Asylum appeals backlog stabilises. For now…

The tribunal statistics for June to September 2024 were published today, covering the first couple of months of the new government. The good news is that the asylum appeals backlog has risen only slightly. The mean waiting time rose from 38 weeks to 42 weeks. With 30,000 asylum appellants entering the tribunal in the last year, the additional asylum accommodation costs of that longer wait must be pretty eye-watering.

With the number of asylum decisions thought to be rising very rapidly and the refusal rate going up, there will have been a LOT of appeals lodged since September 2024 and a lot more to come. We published a full explainer on what is going on last quarter. The recent announcement of an increase in legal aid rates hopefully means an increase in lawyers willing to take on asylum appeals, which will hopefully speed things up at the tribunal compared to having thousands of litigants in person.

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