Labour's shambolic management of asylum system cost taxpayer £10 billion

By Tim Montgomerie
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A report from MigrationWatch reveals the enormous failure of the asylum system during the Labour years, 1997 until 2010:

• Asylum seekers - whether genuine or not - had a 77% chance of staying in Britain;
• Only a third of those refused asylum were ever removed from Britain;
• Towards the end of the Labour years 59% of asylum claims were only made after a person had been detected as an illegal immigrant;
• The cost to the taxpayer was an average £2.3 million per day or £10 billion in total.

Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch said:

"The asylum system has proved to be a £10 billion shambles. Those who, like ourselves, are serious about protecting genuine refugees should be no less serious about removing bogus claimants and, better still, deterring them in the first place... It also needed to be much tougher on the bogus. It is absurd, for example, that we should allow people who have been in Britain illegally for years to claim asylum so as to delay or prevent their removal; this now applies to almost 60% of claimants."

Responding to the report, Damian Green, Immigration Minister, told the Daily Mail:

"The system we inherited was hopelessly chaotic and did not provide the taxpayer with value for money. Last year, we reduced the bill for asylum support by over £100million and it is falling further this year. We have nearly doubled the proportion of asylum-seekers removed within a year of their application and around 60 per cent of applicants receive a decision within a month."

> Download a PDF of Migrationwatch's full report.