No 10 defends Sunak’s plan to cut asylum applications backlog after Jenrick said this could increase ‘pull factor’
Downing Street has defended the plan to cut the backlog for processing asylum applications, despite Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, telling MPs that this could encourage refugees to come to the UK. (See 11.03am and 11.43am.) Here are some of the key points from this morning’s lobby briefing.
What we are focusing on is reducing the numbers, tackling that backlog is the right approach.
Obviously it is only one part of it and obviously shouldn’t be seen in isolation. So that alongside with our Rwanda partnership, further efforts bilaterally with the French and jointly with the EU, and obviously we’re building on that with the Frontex work we’re starting to put in place now will have a cumulative impact.
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The spokesperson said Rishi Sunak was confident that the backlog would come down, despite figures out today showing it getting bigger. (See 10.05am.) The spokesperson said the government was taking steps to address the problem, but said it would take time for these policies to have an effect. He said:
Obviously some of these approaches do take time to bed in.
We are making some progress on specific areas. We’ve doubled the number of caseworkers. The Home Office stats show asylum decisions are up – 35% increase in decisions year-on-year. We’re seeing a 20% decrease in the asylum grant rate for Albanians, for example. And we’re seeing some success with our partnership with Albania.
But obviously there are more to do and we are confident that things like doubling the number of caseworkers will start to have an impact.
Here are the figures from a Home Office report today showing just 1% of applications from the year ending March 2023 have been processed.
Asylum application figures. Photograph: Home Office
Sunak has said he is committed to getting rid of what is described as the legacy backlog, the 92,601 claims made before the Nationality and Borders Act came into force in June 2022, by the end of this year.
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The spokesperson declined calls to issue an apology on behalf of Sunak for immigration numbers going up, in a breach of the Tory 2019 manifesto promise. Asked if Sunak would apologise, the spokesperson replied:
We are working to bring those numbers down. We’ve set out a significant package to do that just this week as well as all the work that goes alongside stopping the boats.
It’s also important to understand what sits beneath some of those numbers, 114,000 Ukrainians coming over for example, 52,000 British nationals from Hong Kong. We think that is something the public can be rightly proud of.
Updated at 08.18 EDT
Key events
Sunak should revive Tory leadership campaign pledge to consider ‘fundamental’ reform of Home Office, thinktank says
Rishi Sunak has been encourage to revive a plan he floated during the Tory leadership contest last summer and consider “fundamental” reform of the way the Home Office operates. The Institute for Government thinktank has published a report saying the the Home Office is “beset by myriad cultural and institutional problems” and that Sunak should consider the case for breaking it up.
Explaining the problem, the report says:
The morale of its civil servants is consistently among the weakest of Whitehall departments. Over the past year this has spilled into the open with leaked opposition to ministers’ controversial asylum policies – with the ‘Paddington posters’ furore of 2022. The Windrush scandal exposed serious problems with the Home Office’s decision making, laying bare its inability to take a compassionate approach and its failure to understand the human impact of its policies, particularly on the grounds of race. Five years on, the Home Office’s fortress mentality persists.
As an example of the problems, the IfG report says the Home Office is in charge of immigration policy, even though this is an area where a cross-government approach is needed.
Some, including the Treasury and Department for Business and Trade, view migration as a ‘positive’ policy lever that can provide skills, secure workforces in key sectors, and promote the UK’s reputation abroad. Others, such as DLUHC and DWP – and devolved and local government – have key roles in the immigration system and support community cohesion and integration. By contrast the Home Office is incentivised to control the system and, usually, to limit as far as plausible the numbers of migrants arriving in the UK.
It is understandable the Home Office’s focus is on controlling numbers. Being able to control the number of people arriving in the UK is seen as a key aspect of its security remit. But the economic levers of migration are an inescapable part of the policy puzzle in response to the slow growth and workforce pressures the UK faces – especially after Brexit and the end of free movement. Deciding how to operate those levers requires the Home Office (and Number 10) to work with, and balance the sometimes competing interests of, other departments.
Updated at 08.27 EDT
Patients in England to be encouraged to choose hospitals where operations can be carried out more quickly, Barclay says
Steve Barclay, the health secretary, is making a Commons statement on plans announced today to encourage patients in England to get their operations done in hospitals where they can be treated most quickly. In a news release about the plan, the Department of Health and Social Care says:
A letter issued by the NHS today to local areas will require patients to be offered choice when clinically appropriate.
