62,000 More Asylum Seekers Could Get Refugee Status After Rwanda Plan Scrapped: Charity

Illegal immigrants are brought in to shore by the RNLI following a small boat incident in the English Channel in Dungeness, Kent, England, on Nov. 20, 2021. Gareth Fuller/PA Wire

Some 62,000 more asylum seekers could be granted refugee status in the UK since the new Labour government scrapped the Rwanda plan, a refugee charity says.

Under the previous government’s policy, asylum seekers who arrived in the country illegally—such as by small boat across the English Channel—would have their asylum applications automatically deemed inadmissible and be subject to removal to a safe third country, such as Rwanda.

However, days after winning the election, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the Rwanda plan was “dead and buried“ and his government has begun to process all asylum claims again, regardless of how asylum seekers arrived in the country.

The Refugee Council, a charity which works with refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK, analysed official data and based on grant rates in the 12 months leading up to the July 4 election, estimates that the number of asylum applications awaiting a decision could be at 118,063 by January 2025. Of those, 62,801 people who would not have been processed under the Conservative government policy could now be recognised as refugees and granted leave to stay in the country.

The report added that “seven in ten of the people who have crossed the Channel in the twelve months to June 2024 would be expected to be recognised as refugees if their asylum claims were processed.”

Refugee Council Chief Executive Enver Solomon said, “Asylum applications are moving again, but we are concerned that there is no clear plan yet to improve the rate of decision-making to keep pace with applications and avoid another backlog emerging.”

The previous Conservative government had sought to clear the backlog in asylum applications, leading to a record number of people being granted refugee status. Home Office data revealed that a total of 68,564 people were granted asylum or other leave in the year to March 2024, the highest figure since records began in 1984.

The department said at the time that the record-breaking figure was owing to a combination of a high grant rate and high volumes of decisions being made.

‘Broken’ Asylum System

Solomon said that Labour had inherited a “broken” asylum system and there needed to be “comprehensive reform to create a fair, orderly, and humane asylum system.”

The Refugee Council chief said, “A functioning system is one that quickly and accurately makes decisions about who has a valid reason to be protected in the UK and who doesn’t and supports refugees to rebuild their lives.”

He added, “People seeking asylum need quick decisions so they can feel secure about their future in Britain, while the public needs to feel confident that the government is making fair decisions about who can stay in the UK and who cannot.”

Responding to the Refugee Council’s report, a Home Office spokesman said: “This government took quick action to restore order to the asylum system that we inherited by restarting asylum processing to clear the backlog.

“This is happening as we continue to remove more people with no right to be here – with over 3,000 people returned since we formed government – while also driving down the costs of asylum accommodation to save money for the taxpayer.”

Border Security Command

Owing to a series of legal challenges against the Rwanda policy, the previous Conservative government was not able to send one asylum seeker to the African country, bar four people who went voluntarily.

Starmer had campaigned on a pledge to scrap the Rwanda plan, hire additional caseworkers to clear the backlog of asylum seekers, and establish a Border Security Command to tackle people smuggling.

Last month, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper pledged £75 million to the multi-agency Border Security Command to be spent on monitoring technology, new covert capabilities, improving intelligence sharing across the UK’s police forces, and recruiting additional personnel at the National Crime Agency.

The government says it will reduce illegal immigration by disrupting people smuggling, working with European partners to tackle the issue at source, and seize boating equipment.

However, the Refugee Council chief suggested that even if the government is successful at stopping boat crossings, criminal gangs will find another way to bring asylum seekers illegally into the UK.

Solomon said: “It’s no secret where you ramp up enforcement activity in relation to one route, not just enforcement activity close to the UK, closer to the UK border, but all the way further back through Europe, you’re going to see a shift in how people seek to get to the UK.

“Displacement is an inevitable consequence of particular enforcement activity which is the consequence of people smugglers seeking to adopt other tactics and try different routes.”

The Conservatives have criticised Labour for scrapping the Rwanda policy, which they said acted as a deterrent to illegal immigration. Starmer said after becoming prime minister that the plan was a gimmick that did not work as a deterrence.

PA Media contributed to this report.