Part 1: Why is asylum a chronic policy problem in the UK?

Many aspects of asylum are outside the UK government’s control

The number of displaced people is growing globally

Worldwide, the number of people forcibly displaced by persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or for other reasons has increased in recent years, and particularly since 2011. In 2023, there were 107.5 million people forcibly displaced* around the world. ¹⁴⁴ UNHCR, ‘Refugee Data Finder’, 2024, (no date), www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/download/?url=N6eydo  This compares to approximately 26 million people at the start of the 2010s, a level that had remained broadly consistent since the 1990s. This has translated into an increase in the numbers of people seeking asylum globally, which has risen from less than a million in the early 1990s to consistently over 4 million since 2020, and nearly 7 million in 2023. ¹⁴⁵ UNHCR, ‘Refugee Data Finder’, 2024, (no date), www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/download/?url=4zeHOp  The UN points out that these numbers are closely correlated to the increased “frequency, extent, duration and intensity of conflicts” around the world. ¹⁴⁶ UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2023, June 2024, www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/global-trends-report-2023.pdf

Most refugees remain in countries close to their country of origin (69%), and three quarters of people in need of protection are in low- and middle-income countries. ¹⁴⁷ UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2023, June 2024, www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/global-trends-report-2023.pdf  But, such are the size of the overall numbers, the increase in forcible displacement since 2011 has led to a marked increase of people travelling to Europe for asylum.

But they are not mainly coming to the UK. The UK receives far fewer asylum seekers than many European countries: in 2023, there were approximately 12 asylum applications made in the UK for every 10,000 people living in the country. This ranked the UK 15th among EU27 countries plus the UK; the EU27 average is almost double, at 23.

But the UK has seen applications rise when judged against its own recent past – more than doubling since 2018 – and the number of asylum applicants in EU27 countries grew by 55% in the same period. ¹⁴⁸ Home Office ‘Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement detailed datasets, year ending March 2024’, GOV.UK, 13 June 2024, www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables (figure refers to main applicants only).  And while there was a similarly large number of applications in the early 2000s – around 84,000 in 2002 – changes in the make-up of applicants mean the likelihood of being granted asylum was lower than in recent years (20% in 2002 compared to 75% in 2021). ¹⁴⁹ Home Office, Control of immigration: statistics United Kingdom 2002, Cm 6053, The Stationery Office, November 2023, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7b7e7140f0b62826a03f19/6053.pdf; Home Office, ‘Outcome analysis of asylum applications detailed datasets, year ending June 2022’, GOV.UK, 25 August 2022, www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables  

The number of people seeking asylum is affected by events that are mostly outside the UK government’s direct control. In recent years, such events have included Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, conflict in Sudan and Syria, and political persecution in Hong Kong. In years to come, political instability associated with the adverse effects of climate change is likely to displace large numbers of people. ¹⁵⁰ USA for UNHCR, ‘How climate change impacts refugees and displaced communities’, 26 January 2024, www.unrefugees.org/news/how-climate-change-impacts-refugees-and-displaced-communities  

This makes it difficult for government to forecast the demand for protection in the UK. Even if global developments are foreseeable, it is still difficult to anticipate precisely when these developments will translate into demand for asylum in the UK and what implications they will have for the nature of the asylum caseload, the complexity of cases or the expertise required to process them.

Modelling potential scenarios is possible, helpful and necessary, but the unpredictability of demand for asylum makes it a difficult policy area to plan and budget for – particularly in contrast to other forms of immigration, like labour migration. In turn this makes it more challenging to ensure the Home Office has the resources and expertise required to manage future asylum cases.

_{*Of which 63.3 million were internally displaced, while 31.6 million were refugees, 6.9 million were seeking asylum, and a further 5.8 million in need of international protection.}

International co-operation is vital, making the UK dependent on other countries

Because the factors that create and contribute to demand for asylum are global, effective asylum policy in the UK is dependent upon various forms of international cooperation and diplomacy.

That co-operation begins with attempts to prevent the need for asylum in the first place. The government’s 2023 white paper on international development recognised that development interventions, climate adaptation and other forms of international co-operation and diplomacy affect the drivers of irregular migration, including of people seeking asylum. ¹⁵¹ UK International Development, International development in a contested world: ending extreme poverty and tackling climate change, a White Paper on International Development, UK Government, November 2023, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6576f37e48d7b7001357ca5b/international-development-in-a- contested-world-ending-extreme-poverty-and-tackling-climate-change.pdf#page=113  The UN recognises this, too, emphasising the importance of international co-operation in its Global Compact on Refugees. ¹⁵² UNHCR, The Global Compact on Refugees, 2018, www.unhcr.org/media/global-compact-refugees-booklet  Beyond addressing root causes of refugee movements, the UK also relies on the UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) to identify and process refugees around the world to be referred for protection under the UK’s Resettlement Scheme. The scheme has resulted in an average of 800 refugees per year being welcomed to the UK between 2021 and 2023. ¹⁵³ Home Office, ‘Report on Safe and Legal Routes’, GOV.UK, January 2024, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/659ea7b7e8f5ec000d1f8b25/E03048385_UK_s_safe_and_legal_humanitarian_routes_Web_Accessible.pdf

The Dublin regulation

Before Brexit, the UK was part of the EU’s Dublin regulation, an agreed set of criteria used to determine which member state was responsible for considering an asylum claim. Dublin acts as a legal route for people seeking asylum to reunite with family members elsewhere in the EU and as a mechanism for member states to return asylum seekers to other states in defined circumstances.

