UK’s failure to end asylum crisis is costing taxpayers £5bn every year | Politics | News
Britain’s failure to deport failed asylum seekers is fueling an exorbitant bill for taxpayers, a scathing report has revealed. The spending watchdog accused ministers of failing to take a “realistic approach” to removing people who are not entitled to asylum. The National Audit Office said this resulted in “significant” costs.
The Home Office also does not keep any data on the number of people escaping the asylum system, the number of migrants who have applied repeatedly or the “total number of people currently subject to some form of enforcement action”. The department is also unaware that a large number of “failed removals” have occurred. The NAO estimates that the asylum crisis costs more than £5 billion a year; This includes accommodation costs of almost £3bn.
The National Audit Office revealed: “Our analysis shows that efforts to improve the system in recent years have generally been short-term and narrowly focused on a single area of the system in response to large backlogs and sharply rising costs.
“Increases in processing speed sometimes compromise the quality of decisions, and improvements in one area cause problems to be shifted elsewhere.
“A realistic approach could not be taken to the fact that in a significant number of cases it is not possible to send back people whose requests have been rejected.
“As a result, the system incurred significant costs that could have been avoided, particularly accommodation and support.”
Approximately 36,273 people are staying in taxpayer-funded hotel rooms; This represents a 13% increase over June’s figure of 32,041.
And a record number of asylum claims (110,051 in the year to September) are putting further pressure on the collapsing system.
This has been driven by a sharp increase in Channel immigration crossings and an increase in the number of foreign nationals applying for asylum after arriving on work, study or visitor visas.
Regarding the lack of deportations, the NAO added: “This leads to significant expenditure on support, accommodation or detention without any progress being made towards resolving the case.
“In our sample of 5,000 people seeking asylum in January 2023, we found that more than a third (41%) of people in our sample had their claims remain open but were not awaiting an appeal decision or the outcome of new applications to the Home Office.
“There is no progress on these allegations and the individuals involved have not been removed from the UK.”
