The Refugee Council analysis estimated the asylum backlog would have spiralled to a record high of more than 177,000 migrants by January 2025 if Labour had not scrapped the Rwanda scheme and started processing claims.
It estimated that there will be 59,000 fewer people waiting for a decision by the end of January as a result, saving between £151 million and £240.7 million.
The Refugee Council also said there was evidence of migrants switching to lorries to reach the UK amid a crackdown on people smuggling gangs behind the Channel small boat crossings. Asylum claims have remained steady despite crossings falling.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The Government inherited an asylum system that was utterly broken.
“Decisive early action has been taken to stop the system from falling over but, instead of mending and making do, there needs to be comprehensive reform to create a fair, orderly and humane asylum system.”
