Tories including Rishi Sunak used misleading immigration figures, watchdog finds

24 March 2023 , 17:00

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The UK Statistics Authority has said remarks by top Tories including Rishi Sunak were inaccurate (Image: BBC)

Tory ministers including Rishi Sunak used misleading figures in Parliament about asylum backlogs, a statistics watchdog has said.

The UK Statistics Authority has written to the government after Mr Sunak claimed in December that the current backlog is half what it was when Labour was in office.

Sir Robert Chote, who heads the authority, said remarks by the Prime Minister and Tory frontbenchers Sarah Dines and Robert Jenrick "do not reflect" Home Office figures.

He pointed out that the current backlog is currently over 166,000 - compared to under 20,000 when Labour left office, according to the government's own data.

It followed a complaint by Labour shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock, who has accused the Tories of trying to "deflect attention away from their own failures".

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Shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock accused the Tories of 'trying to deflect attention away from their own failures' (Getty Images)

In his complaint Mr Kinnock also pointed out inaccurate comments by his Tory counterpart, Robert Jenrick, and safeguarding minister Sarah Dines in December.

The agency has contacted the ministers pointing out the inaccuracies.

In a response to Mr Kinnock Sir Robert wrote: "The statements by Ministers that you asked about do not reflect the position shown by the Home Office’s statistics.

"I have engaged with their offices to bring this to their attention and share the UK Statistics Authority’s expectations for the use of official statistics and data in public debate."

Mr Kinnock said: "The Tories are making so many false and misleading claims about Labour’s record in office, because they want to deflect attention away from their own failures.

"The UK's statistics watchdog has now confirmed that for every one person who was waiting for an asylum claim in 2010 eight people are waiting today, with a staggering 166,000 currently awaiting decisions. Their evidence completely debunks the Conservatives' lies.

"Tory Ministers need to get out of the way and let Labour fix their broken asylum system."

Tory Robert Jenrick claimed Labour had left a 450,000 immigration backlog when it left power (PA)

On December 14, Mr Sunak told MPs that the current backlog is half the size from when Labour was in office.

The following day Ms Dines said that more than 500,000 legacy cases were left by the last Labour government.

And on December 19 Mr Jenrick said 450,000 cases were left at the end of Gordon Brown's premiership in 2010.

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However Sir Robert said that the number was in reality less than 20,000.

In his letter he said: "The most appropriate source of statistics on asylum applications awaiting a decision are produced by the Home Office and reported quarterly.

"These tell us that the number of applications awaiting a decision was 18,954 in June 2010.

"This is the earliest published data and coincides closely with the 2010 General Election. The same spreadsheet also provides the latest number of undecided asylum applications which was 166,261 at the end of December 2022."

This amounts to a net increase in undecided asylum applications of 147,307, Sir Robert wrote.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are taking immediate action to bring the asylum backlog down. We’ve set out new plans to clear the initial asylum decision backlog of legacy cases by the end of next year.

“We have also doubled the number of asylum caseworkers to more than 1,000 and we will double it again while rolling out a successful pilot scheme nationwide to boost the number of claims processed.”

Dave Burke