Government asylum claims based on unpublished data

“No, our system is broken on asylum and it’s broken for a range of reasons. Sixty percent of people that have come to the country illegally are within that system.”

Last week, Home Secretary Priti Patel appeared on the Today programme to discuss the launch of a new government-led consultation on immigration.

The “New Plan for Immigration” sets out objectives for UK immigration policy, and some of the consultation’s questions centre on the UK asylum system.

In response to being challenged on the Today programme as to whether changes to this system were strictly necessary, Ms Patel replied: “No, our system is broken on asylum and it’s broken for a range of reasons. Sixty percent of people that have come to the country illegally are within that system…”

While it’s not clear exactly what the Home Secretary meant by this comment, when asked for clarification, the Home Office referred Full Fact to the following statistic in the consultation document:

“For the year ending September 2019, more than 60% of those [asylum] claims were from people who are thought to have entered the UK illegally…”

It added that the 60% statistic referred to one-off analysis of administrative datasets which matched together data on asylum claims with data relating to various potential (legal and illegal) routes of entry for migrants into the UK. 

However, the Home Office did not provide Full Fact with the data meaning that, beyond noting that the figure might therefore be slightly out of date, we can’t assess whether it is reliable as it is unpublished.  

It is inappropriate for the government to use unpublished evidence to support claims. Figures like these should be published in full so that anyone can check where they’re from and how they’re calculated. 

Previously, the Office for Statistics Regulation has also said: “When management information is used publicly to inform Parliament, the media and the public, it should be published in an accessible form, with appropriate explanations of context and sources,” which does not appear to have been the case in this instance.

We will be asking the Home Office to provide this information through a Freedom of Information request and will update you on its response in due course. 

We’ve also written about the process of claiming asylum before.