After speaking with their GP, patients will be able to view information for up to five healthcare providers – filtered by distance, waiting times and quality of care. They will then be able to make a choice about where they go for treatment using the NHS App or website, based on their own circumstances.
Currently just one in 10 patients exercise their right to choose but research shows that giving patients choice can cut up to three months off their waiting time by selecting a different hospital in the same region.
Updated at 08.08 EDT
No 10 defends Sunak’s plan to cut asylum applications backlog after Jenrick said this could increase ‘pull factor’
Downing Street has defended the plan to cut the backlog for processing asylum applications, despite Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, telling MPs that this could encourage refugees to come to the UK. (See 11.03am and 11.43am.) Here are some of the key points from this morning’s lobby briefing.
What we are focusing on is reducing the numbers, tackling that backlog is the right approach.
Obviously it is only one part of it and obviously shouldn’t be seen in isolation. So that alongside with our Rwanda partnership, further efforts bilaterally with the French and jointly with the EU, and obviously we’re building on that with the Frontex work we’re starting to put in place now will have a cumulative impact.
-
The spokesperson said Rishi Sunak was confident that the backlog would come down, despite figures out today showing it getting bigger. (See 10.05am.) The spokesperson said the government was taking steps to address the problem, but said it would take time for these policies to have an effect. He said:
Obviously some of these approaches do take time to bed in.
We are making some progress on specific areas. We’ve doubled the number of caseworkers. The Home Office stats show asylum decisions are up – 35% increase in decisions year-on-year. We’re seeing a 20% decrease in the asylum grant rate for Albanians, for example. And we’re seeing some success with our partnership with Albania.
But obviously there are more to do and we are confident that things like doubling the number of caseworkers will start to have an impact.
Here are the figures from a Home Office report today showing just 1% of applications from the year ending March 2023 have been processed.
Asylum application figures. Photograph: Home Office
Sunak has said he is committed to getting rid of what is described as the legacy backlog, the 92,601 claims made before the Nationality and Borders Act came into force in June 2022, by the end of this year.
-
The spokesperson declined calls to issue an apology on behalf of Sunak for immigration numbers going up, in a breach of the Tory 2019 manifesto promise. Asked if Sunak would apologise, the spokesperson replied:
We are working to bring those numbers down. We’ve set out a significant package to do that just this week as well as all the work that goes alongside stopping the boats.
It’s also important to understand what sits beneath some of those numbers, 114,000 Ukrainians coming over for example, 52,000 British nationals from Hong Kong. We think that is something the public can be rightly proud of.
Updated at 08.18 EDT
Carmen Aguilar García
There has been a fall in the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats in the first quarter of 2023, compared with the same period last year, according to Home Office figures released today.
The statistics show that almost 3,800 people were detected crossing the Channel on small boats during the first quarter of this year, a decrease of 16% compared with the first quarter of 2022.
The majority, but not all, of these people will eventually be included in the ONS immigration figures as only those who claim asylum are included: 90% of small boat arrivals (around 40,000) claimed asylum either directly or indirectly, as a dependant.
The Home Office data also shows that between January and March 2023, there were more than 800 detentions of people who were believed to have evaded border control, down by a third a year before.
Another 740 arrived in the UK via air routes without adequate documentation or using fraudulent documentation, a 30% decrease compared with the number recorded during the first quarter of 2022.
The vast majority of the people who arrived via small boats claim asylum but the illegal migration bill – which is being examined in the House of Lords – proposes that those who arrive in the UK without permission will not be able to claim asylum. Instead, they will be detained and sent to either their home nations or a third country, such as Rwanda.
Stopping small boats crossing is one of the five key priorities of Rishi Sunak’s government but this proposed legislation has been already criticised by campaigners, political leaders, the UK representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
Updated at 07.26 EDT
Tory pledge to build 40 ‘new’ England hospitals likely to be delayed until after 2030
Steve Barclay, the health secretary, is to signal a major delay to one of the headline promises in the last Conservative manifesto by suggesting the delivery of 40 new hospitals in England is likely to be pushed back until after 2030, Aubrey Allegretti and Denis Campbell report.
We will be getting a full Commons statement on this from Barclay later.
Updated at 07.16 EDT
Labour MPs challenge Jenrick’s commitment to clearing asylum backlog as he says faster system will increase ‘pull factor’
In a statement to MPs in December, Rishi Sunak said that he wanted asylum application claims to be processed “in days or weeks, not months or years” and that he wanted “to abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions” by the end of 2023. So when Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, told MPs that cutting the backlog could increase the number of people coming to the UK (see 11.03am), it sounded like he was veering off script.
