Labour has pledged to introduce an immediate fast-tracking process for clearly unfounded asylum claims to clear the backlog and reduce the “inappropriate” spending on hotel accommodation for Channel migrants.
The party cited Home Office figures showing that over the past year fewer than 1 per cent of 7,000 asylum claims by Albanians, who unlike other asylum seekers are not fleeing civil war in their home country, had been processed.
Only 50 of them have received a decision, leaving many who cannot be deported staying in hotels at the taxpayers’ expense. More than 12,000 of the 44,000 migrants who have crossed the Channel this year have been Albanians, which has driven the backlog of asylum claims to almost 150,000, the highest level in two decades.
