Cleverly accused of aggravating asylum backlog by ‘dithering’ on key decisions

James Cleverly has been accused of increasing the asylum backlog in the spring of this year by “dithering” over key decisions.

Ministers under the then home secretary refused to give caseworkers permission to tackle outstanding cases covered by the Illegal Migration Act, departmental sources and the UK’s biggest civil service union have told the Guardian.

A leaked email from May indicates that senior staff overseeing asylum caseworkers were waiting for “key decisions to be made in the coming weeks” and diverting staff to other tasks.

The number of asylum decisions fell dramatically in the weeks before the July general election , data released last week showed. Between March and June this year, the Home Office made decisions on 15,965 applications, down from 24,348 in the first three months. Only 1,150 asylum interviews took place in June, down from more than 8,000 last October, according to the data.

Related: UK asylum backlog rose before election despite Sunak pledge to cut numbers

Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents asylum caseworkers, said: “We’re aware of the slowdown in asylum decisions between March and June but this in no way reflects a lack of effort or performance from our members.

“Instead many of our members were diverted on to other workstreams whilst the Illegal Migration Act prevented decisions being made on asylum claims made since March 2023 and the previous government dithered on making the decisions required to unlock these.

“Our members tell us that processing of claims has started to ramp up again since replacement arrangements were introduced in the king’s speech.”

The Illegal Migration Act was introduced on 7 March 2023 and meant that most asylum claims made by people arriving irregularly after that date could not be processed. The act was supposed to be used in conjunction with plans for mass deportations to Rwanda.

Critics claim that because the Rwanda plan was halted by legal challenges, the act led to a growing “perma-backlog” of people trapped in limbo.

Asylum caseworkers had already had considerable success in clearing the so-called “legacy backlog” of cases from before 28 June 2022, when the Nationality and Borders Act came into force.

Home Office insiders said the department during the spring could have processed many asylum claims that had been made between 7 March and 19 July 2023 using powers under section 30(4) of the Illegal Migration Act to grant temporary leave to remain to those who receive positive decisions. However, ministers did not grant such permission.

A leaked Home Office memo sent in May from a senior asylum and human rights operations civil servant said staff were being diverted to other work while awaiting a decision. “As you know we successfully delivered the legacy backlog clearance in December 2023 and now, building on our track record excellence we have completed NABA [Nationality and Borders Act] 1A delivery,” the senior civil servant wrote.

“In terms of next steps, there are some key decisions to be made in the coming weeks on a range of issues related to our work and as soon as our plans are clear I will share this with you. In the meantime, we are rebalancing some of our asylum resource – and as you know in particular we are focusing our resource on our fee waiver and human rights routes within AHRO [asylum and human rights operations],” the senior civil servant wrote.

Overall, 118,882 people were waiting for an initial decision on asylum applications in the UK at the end of June, up slightly from the 118,329 in March.

Critics have identified the backlog as one of the biggest problems within the UK’s faltering asylum system. Hotels housing claimants awaiting decisions cost the taxpayer £8m a day, according to the Home Office , and were the focus of far-right protests and arson attacks during this summer’s riots.

About three-quarters of all claimants are eventually recognised as refugees, but cannot work and must claim benefits while they wait for a decision.

Responding to the PCS’s claims, Cleverly said: “The legacy asylum backlog was cleared when I was home secretary. We doubled caseworkers and productivity increased, with four times as many decisions to June 2024 as in the previous year. As a result [the number of] those awaiting an initial decision was cut by over a third and we returned 150 asylum hotels to commercial use.”

A source close to the Conservative leadership candidate dismissed the criticisms, saying: “Conservative ministers were asked to wave 100,000 people into our asylum system by way of an amnesty. They didn’t do it, but Labour did.”

The number of people who have crossed the Channel in small boats has passed 20,000 for the year so far. The Home Office said 614 people were brought ashore in Dover on Wednesday, bringing the annual total for 2024 to 20,433. The figure is up 3% on this time last year, but down 18% on 2022.