The Dublin regulation or equivalent agreements do not resolve, in themselves, the difficulties of sharing increasing demand for asylum or responding to irregular migration. It is not a silver bullet for a government aiming to deter people from coming to the country via irregular means, or for reducing the number of claims ultimately approved: in the four years prior to 2020, when the UK formally left the EU, it took in more asylum seekers than it returned (averaging 223 returns a year).

But, having left, the UK will find it harder to arrange similar agreements with other European countries to share demand for asylum and move asylum seekers between states. This is principally because some member states have ruled out a bilateral returns deal with the UK, but it is also due to the EU’s new asylum regulations. Regardless of the particular merits of Dublin, international agreements such as this are likely to remain a prerequisite for the UK to more robustly manage asylum demand on an international basis.

Other bilateral agreements have also demonstrated the importance of international co-operation. The Sunak government’s agreement with Albania in late 2022 enabled the return of more than 3,000 Albanian nationals, many of whom had asylum claims refused or withdrawn. ¹⁵⁴ Home Office, ‘Milestone reached in UK-Albania agreement on illegal migration’, GOV.UK, 25 April 2023, www.gov.uk/government/news/milestone-reached-in-uk-albania-agreement-on-illegal-migration; ‘Returns summary tables, year ending December 2023’, www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables#returns  And before this, in the 2000s, David Blunkett as home secretary made an agreement with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, for around 1,200 people to be brought to the UK on four-year work permits in return for French efforts to reduce the number of people trying to make the journey to the UK on lorries.

Indeed, deals with France, as the UK’s closest geographical neighbour, have been a feature of recent UK irregular migration efforts, including on organised crime, including human trafficking of asylum seekers. The government has paid more than £232 million to France since 2014 to prevent irregular migration and has committed a further £476m between 2023/24 and 2025/26. Joint declarations and action plans have focused on improving border security, running information campaigns and intelligence collaboration – though despite these efforts, in 2022 a majority of people who attempted to cross the Channel in small boats were not stopped by French authorities. ¹⁵⁵ Gower M, ‘Irregular migration: A timeline of UK-French co-operation’, House of Commons Library, 22 March 2023, https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9681/CBP-9681.pdf

In short, asylum is an inescapably global issue that requires international co-operation. This makes it a more complex policy for a post-Brexit UK to navigate. It is welcome, then, that the new government’s intention – as stated in the 2024 Labour Party manifesto – is to prioritise international co-operation and upstream prevention, and the co-ordination of returns and enforcement. ¹⁵⁶ Labour Party, Change, Labour Party Manifesto 2024, June 2024, https://labour.org.uk/change

The UK has international obligations to meet

In the decades following the Second World War, the UK played a leading role in establishing and adopting a series of high-profile international agreements through which to govern and organise the response to people in need of protection.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrined a right to seek asylum from persecution, and was closely followed by the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which included a prohibition against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. ¹⁵⁷ Ministry of Justice, ‘Human Rights: the UK’s international rights obligations’, GOV.UK, 18 March 2022, www.gov.uk/government/collections/human-rights-the-uks-international-human-rights-obligations  The 1951 Refugee Convention established the principle of ‘non-refoulement’ – that is, preventing states from returning refugees to a country where they are at risk of persecution. And following these, the 1966 UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the 1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment both went further to enshrine protections against people being returned to countries where they could face various forms of mistreatment.

The consequences of these international obligations were shown through a series of successful legal challenges to the recent Conservative governments’ ‘Rwanda scheme’ of sending would-be asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their claims heard there. In November 2023 the UK Supreme Court ruled that the policy was unlawful because of the risk of refoulement, ¹⁵⁸ UK Supreme Court judgment on the government’s Rwanda scheme, 15 November 2023, www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2023-0093-etc-judgment.pdf  explaining that it contravened various aspects of domestic and international law.

International agreements help to clarify how signatory nations are to treat asylum seekers where consensus can be reached between those nations. They ease international co-operation by creating a common set of conditions. And they can help to guide domestic policy making by clarifying the outcomes and objectives policy is intended to achieve. But being a signatory to these agreements places limits on what asylum policies the UK government can adopt. In one sense, this can make asylum policy making more difficult if a government wishes to develop policy that contradicts these agreements, as was the case with the Rwanda scheme. But equally, leaving these arrangements places limits on the UK’s ability to manage the issue in partnership with other governments, whose actions bear substantially on UK government’s available options.

So ministers have a legitimate decision, and trade-off, to make in designing asylum policy with regards to international obligations. Leaving accords such as the ECHR, for example, would in one sense give the UK more flexibility to pursue asylum policy that contradicts the 1950 convention, if a government wished to do so. But it would also have extensive consequences for the diplomatic, economic and other forms of engagement the UK held worldwide.

