In response to the growing backlog of asylum seekers in the UK, the government has announced a new plan to fast-track asylum applications.
The plan will involve sending 10-page questionnaires to thousands of asylum seekers instead of conducting face-to-face interviews.
The aim is to speed up the process and reduce the backlog, which currently stands at over 160,000 claims waiting to be dealt with.
The new plan has been met with criticism from some quarters, with Conservative MP Sir Bill Wiggin arguing that the government needs to do more to filter out people who are likely to pose a threat or break the law.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has claimed that the asylum system has been “broken by this Government”.
The new plan comes after a record number of people claimed asylum in the UK in 2022, with over 89,000 applications received – the highest number in 19 years.
Albanians topped the list of applicants by nationality, with over 14,000 people trying to settle in the UK, with the majority arriving on small boats. More than eight out of ten were adult men.
The rising backlog has been blamed on a range of factors, including low morale and high turnover among Home Office case workers, the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, and additional measures introduced by the government.
However, the government has pledged to “stop the boats” and reduce the backlog by the end of 2023.
Despite the criticisms, some experts have welcomed the new plan. Marley Morris from the Institute for Public Policy Research said the latest backlog figures paint a “dire picture of the inadequacies in our asylum system”.
The Refugee Council also welcomed the plan, arguing that people fleeing persecution are being left “in limbo” awaiting a decision.
The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford described the scale of the challenge as a “major headache” for the government.
Senior researcher Dr Peter Walsh said other countries have “routinely received similar or higher numbers of claims” but processing the applications has been “particularly slow in the UK”.
