Asylum Accelerated decisions to cut backlog

Nearly 63,000 people who were waiting for their cases to be processed at the time of the general election are expected to be granted asylum by the Labour government, an analysis has found.

- Rajeev Syal, Diane Taylor

The Refugee Council said the government's decision to scrap the plan to deport people to Rwanda and accelerate claims means the asylum backlog is forecast to be 118,063 at the start of 2025 - 59,000 lower than if the policy had continued.

There were 118,882 people in the backlog by the end of June 2024. Based on the grant rates in the year to that date the charity expects 62,801 people to be granted asylum.

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the charity, said Labour had "inherited an asylum system that was utterly broken" and while "decisive early action has been taken to stop the system from falling over" there needed to be "comprehensive reform".