Figures show 67,978 claims were approved in year to June, more than triple the 21,436 in previous year
The number of asylum seekers being granted refugee status has hit the highest level since records began nearly 40 years ago.
Official figures, published on Thursday, showed that 67,978 asylum claims were granted by the Home Office in the year to June – more than triple the 21,436 in the previous year. The number is even higher than during the asylum crisis in the early 2000s.
Home Office caseworkers made just under 92,000 initial decisions on asylum claims in the year – the highest level in two decades. Of those, 58 per cent were given asylum or another form of humanitarian protection, down from 71 per cent in the year ending June 2023 after the Tories had tightened the rules.
Before the pandemic, the “grant rate” – the proportion of asylum applications leading to refugee status at the initial stage – was about a third.
However, this surged through last year following the introduction by Rishi Sunak of fast-track schemes and a trebling of the number of caseworkers making decisions.
The schemes were introduced in an attempt to clear a backlog of cases as the former prime minister scrambled to deliver on his pledge to “abolish” the list.
In December 2022, he set a year’s deadline to remove a backlog of 92,000 historic cases, which included applicants from “fast track” nations such as Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Eritrea and Yemen.
Migrants who arrived across the Channel on small boats accounted for more than a third of the decisions – some 35,176, over four times more than in the year ending last June, when there were just 7,888, according to the Home Office data.
The surge in migrants granted asylum meant the UK’s backlog of cases fell by almost a third, from 175,457 at the end of June 2023 to 118,882 people at the end of June this year.
The backlog has, however, crept up again since April as the previous Government stalled processing to focus on detaining migrants to deport to Rwanda. Labour has now lifted the bar on processing migrants who were earmarked for deportation to Rwanda, instead opening the way for them to claim asylum in the UK.
It comes as the statistics also revealed that the number of migrants being granted UK citizenship hit its highest level in more than 50 years.
Some 246,488 people were granted citizenship in the year ending this June, 37 per cent more than the previous year to June 2023. It is equivalent to an area the size of Rotherham, Walsall or Plymouth, and is 10 times the figure of 23,146 in 1962, when records began.
Immigration experts said the surge in citizenship was “puzzling” but could reflect settled migrants’ concerns over Brexit spurring them to make their status in the UK more permanent for fear that they could lose the right to remain.
Numbers could increase further as the “liberal” immigration regime introduced by Boris Johnson fuels more citizenship applications.
Net migration hit a record high of 764,000 in 2022, before falling to 685,000 in 2023, due to the easing of visa rules for workers and students and influxes from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong.
The most common non-EU nationalities granted British citizenship were Indian (22,263), Pakistani (19,491), and Nigerian (10,905) nationals. However, they accounted for only 28 per cent of the non-EU total because there was such a wide range of nationalities.
Italian nationals were the top EU nationality granted citizenship in the year ending this June (13,188), followed by Romanian (7,675), and Polish (7,008) nationals.
The Vietnamese were the biggest nationality making Channel boat crossings, with 2,248 people in the six months to June 2024, double the number of Vietnamese people crossing last year and four times the number in the whole of 2022.
Afghans, Iranians, Syrians, Sudanese and Eritreans were the next top nations.
The UK and Vietnam have agreed a new deal to fast-track returns of illegal migrants amid concerns that they are turning to small boats because of tougher security on lorries and the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a lorry trailer in Essex in 2019.
The Home Office data confirmed that measures to crack down on net migration, including restrictions on bringing dependents, had led to the number of visas issued to foreign workers, overseas students and people joining families in the UK falling by 14 per cent.
Foreign student numbers fell by 23 per cent in the first six months of this year, and 13 per cent in the year to this June, to 432,225. Student dependents were down by 81 per cent in the first six months of this year to 11,675.
Work visas fell by 11 per cent to 286,382, health and care visas were down by 26 per cent to 89,095 and skilled worker visas dropped by three per cent.
Seema Malhotra, the minister for migration and citizenship, said: “Today’s stats show the chaos the Tories left in our immigration and asylum system. Since 2019, net migration trebled to a record high.
“Despite the hundreds of millions pumped into the Rwanda partnership, small boat crossings for the first half of this year went up by almost 20 per cent. The asylum backlog has soared, costing the taxpayer billions, and the removal of foreign national offenders has dropped 20 per cent since 2010.”
James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, who is running for the Tory leadership, claimed the visa figures were proof that measures put in place when he was in office were taking effect.
“When I said I was going to cut migration, I meant it,” he said. “The actions I took as home secretary are working. I reformed visas and cut net migration… that’s the inheritance I left Labour.”
