Analysis
‘Invasion’ of the UK? Experts dubious of Suella
Braverman’s claim
Rajeev Syal
Home
affairs editor
Home secretary’s comments ignore relatively low
numbers of migrants to UK compared with EU countries
Tue 1 Nov
2022 20.11 GMT
As she
fought for her political survival in parliament on Monday, Suella Braverman
claimed the south coast of England is being invaded by asylum seekers.
Her claim
has been refuted by migration experts, who believe it falls down on a number of
fronts.
Madeleine
Sumption, the director of the Oxford Migration Observatory, said: “This is not
an invasion – it’s not an army. But if instead she is referring to the number
of people coming, we can compare the figures to other countries and see that
the numbers coming in to the UK are relatively manageable.”
Seventeen
EU countries received larger numbers of asylum applications per capita last
year, according to an analysis of official figures by the OMO.
The UK
received eight asylum applicants for every 10,000 people across the country in
2020/21, the figures show. This compared with just under 23 for Germany and
just under 18 in France. Cyprus received 153 applicants for every 10,000 people
in the country, the highest among 32 European countries.
Braverman
appeared to argue that the UK is facing disproportionately more asylum seekers
than at other times in our recent history, saying the numbers were
“unprecedented”.
“When we
face so many arrivals so quickly, it is practically impossible to procure more
than 1,000 beds at short notice,” she said.
Figures
from the Home Office showing the numbers of people claiming asylum from 1979 to
2021 demonstrate that the UK is on an upward curve now, but it is not
unprecedented.
The number
of asylum claims in 2021 was below 60,000 – well below the peaks of more than
80,000 of the early 2000s when there were conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. The Syrian refugee crisis beginning in 2014
caused a slight rise in overall numbers. But the current peak is closer to the
levels in 1991 when there were conflicts in Sri Lanka and Somalia.
The trend
of increasing numbers of asylum claims at the end of 2021 has continued into
2022. Data to the year ended March 2022 show a considerable year-on-year
increase in asylum claims generally and in small boat arrivals for the
quarterly period.
Sumption
said that the numbers of asylum seekers have come in waves with occasional
steep rises, depending on external pressures.
“Asylum
numbers have always gone up and down over time. There is plenty of research
showing that asylum numbers are volatile and governments need some flexibility
to deal with the changes,” she said.
The
significant and highly visible trend that has become central to current
political debate is the rise in small boat arrivals. Almost 40,000 people have
crossed the Channel in small boats so far in 2022, according to government data
– the highest number since figures were first gathered in 2018. In 2021, the
total was 28,526 people, while in 2020 it was 8,404.
Nearly all
of those arriving by small boats claim asylum, according to the Home Office and
the Ministry of Defence.
Over the
year ending in June, small boat arrivals accounted for half of the 60,000
asylum claims.
The top
five nationalities entering by small boat in the first quarter of 2022 were
Afghan, Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian and Eritrean, all of whom have very high chances
of being granted asylum.
Colin Yeo,
a barrister and author specialising in immigration, has pointed out that the
numbers arriving by small boat are low compared with those granted through
official schemes. A total of 75,764 visas were issued in the last year under
the Hong Kong scheme for British nationals. In the last nine months, almost
double that number – 140,000 – entered the UK through the Ukrainian scheme.
Over the last year, a quarter of refugee arrivals into the UK came by small
boats or lorries, he wrote.
Ministers
have also focused on the growth in the number of arrivals by small boat by
Albanians, who now make up about 60% of the numbers crossing the Channel every
day.
About
12,000 Albanians have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel so far this
year, of whom 10,000 were single, adult men, the government has said. This
compares with 50 in 2020.
In her
combative Commons performance, Braverman denied ignoring legal advice to
procure more accommodation amid warnings that a temporary holding centre at
Manston in Kent had become dangerously overcrowded.
Critics
claim that the crisis at Manston, where 4,000 people are living in
accommodation for 1,600 people, is being fuelled by the failure to deal with a
backlog of asylum claims.
In June, a
total of 122,213 people were awaiting an initial decision on their asylum
applications. A Guardian analysis has found that the processing backlog has
risen 72% in a year – more than double two years ago and treble the period
before the Covid pandemic – and that 75% of the total had been waiting for a
decision for more than six months.
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