Ministers need to consciously decide whether they can best deliver their wider priorities for government by either remaining in (and ensuring policy complies with) such accords, leaving them or seeking to reach new agreements – and must recognise the trade-offs implied by these decisions.

The politics of asylum make policy making more difficult

Asylum is a salient and polarising issue

Immigration, including asylum, is consistently considered by the public to be among the most important issues facing the UK and therefore one of the most important for the government to manage. The degree of that salience has changed over time, but immigration is the fifth most frequently mentioned issue across Ipsos polls since 1974 and the public consider it to be one of the most important issues of the coming decades. ¹⁸⁴ Ipsos, ‘The NHS has been the biggest issue for Britain over the past 50 years’, 8 October 2024, www.ipsos.com/en-uk/nhs-has-been-biggest-issue-britain-over-past-50-years  Increasing proportions of respondents identified immigration as one of the most important issues facing the UK in the years leading up to the EU referendum in 2016. This dropped following the referendum – from 48% in June 2016 to 6% in April 2022 – before once more beginning to rise.

Political salience can help effective policy making. Previous Institute for Government research found that successful attempts to bring about long-term policy change tend “to begin with a start-up phase in which the issue climbs up the political agenda”, increasing the external pressure for change and bringing about greater political attention and competition. ¹⁸⁵ Norris E, Randall J, Ilott O and Bleasdale A, Making policy stick: Tackling long-term challenges in government, Institute for Government, 15 December 2016, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/report/making-policy-stick  

But it can also create difficulties for policy makers to navigate. In recent years, there has been increasing and understandable pressure on successive governments – from backbench MPs, opposition parties and the public – to demonstrate progress towards stopping small boat crossings. And some former ministers have themselves contributed towards the rising salience of irregular migration through their own commentary. The challenge is for ministers to channel public concern into action that is likely to address that concern. But this is distinct from the immediate pressure to be seen to be taking action on the issue, especially if that action in the short-term does not help to fix the problem in the long term. 

For instance, there remains no evidence to suggest that the Rwanda scheme would have deterred people from making dangerous journeys to claim asylum in the UK and the policy faced serious and successive challenges to delivery. But the increased salience of the issue did contribute to the sense that ministers in Rishi Sunak’s government needed to demonstrate action within the parliamentary term, encouraging them to continue with the policy in the face of its delivery problems. These political pressures on policy making are unlikely to go away – particularly given the success of Reform UK at the general election in July, based partly on its pledges on immigration. 

Asylum is a complex system, which means that even swift action to address a problem in one area can lead to issues elsewhere. For example, the Home Office’s efforts to clear the legacy backlog in the second half of 2023 did reduce the overall size of the backlog and lead to some people who had been waiting for a long time receiving a decision on their case. But the rapid increase in decisions made also meant local authorities were unable to handle the increased demand for support for new refugees, leading to an increase in those households requiring emergency support for homelessness. ¹⁸⁶ Wallis W, ‘Rishi Sunak’s bid to clear the asylum backlog backfires, say lawyers’, Financial Times, 31 January 2024, www.ft.com/content/0f148bc5-2088-4564-b6be-9b4e9a5b288b

Asylum and immigration are polarising issues. While many people believe asylum to be an important issue, and a consistent majority (recently over 80% according to some polling) agreed that the then Conservative government was handling immigration badly, there is much less consensus about what needs to change. ¹⁸⁷ YouGov, ‘How the government is handling the issue of immigration in the UK’, https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/how-the-government-is-handling-the-issue-of-immigration-in-the-uk  Of those who were dissatisfied with the government’s handling of immigration in February 2024, almost half thought the government was too generous to migrants and asylum seekers (46%), while a quarter believed the government did not treat asylum seekers well. Similarly, 44% believe immigration is good for the economy, 31% believe it is bad. ¹⁸⁸ Cooper C, Mulley S and Somerville W, Migration in the Age of Insecurity, Labour Together, March 2024, www.labourtogether.uk/all-reports/migration-in-the-age-of-insecurity

These varying expectations are linked with divergent perceptions about who the system should be designed for. The numbers of people seeking asylum are relatively small as a proportion of the total number of migrants arriving in the country: they made up just 6% of the 1.2 million people who migrated to the UK in the year ending June 2024. ¹⁸⁹ Office for National Statistics, ‘Long-term international migration, provisional: year ending June 2024’, 28 November 2024, www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearend…; Home Office, ‘Immigration system statistics, year ending June 2024’, GOV.UK, 22 August 2024, www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-june-2024  But there are arguments, in principle, about different cohorts within this group. Some focus on the vulnerability of those seeking asylum and the need to ensure they are treated fairly so that they can settle into society once they are granted refugee status. Others believe policies should prioritise eliminating exploitation of the system and identifying those who apply for asylum without a legitimate need for protection.

