111-page report looks at asylum procedure, reception conditions, detention of asylum seekers, and international protection
The Asylum Information Database (AIDA) project, which is coordinated by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), yesterday published the latest annual update of its report on the asylum system in the UK.
You can download the 111-page report here.
It provides a summary of developments in asylum in the previous year, as well as providing a detailed and extremely useful overview of asylum procedure in the UK, reception conditions for asylum seekers, the detention of asylum seekers, and the content of international protection.
The updated report was authored by Judith Dennis and Jon Featonby of the Refugee Council. AIDA's annual updates build upon the original report authored by Gina Clayton.
Information in the updated report is up-to-date as of 31 December 2022.
As the report notes, 89,398 people applied for asylum in the UK in 2022 (relating to a total of 74,751 asylum applications). The backlog of claims awaiting a decision continued to grow, reaching over 160,000 people at the end of the year. "[A] record number of 88,929 cases had been pending for more than 6 months, and 40,913 had been waiting for one to three years", the report further notes.
April of 2022 was a particularly significant month, seeing both the signing of the migration partnership with Rwanda, and the passing into law of the Nationality and Borders Act.
Media and political attention continued to focus on asylum seekers crossing the Channel via small boats.
AIDA's report notes that the use of detention rose during 2022, with at least 14,227 asylum seekers detained in immigration removal centres.
The report also covers the UK's visa schemes for Ukrainian nationals following the Russian invasion of the country last February. A separate 13-page annex can be downloaded here with further details of the Ukraine schemes.
Following a brief summary of developments in 2022, the report then looks in detail at procedures for asylum in the UK and the treatment of asylum seekers, including access to accommodation, education, employment and healthcare. The detention of asylum seekers is also considered in detail in a dedicated section of the report.
AIDA produces detailed reports on the asylum system in over 20 European countries. All can be accessed from here.
Meanwhile, ECRE in an opinion piece published last month said the UK had surpassed Denmark as the European country with the worst refugee policy following the passing of the Illegal Migration Bill in the House of Commons.
The opinion piece by ECRE's director notes that the arrival of 45,000 people on small boats equates to just 0.067% of the UK population.
ECRE's director says: "The level of hysteria suggests a UK submerged, doing so much, while those Europeans slack, as they do. The statistics tell a different stories: in 2022 many European countries received far more asylum applications than the UK, including France, with twice as many applications in 2022 (156,103 compared to the UKs 74,751) and Germany with three and a half times as many (244,132). In both cases, applications are processed far quicker than in the UK and thus far more decisions were produced and backlogs are smaller than the UK's 160,000."