Yvette Cooper tells Home Affairs Committee the Government will set out further reforms to the asylum system
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said that the Government is making "substantial progress" on tackling the asylum backlog and has pledged further reforms to speed up both initial decisions and appeals in the months ahead.
Image credit: WikipediaAppearing before the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Cooper confirmed that the asylum backlog stands at 79,000 cases, according to the latest figures, but she said it continued to fall and the Home Office would be accelerating its processing efforts.
"We have already had a significant drop in the number of people awaiting an initial decision," she said. "We have speeded up decisions substantially since the election, including the initial decisions, and we are also taking action as part of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to introduce statutory timetables for appeals. We can make substantial progress on the initial decisions, and we are doing so. We expect the time to come down over the coming months."
Cooper stressed there was also a need to address delays in the appeals process, saying that legislative changes were vital to prevent bottlenecks in the wider system.
Responding to persistent questioning by Liberal Democrat MP Paul Kohler as to whether there was a timeframe for making initial asylum decisions, the Home Secretary responded: "We expect, over the course of this year and certainly over the course of the next six months, a very substantial drop in the backlog on initial decision making. But if we do not have the legislation on the appeals system go through, we will still end up with long, unacceptable delays in the system. We are introducing the statutory timetable for making appeals decisions, so that we can speed things through—both initial decisions and then appeals decisions as well."
As part of its attempts to reduce delays, Cooper said the Government is preparing to set out further reforms to the asylum system, indicating that this would include a dedicated fast-track process for asylum seekers arriving from safe countries, with the aim of making both decisions and returns more efficient.
"One of the things I have always been keen to do is to have a system for fast-track decisions and appeals," the Home Secretary told the Committee. "If people arrive from predominantly safe countries, they should not be sitting in the asylum system for a long time. We should be able to take those decisions really quickly, and make sure that those people go through the appeals system really quickly and are returned really quickly as well. That would mean a fast-track system alongside the main asylum system, and it would be really important in making sure that the system is fair. It will require legislation in order to be able to do that, as well as new system design… I think there should be faster tracks for those cases so that we can get them through the system really quickly—within a matter of months."
When questioned on the timeline for introducing the necessary legislation, Cooper stated: "The first phase of legislation we have introduced in this area is the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill … We want to bring forward further legislation; we will announce further measures as soon as we are able to, and I will update the Committee as soon as I can."
The Home Secretary also raised concerns about the misuse of visas by individuals who later claim asylum, often without any change in circumstances in their home countries.
She told the Home Affairs Committee: "We have increasing evidence of visa misuse, and of people who claim asylum at the end of their visa, even though nothing has changed in their home country in that period. Different kinds of visas are also suddenly being used for a surge of asylum claims, even from countries that that is not justified for. We have already taken steps to tighten restrictions and reverse the loosening of rules that took place under the previous Government for countries like Jordan and Colombia, where we have seen a big increase in asylum claims as a result of the loosening of visa controls. We have also taken some action on the visa measures for Trinidad and Tobago to ensure that we can restore order to the system."
Cooper reaffirmed the Government's desire to tighten rules surrounding the interpretation of 'exceptional circumstances' in immigration cases and the use of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to family and private life.
"The proportion of decisions being taken as 'exceptional', often under interpretations around the ECHR and particularly article 8, ends up being around 30%," she said. "Well, that is not exceptional; that is a much broader proportion. That reflects some of the complexity of the overall system and the way in which decisions have been based on a series of court decisions, as opposed to having a clear framework set out by Parliament, which can be much easier for the courts to interpret and reflect much more what I think the public would want to see. We are looking at that as part of this."