Sometimes ministers mess up when they say something that is untrue. But there is another category of gaffe that involves saying something that is true, but that is politically inconvenient, and that is what Jenrick was doing.
At least three Labour MPs subsequently challenged Jenrick over what he had said. At first he tried to backtrack, but he did confirm that he thought clearing the asylum application claim backlog could make Britain a more attractive destination for asylum seekers.
Karin Smyth was the first MP to pick up on what Jenrick said. Asking him to clarify what he had said, she pointed out that his argument implied that the government might want to keep the backlog intentionally high, with thousands of asylum seekers stuck in hotels awaiting a decision. She said:
The Home Office’s inability to progress applications, resulting in many people living in hotels, means that the holding pattern will remain for some time, and that that may be, in fact, a deliberate policy. As the minister said, if they were progressed, there would be more.
Jenrick claimed that Smyth was misrepresenting what he had said, and that he was only referring to Labour’s plan to speed up the processing of claims, which he said would not cut the number of people crossing the Channel illegally.
But when Karen Buck asked again if, in the light of what he said, the government did want to reduce the backlog, Jenrick again restated his argument.
He said that the government was doubling the number of staff dealing with applications, and that it remained confident it would clear the “legacy backlog” by the end of this year. He went on:
The point that I was making is that, the faster the process, the more pull factor there is to the United Kingdom. That is not a reason to maintain an inefficient process. But what we do need to have is a process where deterrence is suffused through every element, or else we will never break the business model of the people smugglers.
When Andrew Slaughter challenged him a third time, and asked him whether the government wanted the backlog to go down or go up, Jenrick again said he was just criticising Labour’s policy.
Faster processing of asylum applications might make the UK a more attractive destination if it meant that people crossing the Channel on small boats did not have to worry about spending a year or more stuck in a hotel unable to work waiting for their claim to be processed.
The government believes that would not happen if faster processing just meant people being put on a flight to Rwanda more quickly (which is what Jenrick was referring to when he mentioned “deterrence”). But it is far from certain that the courts will ever allow these flights to happen, at least in large numbers.
Updated at 06.53 EDT
Asked if the government is happy about the number of issued work visas having doubled since the pandemic, Jenrick says the government wants employers to hire British workers where they can. There are a large number of people who have left the workforce, he says. He says the government wants them back.
Updated at 06.51 EDT
Jenrick claims processing asylum seekers’ claims more quickly could lead to more people coming to UK
Clive Efford (Lab) asks why the government has performed so badly in terms of dealing with the backlog of asylum claims.
Jenrick says the government is still committed to clearing the backlog this year.
But he says Labour is wrong to claim that dealing with the backlog will cut the number of people coming to the country. He says:
It is not correct, however, to suggest that if you can process illegal migrants’ claims faster, that that will reduce the number of people coming into the country. In all likelihood, it will lead to an increase.
(This is a remarkable claim. Jenrick seems to be saying that the PM’s policy will make the situation worse.)
Alistair Carmichael (Lib Dem) says Jenrick is making a good case for wage inflation. (See 10.49am.) He wonders what they think of this in the Treasury.
He says the government is adding fishing to the shortage occupation list for work visas. But he says that this will not help the fishing industry because of the rules requiring people to speak English.
Jenrick defends the English language requirements. People coming to work here should be able to speak English, he says. He says the standard required is low. And he says this is necessary for health and safety on fishing boats.
Sir Desmond Swayne (Con) asks what impact the measures announced this week on reducing the number of student dependants coming to the UK will have?
Jenrick says he thinks they will have a “considerable” impact, but he does not give a figure.
Updated at 06.55 EDT
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick says he can see case for raising salary thresholds for work visas
Sir Edward Leigh (Con) says some in the Treasury think immigration is good for the economy. But that is bad for productivity. He says it would be better if people were only allowed into to the UK to work if they earn the median UK salary of £33,000.
Jenrick says he has a lot of sympathy with this argument. In some instances, high levels of migration push down wages, he says.
He says the government has created a points-based immigration system, with salary thresholds. If further changes are needed, the government will act.
Updated at 06.55 EDT
Stuart C McDonald, the SNP’s immigration spokesperson, starts his contribution by saying thank you to immigrants who come to the UK to work.
He asks if Jenrick accepts that immigration needs are different in different parts of the country.
Jenrick says he was not expecting a question saying net migration was too low. But that seems to be the SNP position, he says.
He says the government does not back having separate immigration systems for different parts of the UK.
