Increase in Home Office refusals sees number of asylum appeals soar in latest tribunal statistics

Hot on the heels of the latest immigration and asylum statistics, we now have the tribunals’ figures for October to December 2024 and can see that the First-tier Tribunal’s asylum appeal backlog has increased from 34,234 outstanding cases at the end of September 2024 to 41,987 cases by the end of December. This is the direct and entirely predictable outcome of a huge increase in refusals at the Home Office, as the grant rate in 2024 fell to 47%, down 20% on the year before, meaning that most asylum cases are now refused.

Almost half of the asylum appeals to the First-tier Tribunal are successful (46% in the period October to December 2024), so poor Home Office decision making is very much to blame for this situation, no doubt exacerbated by the lack of legal aid lawyers available to help people through the system.

At the end of 2024 there were 5,698 Syrian asylum applications pending. At an average of just under 500 claims a month last year this number is likely to be much higher by now. If a decision is taken that Syria is safe (contrary to current evidence) and these cases are rejected then they will also then move into the overburdened tribunal system.

We have covered the Home Office’s increase in rejections of Afghan claims, and at the end of 2024 there were 8,985 such cases waiting for a decision. A more sensible approach is needed, for both Syrian and Afghan claims, and Home Office decision making must improve.

The First-tier Tribunal as a whole has seen cases increase from 63,016 at the end of September to 74,969 at the end of December. There was no movement on deprivation of citizenship cases which were at 146 at both dates, and deportation cases fell from 110 to 102. Both human rights and EEA cases also saw increases, from 16,994 to 19,683 and 11,528 to 13,045 respectively.

What impact is the increase in appeals having on the Upper Tribunal you might wonder? Well you can wonder in vain, because we have not had data on the Upper Tribunal appeals since Q2 of 2021/22 “due to database migration”.

The Upper Tribunal judicial review figures are in the statistics too, although I find these of limited use without data on settlement, for example the number of claims that are dismissed needs to be contextualised with the number of cases settled by the Home Secretary (as we know this frequently happens following a grant of permission) to give an accurate picture.

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