Statistics watchdog to look into Sunak’s claims of clearing asylum backlog

LONDON: A top statistics watchdog in the UK has said that it will look into Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's claims of clearing the asylum backlog, after the opposition called it a “barefaced lie”, asking the Conservative leader to "stop the boasts".

According to The Evening Standard, the UK Statistics Authority said on Wednesday that it was looking into the announcement as more than 4,500 “legacy” cases remained outstanding despite Sunak and his ministers claiming they had succeeded.

The claims will be scrutinised by the Office for Statistics Regulation, the statistics watchdog's regulatory arm.

Sunak said on Tuesday that he has delivered on his commitment with more than 112,000 asylum cases being processed in the past year and small boat crossing arrivals down by 36 per cent.

But figures published by the Home Office showed that 4,537 complex legacy applications were still “awaiting an initial decision” as of December 28, 2023.

According to the Home Office, these "hard cases" typically relate to asylum seekers presenting as children -- where age verification is taking place; those with serious medical issues; or those with suspected past convictions, where checks may reveal criminality that would bar asylum.

Taking to his X, Labour’s shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock said on Tuesday that Sunak's "barefaced lie" that he has cleared the asylum backlog would be "laughable if it wasn't such an insult to the public's intelligence".

"Statistics published this morning by his own Govt show there are still around 100,000 cases languishing in the Tories' never-ending backlog," Kinnock said.

Condemning the Conservatives' "false promises and claims", shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Prime Minister must "stop taking the country for fools" and added that "Rishi Sunak needs to stop the boasts".

"Sunak claims to have cleared the asylum backlog. Not true. Not even cleared 'legacy backlog' -- 4,500 cases not done, 17,000 'withdrawn” by the Home Office but they’ve no idea where those people are... And rest of backlog DOUBLED this year... Total backlog 99k," Cooper wrote in a thread, recounting "broken promises" of the Prime Minister.

Cooper also spoke about the asylum hotel use, which Sunak had promised to end as it was costing 6 million pounds a day.

"Instead it went up this year by 20 per cent to 56,000, costing the British taxpayer more than GBP8m a day -- and well over GBP2 bn a year," Cooper wrote on X.