Immigration lawyers have accused the Home Office of embedding delays into a scheme designed to speed up decisions on 12,000 asylum claims. The plan, announced last month, aims to reduce the asylum backlog, which stands at a record 160,000 cases, by sending questionnaires to refugees. Claimants must respond in English within 20 working days or risk refusal.
The questionnaires are being sent to individuals from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen, countries with an asylum grant rate exceeding 95%. While lawyers and human rights organisations welcome efforts to speed up processing, they say the scheme has encountered difficulties just weeks after its announcement.
A key issue is that Home Office officials are rejecting witness statements that lawyers had previously obtained from clients, which explain why they fled. Lawyers have appended these statements to questionnaire responses, but officials demand new statements, which is challenging within the 20-day deadline. An email exchange between a lawyer and a Home Office official reveals the official stated that witness statements predating the questionnaire cannot be accepted as answers.
The Immigration Law Practitioners' Association coordinated a letter to the government, signed by over 100 organisations, calling the questionnaire 'fundamentally flawed', 'long, complex and poorly drafted'. The letter urges the Home Office to simplify language and not reject cases where the questionnaire is not submitted within 20 days. A group of immigration lawyers in Northern Ireland also wrote to the home secretary, describing the process as 'absurd' and potentially counterproductive.
A Home Office spokesperson defended the scheme, stating: 'The streamlined asylum process seeks to more efficiently assess legacy asylum claims... We provide eligible claimants with the opportunity to fully explain their reasons to seek asylum... When questionnaires are only partially completed, we will return them for further details.'
