Asylum Statistics: Year Ending September 2019

Stolen from Asylum Matters

The immigration statistics for the year ending September 2019 have been released today. Key asylum figures are below and you can find the data tables here. Some headlines from the stats are below:

• There were 34,354 asylum applications in the UK (main applicants only) in the year ending September 2019, 22% more than the previous year and the highest level since the year ending June 2016, around the time of the European migration crisis.
• In the year ending September 2019, there were 20,490 initial decisions made, of which 48% were grants of asylum, humanitarian protection or alternative forms of leave (such as discretionary leave or UASC leave), compared with 30% in the previous year.
• The UK offered protection – in the form of asylum, humanitarian protection, alternative forms of leave and resettlement – to 19,480 people in the year ending September 2019 (up 28% compared with the previous year). This was the highest number of people granted protection in the UK in a single year since the year ending September 2003.
• There were 35,043 cases pending initial decision at the end of September 2019, of which 57% (20,054) were more than 6 months old. This is the largest backlog recorded in asylum statistics.
• There were 9,537 appeal decisions in the last year, of which 43% were allowed (4,113).
• Data from the Home Office ‘cohort’ analysis, show that the final grant rate has typically increased to over half following appeal (based on data from 2015 to 2017). However, the final grant rate is likely to be higher than 50% for year ending September 2019, given that the grant rate at initial decision is higher than it has been in previous years.
• At the end of September 2019, 44,156 asylum seekers in the UK were in receipt of support under Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, up 2% from the same time the previous year.
• An additional 3,857 individuals were in receipt of support under Section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, down 5% from the previous year.
• A further 3,049 individuals were in receipt of support under Section 98, 46% more than the year before. The increase is likely to be linked to the increase in asylum applications and the backlog in processing applications in recent periods.
• In the year ending September 2019, 5,606 were granted protection through resettlement schemes (down 6%). The Vulnerable Person Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) accounted for just over three-quarters (4,291) of those resettled in the UK in the year ending September 2019.  A further 238 refugees were resettled in the UK through a Community Sponsorship scheme.