Updated at 06.56 EDT
Jenrick is responding to Cooper.
He says no one will believe that Labour wants to reduce immigration.
When Keir Starmer was standing for the Labour leadership, he backed free movement, he says. And he says that Starmer once said Britain’s immigration laws were racist.
Updated at 06.57 EDT
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, who tabled the urgent question, is responding to Robert Jenrick.
She asks why Suella Braverman is not in the Commons to answer the UQ herself. She jokes that she might be in the Home Office doing another private course.
She says Labour would recruit more doctors and nurses from within the UK, using money from the abolition of non-dom status, to reduce the need for staff to be hired from abroad.
And she asks why the government will not back Labour’s plan to get rid of the 20% wage discount for foreign workers.
Updated at 06.57 EDT
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, says net migration is far too high.
But he says it has been flatlining since last summer.
He says a “large part’” of the reason why figures are now exceptionally high is that the government has been taking refugees from Ukraine and Hong Kong. He defends these schemes, saying they have public support.
But the government is committed to bringing net migration figures down, he says.
He says the government expects it to fall to pre-pandemic levels in the medium term.
Updated at 06.58 EDT
Labour says immigration figures show government has ‘no plan and no grip’
We are about to get an urgent question on the immigration figures from Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary. She has just released this statement, which will probably give a flavour of what she will say to MPs.
These extraordinary figures, including doubling the number of work visas since the pandemic, show the Conservatives have no plan and no grip on immigration. Ministers have completely failed to tackle skills shortages, especially in health and social care, or to get people back into work after Covid.
Net migration should come down and we expect it to do so. Support we have rightly given to Ukrainians and Hong Kongers has unusually affected the figures this year. But that can’t disguise the fact that the Conservatives’ chaotic approach means that work visas are up 119%, net migration is more than twice the level ministers were aiming for, and the asylum backlog is at a record high despite Rishi Sunak promising to clear it this year.
Labour will put skills and fairness at the heart of the immigration system – tackling skills shortages and ending the unfair wage discount so employers recruiting from overseas have to pay the going rate. Immigration makes an important contribution to Britain so it needs to be properly managed and controlled so the system is fair.
Updated at 06.59 EDT
Sunak tells ITV’s This Morning that being PM is hard – but that he likes Jilly Cooper novels because ‘you need escapism’
Q: People want to know about you a little. How do your daughters deal with reading about you in the papers?
Sunak says his children are 10 and 12, and don’t really follow the news. That is good, he says. He says he has been in politics for the last few years, so they are used to that. But fundamentally he is dad. They are more interested in things like playing Top Trumps.
Q: Is it really true you like Jilly Cooper books?
Yes, says Sunak, Riders, Rivals, Polo – he likes them, he says.
Q: When did you last cry?
He says it was something to do with one of their children, a while back.
Q: What is your biggest regret?
Sunak takes a while to think.
He jokes about revealling that he likes Jilly Cooper books.
But they are good, he says. “You need to have escapism in your life”, he says.
Q: How does the reality of being PM compare with the expectations?
Sunak says he did not expect to get the job. But he though he could make a difference.
The job is hard, he says. He lists the issues he is facing. But he thinks he can make a difference.
Getting illegal immigration down will be hard. But he thinks he can deal with it, he says.
Updated at 05.28 EDT
Q: You are launching a new NHS app. What will it do? Bring waiting lists down?
Yes, says Sunak. He says he will give patients choice about where they get their treatment from.
(The Department of Health and Social Care has more details of this announcement here.)
He says people will be able to use the NHS app that people used during Covid to find the hospitals where they can get treated most quickly.
Later this year this will be extended to people already on waiting lists, he says.
He says he has “practically” eliminated the number of people waiting a year and a half for an operation. He says he wanted to stop waits that long by this spring. That is “just about done”, he says.
(Technically, though, he missed his target.)
Updated at 05.30 EDT
Sunak says he did not let Suella Braverman ‘off the hook’
Sunak is now being asked about Suella Braverman.
He says: “I didn’t let her off the hook.”
Alison Hammond, the presenter, says it would have been good if Suella Braverman had done a group speed awareness course. That would have shown that the law applies to politicians, she says. She says she has done two – and people were taking selfies of her during them.
Sunak stresses that, in the end, Braverman did not do a private speed awareness course.
He defends how he handled the issue. He got the facts, and made a decison. He was dealing with it “professionally”, he says.
Updated at 05.44 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/may/25/immigration-tory-figures-2022-rishi-sunak-suella-braverman-uk-politics-live
