Shabana Mahmood’s radical plans to overhaul the asylum system could cause “unintended consequences” such as increased homelessness among people seeking refuge and growing case backlogs, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has concluded.
The head of the National Audit Office said that the home secretary’s policies, which are meant to accelerate case decisions and reduce appeals, would require “effective action on the bottlenecks” if they were to succeed.
A report by the independent body that was released on Wednesday found that information such as how many asylum seekers do not claim benefits or how many rejected claimants have absconded remains unknown to the civil service.
Auditors also found that “short-term, reactive measures” have shifted pressures within the asylum system over many years, creating new backlogs and leaving many claims unresolved for years.
More than half of people who applied for asylum almost three years ago are still waiting for an outcome, the report said.
The findings emerged weeks after Mahmood’s radical package of changes, which were modelled on Denmark’s tough immigration rules, led to a backlash from Labour MPs and peers.
Anger was directed towards Mahmood and Keir Starmer, the prime minister, over plans to allow the deportation of children alongside their parents and the quadrupling of the waiting period for refugees to get permanent residence in the UK from five to 20 years.
The report said the government’s proposals to accelerate decisions and removals could relieve pressure on the asylum system, but were “complex” and must be based on how “people and casework” moved through the system.
“Otherwise, there is a risk of unintended consequences for already stretched systems, as well as for wider government priorities such as homelessness,” the report said.
Gareth Davies, the leader of the NAO, said the efforts of successive governments to improve the efficiency of the asylum system had often been short term and narrowly focused.
“Successfully implementing the new asylum model recently announced by the home secretary will require effective action on the bottlenecks in the current system using better-quality data and streamlined decision-making,” he said.
Government departments have failed to collect asylum data that would help its systems work more efficiently, auditors found.
They found that the Home Office was unable to provide data on the number of people in the asylum system who were not receiving any form of state support or state‑funded accommodation. It also did not hold complete data on the number of people who had absconded from the asylum system, nor the total number of people who are subject to some form of enforcement action, nor on all unsuccessful removals and their causes.
The Ministry of Justice could not provide data on the total number of cases received by the upper immigration tribunal or on the level of repeated appeals.
The report estimated the total spending on the asylum system in 2024-25 to be £4.9bn, £3.4bn of which was on accommodation and support.
The NAO has recommended that by the end of 2026, the government should present to parliament a strategic plan for implementing the proposed new asylum model and create and publish a set of “system indicators” for people seeking asylum, taxpayers, and citizens.
Officials should also develop a long-term data blueprint to address poor data quality, and ensure interventions have an evidence base, cost-benefit analysis, and evaluation plan, the report said.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the asylum system “is simply not functioning” if people wait months or even years for a decision, local councils are under-resourced, and costs keep rising.
“The NAO’s finding that more than half of people who applied for asylum almost three years ago still don’t have an outcome is shocking.
He added: “The NAO is right that only a whole-system approach with timely, quality decisions and proper data and capacity will fix the chaos. The government must focus on getting decisions right first time and supporting people to integrate and contribute to their new communities to restore order and confidence in the system.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The home secretary recently announced the most sweeping changes to the asylum system in a generation to deal with the problems outlined in this report.
“We are already making progress – with nearly 50,000 people with no right to be here removed, a 63% rise in illegal working arrests and over 21,000 small boat crossing attempts prevented so far this year.
“Our new reforms will restore order and control, remove the incentives which draw people to come to the UK illegally and increase removals of those with no right to be here.”
