Oldest asylum claim is nearly 17 years old, Home Office records show

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Louise Thomas

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An asylum claim made nearly 17 years ago is still being processed by the Home Office, new data shows.

Another 19 cases were between 10 and 16 and a half years old, records obtained by The Times under freedom of information laws reveal.

Records show that one of the longstanding cases was still being reviewed because government officials are considering whether the claimant had been involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Another case that had been waiting many years for a decision had been flagged as of potential counterterrorism interest, The Times reported.

In two cases, the asylum claims were for prisoners serving life sentences. Another was reportedly from a convicted sex offender who was fighting his deportation.

As of June, the backlog of asylum cases waiting to be processed was 224,700. The total asylum caseload has quadrupled in size since 2014, government figures show.

The Home Office argued that while some of these cases have been waiting decades on a decision they “cannot accurately be described as outstanding asylum claims” because “the individuals concerned are – in some cases – in jail, overseas, or deceased”.

In her first few days in office, home secretary Yvette Cooper described discovering an asylum system that was like “Hotel California”, where “people arrive in the asylum system and they never leave”.

She told MPs that civil servants had “effectively stopped making the majority of asylum decisions” due to the impact of the Illegal Migration Act, a piece of legislation brought in under the Tory government.

Years-long waits for asylum decisions are not uncommon. Figures obtained by charities in 2022 showed that some 570 adults had been waiting more than five years for a decision on their case.

Some 33,746 adults had been waiting for more than a year, according to those figures.

While asylum seekers wait for a decision on their claim, they are not allowed to work to support themselves. They are often forced to live in hotel accommodation, receiving £9 a week in subsistence payments.

The Home Office is expected to spend £4.7bn on support for asylum seekers in 2023-24, including £3.1bn on hotels.

In-year spending pressures relating to asylum and illegal migration were one of the largest items identified in chancellor Rachel Reeves’s recent audit of public spending, amounting to an estimated £6.4bn in 2024-25.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Several cases included in this list are not recorded as having received a decision but cannot accurately be described as outstanding asylum claims currently waiting to be processed because the individuals concerned are – in some cases – in jail, overseas, or deceased.

“We are committed to speeding up the asylum process and this new government has taken urgent action to restart processing and clear the backlog, to ensure that the system operates effectively. However, where additional security checks are needed on individual cases, criminal proceedings are ongoing, or safeguarding issues are raised, it is right that the appropriate processes are followed, no matter how long that takes."