The Prime Minister previously made a promise to eradicate legacy cases by the end of this year
The backlog of older asylum cases has been reduced by a third as ministers insist they will achieve Rishi Sunak’s pledge to eradicate it by the end of this year.
The number of legacy asylum applications – ones older than June 2022 – has been cut from 92,000 to around 60,000 as the number of staff working on cases has nearly trebled to 1,800 compared with the beginning of last year. Their productivity has also doubled.
Robert Jenrick, immigration minister, said he was “confident” the Home Office would meet the target set by the Prime Minister last December to clear the backlog by the end of 2023.
Reducing the backlog is critical to cutting the numbers of migrants in hotels. Home Office figures show that as of the end of June, there were still 50,546 asylum seekers in hotels, costing the taxpayer an estimated £6 million a day.