This does not mean that broad support cannot be reached for aspects of asylum policy, or that near-consensus does not already exist on certain issues. Majorities of respondents polled – both broadly positive and negative towards immigration – have been found to agree that immigration can be beneficial, by enabling vacancies to be filled in sectors with shortages, or that asylum seekers should be allowed to work while waiting for a decision on their claim. ¹⁹⁰ Cooper C, Mulley S and Somerville W, Migration in the Age of Insecurity, Labour Together, March 2024, www.labourtogether.uk/all-reports/migration-in-the-age-of-insecurity  But such divides present a challenge for politicians and officials seeking to pitch, develop and deliver policy at a time of heightened salience.

Too much asylum policy has been shaped by unfounded political assumptions 

Good policy emerges from a combination of the political – presenting a vision and setting strategic direction – and the technocratic – providing evidence of what works, testing policies and planning delivery. ¹⁹¹ Rutter J, Parker S and Hallsworth M, Policy making in the real world: Evidence and analysis, Institute for Government, 18 April 2011, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/report/policy-making-real-world  It is a mistake to pay too little attention to the values and role of elected politicians, and treat politics as something external to policy, to be worked around, rather than an integral part of the process. 

But politics alone cannot shape good policy. Political values and evidence of what works must be aligned and harnessed together in support of the government’s aims. Too much asylum policy has, under successive governments, been shaped disproportionately by ill-founded assumptions, particularly about the ‘pull factors’ that are contended to motivate asylum seekers’ decision to travel to the UK, including by irregular means, and how people can be deterred. 

This pull factor orthodoxy contends that, by restricting access to asylum and reducing the rights or worsening the conditions of those seeking asylum, people will be deterred from choosing to travel to the UK. Successive governments have used this hypothesis to justify decisions to, for instance:

• Process claims slowly ¹⁹² House of Commons, Hansard, ‘Net Migration Figures’, vol. 733: debated on Thursday 25 May 2023, https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-05-25/debates/93F84978-C83F-4DEB-A12C-30671D27D905/NetMigrationFigures#contribution-F7019F32-7DF2-4323-971…  
• Use disused army bases and ships to house people seeking asylum ¹⁹³ Walker P, ‘Asylum seekers will get the most basic housing possible, says Robert Jenrick’, The Guardian, 29 March 2023, www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/29/asylum-seekers-housed-portakabins-maybe-ships-robert-jenrick
• Limit the ability of people to work while waiting for their asylum claim ¹⁹⁴ Home Office, ‘Permission to work and volunteering for asylum seekers, Version 15.0’, 4 April 2024, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66057d8b91a320001a82b1de/Permission+to+work+and+volunteer.pdf
• Detain children ¹⁹⁵ Francis S, ‘Not detaining child migrants creates pull factor – Sunak’, BBC News, 28 March 2023, www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65102133  
• Paint over cartoon murals at an asylum unit used to look after unaccompanied children ¹⁹⁶ Geiger C, ‘Minister Robert Jenrick ordered painting over of child asylum unit murals’, BBC News, 7 July 2023, www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66132158
• Grant reduced rights to refugees depending on the route they took to the UK ¹⁹⁷ House of Commons, Hansard, Nationality and Borders Bill (Seventh sitting), 21 October 2021, col. 238
• Attempt to relocate certain asylum seekers to Rwanda ¹⁹⁸ Home Office, Response from Rt Hon Priti Patel to Matthew Rycroft, 13 April 2022, www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-and-economic-development-partnership-ministerial-direction/response-from-rt-hon-priti-patel-to-matthew-r…  
• Treat as ‘inadmissible’ the claims of people who have passed through other countries. ¹⁹⁹ Home Office, ‘Inadmissibility: safe third country cases, Version 9.0’, 15 August 2024, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1084315/Inadmissibility.pdf  

Deterrent policies are not unique to the last parliament or the Conservative Party. Initial restrictions on asylum seekers’ right to work while awaiting a decision on their case were introduced by Tony Blair’s government.*, ²⁰⁰ House of Commons Library, Research Briefing, ‘Asylum seekers: the permission to work policy’, 26 July 2024, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01908  A 1998 white paper on immigration and asylum identified one of the government’s objectives for its asylum policy as to “minimise the incentive to economic migration, particularly by minimising cash payments to asylum seekers”. ²⁰¹ Home Office, Fairer, Faster and Firmer – A Modern Approach to Immigration and Asylum, Cm 4018, The Stationery Office, July 1998, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7cdecbed915d7c849adbdd/4018.pdf  As immigration minister, in 2007 Liam Byrne announced a policy to fine firms for employing people without the right to work in the UK and said the government was “trying to create a much more hostile environment” for those without leave to remain. ²⁰² Travis A, ‘Officials launch drive to seek out illegal migrants at work’, The Guardian, 16 May 2007, www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/may/16/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices

The ‘hostile environment’ theme was carried on, and expanded, by David Cameron’s home secretary, Theresa May. Her policy contended that people could be deterred from entering or remaining in the country illegally by introducing restrictions such as immigration status checks by private landlords, banks and when applying for a driving licence. ²⁰³ Travis A, ‘Immigration bill: Theresa May defends plans to create “hostile environment”’, The Guardian, 10 October 2013, www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/10/immigration-bill-theresa-may-hostile-environment  The Home Office at this time also withdrew support for search-and-rescue operations for people crossing the Mediterranean Sea, believing it to act as a pull factor for irregular migration into Europe. ²⁰⁴ Travis A, ‘Home Office defends decision for UK to halt migrant rescues’, The Guardian, 28 October 2014, www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/home-office-defends-uk-migrant-pull-factor

