Report comment

If the government wants to speed up asylum appeals, here's a simple 3 point plan:

1) Improve the quality of initial decision making. Almost half of the Home Office's decisions failed to meet even its own quality standard, as reported in late 2024 - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/08/home-office-says-only-half-of-uk-asylum-decisions-meet-its-quality-standards and half of appeals succeed. Possibly not a coincidence that the numbers are so similar.

2) Comply with Tribunal directions so the professional adjudicators we already have (aka immigration judges) can actually exercise their functions without being held up by constant Home Office failures.

3) Pay properly for legal aid so that asylum applicants are represented by competent professionals. Many legal aid providers won't do appeals at all any more because they just can't afford it, and there's at least a 57% deficit in representation of new asylum applications and appeals, and lack of representation also slows down the appeals system. See 'No Access to Justice 2' - https://justice-together.org.uk/learning/our-research/ Although the government announced a 30% uplift in some immigration legal aid fees, this is yet to materialise and provision has collapsed (or was already absent) in significant parts of the country.

Incidentally, if people have proper, competent legal advice at an early stage, those who really don't have a good claim for asylum would know sooner, and not sit in a hotel for 2 years believing that they will qualify.