{"id":472697,"date":"2026-03-13T03:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/472697\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T03:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:51:11","slug":"uk-asylum-appeal-backlog-doubles-in-a-year-to-hit-record-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/472697\/","title":{"rendered":"UK asylum appeal backlog doubles in a year to hit record high"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The number of people waiting for an initial asylum decision was &#8220;down nearly 50% under this government&#8221;, they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We are reforming human rights laws and replacing the broken appeals system, bringing an end to unacceptable delays and repeat applications, with extra funding to maximise the number of appeals that can be heard in First Tier Tribunals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;These initiatives will reduce appeal times, enabling swifter movement out of asylum hotels and removal of those with no right to be in the UK.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Home Office figures show 30,657 asylum seekers were being housed in hotels at the end of December while awaiting decisions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Experts have warned that the rising number of appeals could make it harder for the government to meet its pledge to end the use of asylum hotels by the close of this Parliament in 2029.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">An asylum appeal can relate to more than one person and The Refugee Council estimates the 80,333 outstanding appeals correspond to more than 100,000 people once family members are factored in. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Director of affairs Imran Hussain told the PA news agency that delays were leaving many &#8220;stuck&#8221; in asylum accommodation for months on end, &#8220;unable to work or rebuild their lives, at huge cost to the public purse&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The latest figures from the MoJ come a week after the home secretary unveiled a trial scheme where families of failed asylum seekers would be offered up to \u00a340,000 to leave the UK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mahmood said her approach was &#8220;compassionate but controlled&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Statistics published at the end of last year found that the backlog of asylum appeals was higher for the first time on record than the backlog of cases waiting for an initial decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Some 100,625 people claimed asylum in the year to December and 41% of these arrived by small boats, according to Home Office figures published in February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of people waiting for an initial asylum decision was &#8220;down nearly 50% under this government&#8221;, they&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-472697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}