But despite the decades-long dominance of pull factor orthodoxy in asylum there is little evidence to back it up – while there is reliable evidence suggesting that deterrence measures are far from the most influential motivation behind migrants’ decisions. ²⁰⁵ The Migration Observatory, ‘UK policies to deter people from claiming asylum’, 23 January 2024, https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/uk-policies-to-deter-people-from-claiming-asylum  It is often cited as a ‘common sense’ assumption, often made with simplistic comparisons to policies in other countries such as Australia. But international comparisons are difficult due to the UK’s geographic position off the north-west coast of continental Europe – and in the case of Australia specifically, its government combined various measures in its asylum response, meaning that evaluating the effect of a single policy on its own is difficult. ²⁰⁶ House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, Oral evidence: ‘Channel crossings, migration and asylum-seeking routes through the EU’, HC 705, 11 November 2020, https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1195/html/  Indeed, the Home Office’s own analysis in 2020 found that many asylum seekers are unable to ‘choose’ their destination country due to human trafficking. ²⁰⁷ Home Office, Sovereign Borders: International Asylum Comparisons Report, September 2020, https://freemovement.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Annex-A-Sovereign-Borders-International-Asylum-Comparisons-Report-Section-1-Drivers-and-impact…  Of those who can choose, ‘push factors’ from migrants’ countries of origin, such as war and persecution, are the most influential, while “social networks, shared languages and diasporas” are among the biggest pull factors. On top of this, many asylum seekers were found to “have little to no understanding of current asylum policies and the economic conditions of a destination country”, including in comparison to other European countries, meaning it is unlikely many asylum seekers would be put off trying to reach the UK over Germany based on each country’s policy, for instance. These findings echo research conducted in other countries and older, 2002 research commissioned by the Home Office. ²⁰⁸ The Migration Observatory, ‘UK policies to deter people from claiming asylum’, 23 January 2024, https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/uk-policies-to-deter-people-from-claiming-asylum

_{* That is, the first changes to the existing rule that asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if they had been waiting for a decision for six months.}

The asylum system is complex and hard to manage 

Asylum policy is not made or implemented in isolation. It is enacted through a large, complex system of public services. These services depend on effective delivery by civil and public servants, who need to be led, resourced and supported well. The asylum system spans different parts of central and local government, each of which must be able to collaborate and communicate. And policy decisions in one part of the system can have unintended and unhelpful consequences elsewhere. 

This makes asylum policy making difficult for several reasons. First, because of the complex needs of asylum seekers themselves. Second, because deliberate policy choices made by ministers can have secondary or unintended consequences for the state’s ability to manage the system. And third, because of difficulties inherent to managing a large, cross-cutting series of public services.

Most asylum seekers are vulnerable people with complex needs 

Asylum seekers are often a vulnerable group of people as a result of the situations from which they have fled, their journeys to the UK and their experiences in the UK – including the risk of abuse in the asylum system itself. They are more likely to experience poor physical and mental health, ²³³ BMA, ‘Unique health challenges for refugees and asylum seekers’, 28 June 2024, www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/ ethics/refugees-overseas-visitors-and-vulnerable-migrants/refugee-and-asylum-seeker-patient-health- toolkit/unique-health-challenges-for-refugees-and-asylum-seekers  and to have experienced or be at risk of experiencing exploitation. ²³⁴ UNHCR and British Red Cross, At risk: exploitation and the UK asylum system, August 2022, www.redcross.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/we-speak-up-for-change/at-risk-exploitation-and-the-uk-asylum-system  They are also more likely, in part because of most asylum seekers’ inability to work, to experience destitution and poverty. 

The early months of an asylum seeker’s application for protection are often the most difficult. Asylum seekers might be new to the UK, with limited social networks to rely on, no right to seek paid employment, and be moved frequently between Home Office accommodation and with an uncertain future. In this context making the right public services available to meet asylum seekers’ needs is far from straightforward, especially when they are provided by different public sector institutions with varying data on the individuals concerned. 

Increasingly complex and changing asylum rules cause delays, backlogs and limbo 

Asylum policy is often subject to change, as different politicians are moved to show action on different aims. The Institute for Government has previously highlighted that Home Office operations struggle to keep up with the high rate of change to immigration rules. Poor parliamentary scrutiny of these changes has meant that the rule book can become overly complex and unworkable. For asylum, where caseworkers already have to assess a huge amount of information relating to each claim, policy and legislative changes have a significant knock-on effect on the time taken to make a decision and the potential quality of those decisions. 

This policy churn was especially pronounced over the course of the last parliament,* with two acts of parliament – the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, both with largely deterrent aims – coming in quick succession. Both had consequences that undermined the previous government’s ability to quickly resolve asylum cases. 

