Professional adjudicators being hired to replace judges to hear immigration appeals will be independent of the executive and provide ‘appropriately robust scrutiny’ of Home Office decisions, home secretary Shabana Mahmood has insisted.
Last summer the Home Office, under Yvette Cooper, announced tribunal system reforms that would see a new independent body of professional adjudicators set up to hear asylum appeals more quickly. Despite greater investment in sitting days in the First-Tier tribunal, the Home Office said the backlog was not being cleared fast enough.
Responding to a letter from the House of Commons justice select committee this week, former justice secretary Shabana Mahmood, who took over from Cooper last September, said adjudicators would have the required training and decision-making expertise to make determinations, and possess a range of skills and experience.
‘The widening of the recruitment pool in comparison to the current system will help us to recruit a greater number of adjudicators than there currently are judges in the [First-Tier tribunal], thereby boosting capacity to make decisions swiftly,’ Mahmood said.
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‘We will ensure that there will be strong safeguards in place to ensure high standards, that those making decisions in the independent appeals body will be entirely independent of the executive, and will be free to provide appropriately robust scrutiny of Home Office decisions. My intention is that the design of the system will give parliament a formal role in scrutinising the effectiveness and productivity of the new body.’
With the asylum appeal caseload rising from 7,000 in 2023 to more than 51,000 in March 2025, Mahmood said the scale and nature of the current caseload could not be sustainably managed within the statutory and structural limits of the first-tier tribunal.
No date was given for when the new body will begin to hear appeals. Mahmood said First-Tier tribunal judges would continue to hear existing appeals during the ‘transition phase’.
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