Sunak’s Controversial Asylum Backlog Claim ‘May Affect Public Trust’: Watchdog

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak leaves Dorland House in London after giving evidence to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry on Dec. 11, 2023. Jordan Pettitt/PA

A UK statistics watchdog has warned that a claim by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on “clearing” the asylum backlog may have misled the public and affected its trust in the government.

Ministers and advisers need to “think carefully about how a reasonable person would interpret” quantitative claims, the chair of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), Sir Robert Chote, cautioned on Jan. 18.

Sir Robert’s warning comes after Alistair Carmichael MP lodged a complaint about Mr. Sunak’s claim that ministers had cleared the asylum backlog.

Mr. Sunak posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Jan. 2: “I said that this government would clear the backlog of asylum decisions by the end of 2023. That’s exactly what we’ve done.”

Sir Robert said that it wasn’t surprising that the claim, which was confirmed by the Home Office, had been “greeted with scepticism and that some people may feel misled.”

In December 2022, the government made a commitment to clear the backlog of the 92,601 “legacy” asylum cases submitted before June 28, 2022, which didn’t include subsequent “flow” applications.

On the same day as Mr. Sunak’s X post, the Home Office confirmed in an ad-hoc statistical release that on Dec. 28, 4,537 of the “legacy” claims were still awaiting an initial decision.

The 4,537 cases required additional checks or investigation. The Home Office referred to them as “hard cases,” which typically relate to children or those with serious medical issues seeking asylum. Age verification and additional checks are usually required to clear such cases.

On Jan. 1, the Home Office declared it had cleared the backlog of legacy asylum claims.

“The average member of the public is likely to interpret a claim to have ‘cleared a backlog’ – especially when presented without context on social media – as meaning that it has been eliminated entirely,” Sir Robert wrote.

He advised the Home Office to clearly explain the data it shares with the public relating to the “important” asylum policy area.

The Home Office should publish ad-hoc releases “when ministers wish to bring hitherto unreleased numbers into the public domain,” he added.

Under Fire

After his post, Mr. Sunak came under fire from MPs and campaigners. Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock called the prime minister’s statement “deeply misleading” and wrote to the UKSA, asking the watchdog to look into the issue.

Mr. Kinnock called on the UKSA to establish “whether there is any evidentiary basis to support claims by ministers that either the asylum backlog as a whole, or the so-called ‘legacy backlog’ had in fact been fully cleared by the end of December 2023.”

Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said in a statement that the government’s claim was “misleading” as there are thousands of cases still waiting for a decision.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper called Mr. Sunak’s claim “not true” and “one of five Sunak broken promises on asylum and small boats.”

According to the Cabinet Office’s Ministerial Code of Conduct, it is of “paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”

The rule book says that ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the prime minister.

“Ministers need to be mindful of the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice which defines good practice in relation to official statistics,” the code of conduct stipulates.

The government’s handling of the matter “does not support our expectations around intelligent transparency,” Sir Robert found, confirming that the UKSA has raised the issue with the Home Office.

The Home Office noted Sir Robert’s letter and said it was fully committed to transparency.

Stopping small boats is one of the five pledges made by the Conservative Party, which has been reiterated by Mr. Sunak in his statement delivered on Jan. 4.