In particular, these policy changes added layers of complexity to the already complicated decision making process that must be undertaken for each asylum application, depending on a range of factors, including when the application was made, the applicant’s method of arrival and the countries they had connections with. This added complexity and created resourcing pressures within the department. The dearth of options of countries to which these people could be removed also made the rule changes extremely difficult or, in most cases, impossible to deliver. In practice – as operational Home Office staff raised – they instead added a minimum six-month delay to the processing of thousands of asylum claims at a time when the backlog was growing anyway. ²³⁵ Independent x§ of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of asylum casework, June-October 2023, The Stationery Office, February 2024, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65e06d45f1cab36b60fc47ad/An_inspection_of_asylum_casework_June_to_October_2023.pdf

And following the Illegal Migration Act this problem became worse, when the rule changes in effect created an increasingly large cohort of people stuck in limbo in the UK, unable to work and with their asylum claim unable to be processed. The new home secretary, Yvette Cooper, amended the provisions of the Illegal Migration Act following the July 2024 general election to allow those who applied for asylum after July 2023 to have their claims processed. ²³⁶ The Illegal Migration Act 2023 (Amendment) Regulations 2024, www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/815/made  This was a welcome recognition of the operational realities the Home Office was facing, with a growing cohort of people stuck with little prospect of removal, no consideration of asylum, no right to work and subsequent need for state support and accommodation. 

_{* Including through the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023}

It is largely impossible to apply for asylum from abroad 

The Home Office’s most recent report on ‘safe and legal routes’ to asylum explains that the previous government would “not consider asylum claims made abroad and there is no provision in the Immigration Rules for someone to be allowed to travel to the UK to claim asylum”. ²³⁷ Home Office, Report on safe and legal routes (section 61 Illegal Migration Act 2023), GOV.UK, updated 12 January 2024, www.gov.uk/government/publications/safe-and-legal-routes/report-on-safe-and-legal-routes-section-61-illegal-migration-act-2023-accessible  

Instead, several country-specific schemes have been used to allow a substantial number of people to come to the UK in recent years, including from Hong Kong (184,700 people) and Ukraine (271,389 people) and protection schemes for certain people from Afghanistan (21,673 people) and Syria (approximately 22,000 people).* 

The UK also offers protection to other refugees identified around the world by UNHCR, and has done so for approximately 6,800 people since 2015.** In 2021 and 2022, as the number of small boat crossings increased, the rate of resettlements via these global schemes increased to an average of 1,217 people per year. But this was far outstripped by, for example, the on average 37,141 people who were detected arriving by small boat in each of these years. ²³⁸ Home Office, ‘Small boat activity in the English Channel’, GOV.UK, updated 23 August 2024, www.gov.uk/government/publications/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats  

This means that those people who wish to apply for protection in the UK, but who are not eligible for one of the country-specific schemes (such as people from Iraq, Iran, Sudan or Eritrea), have little prospect of being able to do so legally. For some, the conditions in their home country may change while they are in the UK on a valid visa.*** But for most, they will be unable to get a valid visa with which to travel to the UK and they will be unable to apply from abroad. 

This is a design, not a bug, of asylum systems in the UK and other countries, intended to limit the number of people able to apply for asylum. Government policy has an effect on the means by which asylum seekers seek to travel to the UK. This was demonstrated by the UK and French governments’ success at tightening security to prevent people concealing themselves in road vehicles to enter the UK, which was a significant factor behind the rise in the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats instead. ²³⁹ Home Affairs Select Committee, Channel crossings, migration, and asylum, First Report of Session 2022–23, HC 199, 18 July 2022, https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/23102/documents/180406/default/

Without a legal means of reaching the UK or applying for asylum from abroad, and with rising global demand for protection, more people have resorted to trying more dangerous, uncontrolled and irregular routes in recent years. Of those who have arrived in the UK by these means, the vast majority (around 90%) have applied for asylum and the Refugee Council estimates that three quarters of these claims are likely to be successful under the current system. ²⁴⁰ Refugee Council, The Truth about Channel Crossings and the impact of the Illegal Migration Act, October 2023, www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/resources/the-truth-about-channel-crossings-and-the-impact-of-the-illegal-migration-act/  There is some evidence**** to suggest that more controlled, legal routes would contribute to a reduction in demand for uncontrolled, irregular routes – recently seen in the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole programme ²⁴¹ Bier DJ, Parole Sponsorship Is a Revolution in Immigration Policy, Briefing Paper 165, Cato Institute, 18 September 2023, www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2023-09/BP%20165_update.pdf; Department of Homeland Security, ‘Fact Sheet: Data from First Six Months of Parole Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans Shows That Lawful Pathways Work’, 25 July 2023, www.dhs.gov/news/2023/07/25/fact-sheet-data-first-six-months-parole-processes-cubans-haitians-nicaraguans-and  – though existing regular pathways tend to be small in scale. ²⁴² Crisp J, ‘Unpicking the notion of ‘safe and legal’ routes’, Mixed Migration Review 2022, Mixed Migration Centre, https://mixedmigration.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Mixed-Migration-Review-2022.pdf#page=190 , pp. 190–197.  

