Refugee groups dispute claims that UK is attracting too many asylum-seekers

Refugee specialists challenged a United Nations claim yesterday that Britain was taking more than its fair share of asylum-seekers.

Ruud Lubbers, the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, caused controversy after he said more effective systems were needed to ensure fewer refugees came to the UK. He said the EU should share the burden more evenly.

But the Refugee Council questioned whether the UK was being over-burdened by applications after official statistics showed that many European countries had a greater proportion of asylum-seekers. According to Home Office figures for 2001, the UK is about midway in a EU league table of refugee applicants.

Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and Sweden have a larger number of asylum-seekers per 1,000 of the population. Italy, Portugal and Spain receive a tiny number of people applying for refugee status. Of the 92,000 applications for refugee status in the UK in 2001 11,180 were granted asylum.

The UK did, however, receive the most applications of any Western European country, with 21 per cent of the total. The main countries from which refugees travelled to Britain in 2001 were Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Turkey.

Fazil Kawani, a spokesman for the Refugee Council, said: "It is important to remember the EU takes only 5 per cent of the world's refugees." He added: "It is, as it has always been, the developing world that bears the greatest burden when it comes to offering shelter to refugees. Iran and Pakistan between them have taken in around four million Afghans."

The UN estimates that, worldwide, there are about 20 million refugees and displaced people. Mr Lubbers told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Let's share the burden so we have less in the UK and more spread across the EU. It's a good solution for refugees. It's also a good solution for the UK."

Asked if he acknowledged that Britain had more than its fair share of refugees, Mr Lubbers said: "Yes, the UK has a heavy burden, so it would have an interest in international burden-sharing. It doesn't help to try and solve the problem on your own. An option would be, you can have a multilateral approach and partnership with the EU to find a solution."

Mr Lubbers said he was prepared to coerce other EU countries that were not prepared to co-operate. "The problem is so important that we cannot leave it to others and London alone," he said.

The Tories responded by renewing their call for a shake-up of Britain's asylum system. Oliver Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "We are spending more than one thousand million pounds of taxpayers' money on an asylum system which, under this Government, has collapsed into administrative chaosand does not seem to be able to distinguish between genuine refugees and those who are not."