London:
By 2024, the largest group of asylum seekers came from Pakistan, followed by Afghanistan. In previous years they came mainly from Syria and Iran.
Britain’s Labor Government promised to cut a backlog in asylum applications and end “the expensive use of hotels to house asylum seekers”, saving 1 billion pounds annually, Finance Minister Rachel Refeves announced on Wednesday.
“Financing that I have delivered today … Will cut the asylum back, hear more orring cases and return people who have no rights to be here, saving the taxpayer a billion pounds a year,” Reeves said in his consumer review, who states that tax expenses and savings in the next few years.
The number of British asylum seekers has increased sharply in recent years, with tens of thousands of applications waiting to be decided, according to official figures.
Labor, who came to power last July, has set out to tackle the situation.
Prime Minister Keir Stormmer has started formal conversations with unspecified countries to create “return centers” outside the United Kingdom for those who have exhausted all legal opportunities to remain in the country.
The number of asylum seekers in the UK tripled to 84,200 in 2024 from an average of 27,500 between 2011 and 2020.
By 2022, there were approximately 13 asylum applications per year. 10,000 people in the UK compared to 25 asylum applications per year. 10,000 people in the EU at the same time.
About 11 percent of migrants in the UK were asylum seekers or refugees in 2023 – almost twice as high as the 2019 figure of six percent.
The number of people crossing the channel in provisional boats, a route that almost existed before 2018, has meanwhile increased sharply in recent years.