The make-up of routes to asylum and protection is a policy question that government must answer by balancing its priorities for the overall asylum system. It is too simplistic, for instance, to consider only ways in which government can restrict access to asylum, while neglecting what might give the government greater control over the routes being used by migrants – mostly eligible for refugee protection – to travel. There are inescapable trade-offs that policy makers must consciously make in using these levers. 

_{* Each of these numbers refers to the total number of people offered safe passage through the respective schemes between 2015 and Q3 2023.}

_{** This total excludes refugees resettled through the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme and Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme (later merged with the global scheme) aimed at those fleeing conflict in Syria.}

_{*** In recent years, the government has also introduced visa requirements for countries such as Namibia, Honduras and El Salvador, in response to an increase in nationals using their visa-free travel rights to come to the UK and claim asylum.}

_{****Though it is, of course, methodologically difficult to disentangle the overlapping motivating factors behind a hypothetical decision over which route a would-be asylum seeker might choose.}

Right-to-work restrictions cause demand for expensive public sector support 

Before 2002, people waiting more than six months for an initial decision on their asylum claim could apply for permission to work. This right was removed by the Blair government, ostensibly to make a distinction between asylum and economic migration. ²⁴³ Gower M, McKinney CJ and Meade L, ‘Asylum seekers: the permission to work policy’, House of Commons Library, 9 December 2022, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01908  In 2005, it reintroduced the ability to apply for working permission, though only for those waiting more than 12 months, and in 2010 the coalition restricted rights to the Shortage Occupation List of jobs where it has been considered practical to fill labour shortages with workers from abroad. 

But a consequence of this policy is that those individuals require support and are more likely to experience deprivation, warranting further, more expensive support. Under Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the Home Office must provide housing and basic subsistence to applicants and their dependants if they are destitute or likely to become destitute. Simply put, being unable to work makes this more likely. 

This system runs in parallel to Universal Credit – people waiting for an asylum decision are not able to access mainstream benefits. This support includes private accommodation (which in recent years has included the use of contingency hotels) for those waiting for a decision and unable to fund their own accommodation by working. 

And in the context of a large backlog of asylum claims, the Migration Advisory Committee has also found that the inability to work for long periods may hinder the integration and employment outcomes of people seeking asylum. ²⁴⁴ Migration Advisory Committee, MAC Annual Report, December 2021, www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisory-committee-annual-report-2021  This could create a further long-term cost for the government, if the government faces greater demand for benefits from refugees who struggle to find well-paying jobs due to extended periods of absence from the labour market. These waiting times may worsen further the ability to engage in the labour market for asylum seekers who have experienced traumatic events. ²⁴⁵ Ruiz I and Vargas-Silva C, What works for improving refugee outcomes in high-income countries? Policy insights for the UK, COMPAS, January 2021, www.compas.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/What-Works-for-Improving-Refugee-Outcomes-in-High-Income-Countries-Policy-Insights-for-the-UK.pdf  Participants in qualitative research for this paper told us that the inability to work – and being dependent on asylum support – while waiting for a decision had extremely negative effects on their wellbeing. 

“Much of the asylum process is inherently undignified. Asylum seekers, when they come to the country, they’ve got no recourse to public funds, they cannot work so that means they’re entirely dependent on the Home Office” – Alvina Tamara Chibhamu, ambassador at the VOICES network, speaking at an Institute for Government event in 2024. 

Under-resourcing the Home Office’s asylum set-up creates expensive inefficiencies 

The realities of managing a large system of public services such as those pertaining to asylum also make policy making more difficult in various ways, such as how the Home Office marshals its resources and supports its workforce. 

As the asylum backlog began to grow from 2018 it became apparent that there were not enough decision makers to keep up with the caseload, with the workforce reaching a low of 533 FTE in May 2021. ²⁴⁶ Home Office, ‘Statistics relating to Illegal Migration’, 26 April 2024, www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statistics-relating-to-the-illegal-migration-bill  Those that were employed were junior staff on relatively low grades and salaries, with insufficient experience and training. ²⁴⁷ Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of asylum casework (August 2020 – May 2021), The Stationery Office, 18 November 2021, www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-inspection-of-asylum- casework-august-2020-may-2021  

Decision makers used to be more senior, but were mostly downgraded (from higher executive officer to executive officer) following the conclusion of a backlog clearance exercise in the early 2010s. ²⁴⁸ House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, Written evidence submitted by the Home Office, (ASY 00), April 2013, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmhaff/71/71/71we.htm  At the time, this restructuring was justified by the Home Office on the grounds that it would cut costs when there were fewer cases to work through, but it led to more than 100 senior decision makers leaving the department and a 70% increase in claims awaiting an initial decision. ²⁴⁹ House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Reforming the UK border and immigration system: Twentieth Report of Session 2014–15 (HC 584), The Stationery Office, 2014, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmpubacc/584/584.pdf  

The productivity of asylum decision makers has also fallen in the last few years. In 2022/23, there were 1,058 caseworkers who completed an average of 5.4 ‘principal stages’ (substantive interviews and asylum decisions) per month per staff member, compared to 380 caseworkers with a productivity rate of 13.7 principal stages in 2011/12. This longer term drop in productivity partly reflects low morale and high turnover among asylum decision makers, associated with a lack of career progression. ²⁵⁰ Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of asylum casework (August 2020 – May 2021), The Stationery Office, 18 November 2021, www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-inspection-of-asylum- casework-august-2020-may-2021

