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.

Profile of Migration Watch

Key staff

MigrationWatch's Chairman is Sir Andrew Green, a former British Ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Professor David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University, is an Honorary Consultant to MW on demographic matters but he does not speak on its behalf.

Basic Philosophy

The purpose of the non-party MW is to provide the public with full and accurate facts on migration issues. It regards a reasonable flow of migration in both directions as a natural part of an open economy. It is, however, opposed to the present very high levels of immigration which will, on the government's own projections, add seven million to the population of England by 2031. This is nearly seven times the population of Birmingham.

While supporting the principle of asylum, MW is critical of the failure to remove those whose claims are rejected and opposes granting them an amnesty.

MW also provide research for the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration led by Frank Field MP (Labour) and Nicholas Soames MP (Conservative) which was established in September 2008.  Read Nicholas Soames on this subject.

MW attach particular importance to their independence. They receive no public funds in any form, nor research contracts. They are financed entirely by donations from members of the public.

Recent achievements

MW has been effective in this sensitive area of public debate by concerning itself with facts rather than emotion. Attempts to tarnish them as being sensationalist have not stood up.

It has scored some hits against the Labour Government. For instance in January 2008 the Statistics Commission, an independent watchdog, agreed that, excluding British citizens, the proportion of migrants from outside the EU was 68%, not 52% as ministers had claimed. This finding followed the Government being reported to the Statistics Commission by MW.

Continue reading "Profile of Migration Watch" »

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