Why Has There Been a 264% Increase in Asylum Appeals? – UK Constitutional Law Association

If an application for asylum is refused, the applicant can appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. The latest tribunal statistics show a sharp increase in the number of asylum appeals lodged in the tribunal.

In the year 2023/2024, there were 29,172 appeals lodged, which can be compared to 8,019 appeals lodged during the previous year—a 264% increase. The surge in cases particularly occurred in the second half of 2023/2024, with Q3 and Q4 seeing 12,721 and 10,207 new asylum appeals respectively—each of these quarters alone represent more appeals than in the entire previous year.

The tribunal completed (‘disposed of’) 9,943 asylum appeals in 2024/2024, and thus, the receipt of new appeals far outstripped the disposal rate. This has led to the rapid emergence of a substantial backlog towards the end of 2023/2024. At the end of 2023/2024, there were 27,133 appeals pending, compared to 7,510 appeals outstanding at the end of 2022/2023.

Why has this happened? Backlogs in the justice system are often caused by multiple factors. However, the principal driver of this surge in appeals is clear: it is the result of the Home Office ramping up its efforts to process its own large backlog of asylum applications. HM Courts and Tribunals Service has itself described the situation in the tribunal as ‘stemming from the Home Office tackling its legacy asylum decision backlog.’

The National Audit Office effectively predicted that this situation would arise twelve months ago, as did HM Courts and Tribunals. The National Audit Office observed in June 2023 that the ‘Home Office plans to reduce its own costs by reducing the time it takes to make asylum decisions, but this will create pressures in other parts of the wider asylum system.’ It went on to suggest specifically that tribunal appeals would be impacted:

The Home Office estimates the number of appeals in progress could quadruple to 75,000 between July 2022 and March 2025. The Home Office has agreed to provide funding for the first six months of 2023-24 to help HMCTS increase its capacity to hold immigration and asylum hearings by almost 50%. HMCTS’s modelling suggests it will require additional capacity beyond this if the Home Office successfully meets its recruitment and productivity targets.

Resource in the tribunal is measured in ‘judicial sittings’, i.e. the units of time spent on cases by both salaried and fee-paid judges of the tribunal. While there was an 8% increase in judicial sittings in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal in 2023/2024, this has not kept pace with the 264% increase in appeals lodged. A significant increase in sitting days, and thus funding, would be required to achieve this.

All tribunals face fluctuation in caseloads over time—but the present situation with asylum appeals is one of the sharpest fluctuations ever seen in a caseload, and it will likely present a significant challenge that will impact not only asylum appeals but the entire tribunals system in the coming months and year.

Longer waiting times can be expected. Costs will also likely rise to cover the expense of more judges sitting to cover more appeals—a cost which is accompanied by a workforce challenge insofar as it is often difficult to rapidly increase sitting days in the tribunal, given the specialist and judicial nature of the role. Costs will also likely increase to cover the support costs appellants are entitled to.

There will also likely be other long-term costs. For instance, research points to shorter asylum waiting times having a significant positive impact on long-term employment outcomes for those whose applications are eventually successful. Another cost is the health, including mental health, consequences for those waiting for long periods of time (see here).

While the Home Office asylum backlog is now shrinking (from 132,000 in 2022 to 95,000 at the end of 2023), there is still a significant number of cases in the Home Office backlog. It is highly likely that the continued processing of this backlog will drive further demand on the tribunal. In essence, we are now witnessing the reassignment of a substantial part of the Home Office’s asylum backlog to the justice system.

Joe Tomlinson is Professor of Public Law at the University of York. He Directs the Administrative Fairness Lab at York and is also Co-lead of the Transforming Justice Programme at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. This blog post was written in his personal capacity.

(Suggested citation: J. Tomlinson, ‘Why Has There Been a 264% Increase in Asylum Appeals?’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (19th June 2024) (available at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/)