As noted, it is hard to predict demand for asylum. But modelling potential demand flows is possible and advisable. A marked reduction in the demand for asylum, as was seen in the late 2000s and early 2010s, is never likely to prove permanent. Maintaining an under-resourced staff unable to keep up with increases in demand creates the risk of costly inefficiencies – in recent years the Home Office has incurred large expense repurposing hotels as contingency accommodation due to the large number of asylum seekers waiting for initial decisions. These significant pressures on asylum support services – in part driven by the slow rate of decision making – resulted in an overspend of £6.4bn, as the chancellor outlined in her audit of public spending in July. ²⁵¹ HM Treasury, Fixing the foundations: public spending audit 202–25, GOV.UK, 29 July 2024, www.gov.uk/government/publications/fixing-the-foundations-public-spending-audit-2024-25  

While it would be inefficient to employ a large ‘standing army’ of underutilised decision makers, a ‘boom and bust’ approach, cutting staff numbers during periods of low demand and having to rapidly hire a new cadre of decision makers as the backlog grows, is both unsustainable and increases training and recruitment costs in the long term. A lack of continuity and stability only makes it harder to effectively evaluate the resource needed to deal with different kinds of claim. 

Asylum policy is often disjointed between Whitehall departments, local government and front-line public services 

Asylum is an inherently cross-government issue, with various parts of government and public services responsible for handling decisions, appeals, accommodation and support, integration and other services such as health and education. But co-ordinating policy across institutional boundaries creates challenges that are not present for policies handled distinctly by one part of government. Different institutions and services have their own cultures, tend to find external communication and collaboration more difficult than internal, and usually prioritise issues squarely within their responsibility over those they share with other parts of government. ²⁵² Worlidge J, Clyne R, Nye P and others, Whitehall Monitor 2024, Institute for Government, 22 January 2024, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/whitehall-monitor-2024

This is true for asylum in several ways. Asylum seekers and refugees’ experiences are made worse, and more disjointed, by needing support from a diverse range of services from different parts of the state. Data on their requirements and case is sometimes lost between the Home Office, local authorities, schools and the NHS. All this means asylum seekers often struggle to access the services they need – and are entitled to – often while being moved frequently between accommodation while awaiting a decision. 

The Home Office’s relationship with local authorities has been especially disjointed. The department maintains centralised control of accommodation and support services for asylum seekers. This requires the department to intervene in local property markets to seek accommodation. In recent years this has sparked local controversies, as councils have complained about the department’s lack of communication, its competition with local authorities’ attempts to provide accommodation for their own support services, and their apparently poor choice of locations for accommodation sites. This has resulted in local authorities challenging the Home Office in court. ²⁵³ Taylor D, ‘Councils ask judge to stop plan to house asylum seekers on former RAF bases’, The Guardian, 31 October 2023, www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/31/councils-judge-stop-plan-asylum-seekers-former-raf-bases-scampton-wethersfield  Accountability for decisions is made more complex as the Home Office relies on contracts with external providers to deliver accommodation. 

Once applicants receive refugee status, local authorities are responsible for their ongoing support. But as happened in the later months of 2023, when decision making speeds up to clear a backlog of cases in the Home Office, this can lead to an unexpected increase in the number and rate of refugees requiring support, with little notice (even reducing, in practice, to seven days’ notice for a period last year ²⁵⁴ Butler P, Gecsoyler S and Goodier M, ‘Home Office reverses policy on UK hostel evictions after surge in refugee homelessness ‘, The Guardian, 21 December 2023, www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/21/home-office-reverses-policy-on-uk-hostel-evictions-after-surge-in-refugee-homelessness ). 

And this, in turn, can mean an expensive increase in the number of refugees presenting as homeless or in need of other acute public services – this figure rose from 920 households in Q2 2023 to 5,140 by the end of the year. ²⁵⁵ Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, ‘Statutory homelessness in England: October to December 2023’, GOV.UK, 30 April 2024, www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statutory-homelessness-in-england-october-to-december-2023; Comptroller and Auditor General, Investigation into asylum accommodation, Session 2023–24, HC 635, 2024, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/investigation-into-asylum-accommodation.pdf  The National Audit Office found that the Home Office’s business case for its backlog clearance efforts did not account or plan for the knock-on effects for local authorities, HM Courts and Tribunals Service facing an increase in appeals, or even other parts of the Home Office responsible for detention and removal. ²⁵⁶ Comptroller and Auditor General, The asylum and protection transformation programme, Session 2022–23, HC 1375, National Audit Office, 2023.

The disconnect between different aspects of asylum policy can also be the result of the interests and incentives at play in different parts of government. The Home Office is responsible for the safety and security of the nation. Handling the vulnerability of asylum seekers, supporting their integration, or understanding the local impacts of the migration system are not skills that would be inherently vital to that core security purpose of the department – as they might be in, for example, local government and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The resulting clashes of culture and priority can create incoherences and contradictions in policies.