Court of Appeal upholds right to appeal in asylum support cases where Home Office withdraws claim

The Home Secretary has lost her appeal to the Court of Appeal in a case where she sought to restrict the ability of people to, effectively, appeal the deemed withdrawal of their asylum claim and cessation of asylum support by the Home Office to the Asylum Support Tribunal. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department v First-Tier Tribunal (Asylum Support) [2025] EWCA Civ 1654.

The Court of Appeal very strongly endorsed the decision of the Asylum Support Tribunal in dismissing the Home Secretary’s appeal against the High Court’s rejection of her judicial review against the tribunal. Lord Justice Peter Jackson said:

There has been a system of adjudication in relation to asylum support since the IAA 1999 came into effect. From 2000 to 2008 the role was performed by Adjudicators, and since then by the AST. Throughout that period, and until her retirement in July 2024, Judge Sehba Haroon Storey (now CBE) was the Chief Asylum Support Adjudicator and then the Principal Judge of the AST. Her command of the legal and factual issues that arose in these cases is clearly seen in her impressive judgment (AS/24/02/46289 and others). Her analysis has been endorsed by the Administrative Court and now by this court; given her unparalleled experience of the asylum support jurisdiction, any other outcome would have been surprising.

This means that there is still a right of appeal against a decision to stop a person’s asylum support, where the reason for the support ending is that their asylum claim has been deemed withdrawn by the Home Office. The Home Office had already updated their guidance to reflect this right.