Sunak in 2022: the UK asylum backlog cleared by the end of 2023. At the end of 2023, 95.3k cases were waiting
Rishi Sunak13 December 2022 · statement to the House of Commons on illegal migration
«As a result of all these changes, we will triple the productivity of our caseworkers… …and we expect to abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of next year.»
132,200 cases were awaiting an initial decision at end-2022 and 95,300 at end-2023.
In 2023 the queue fell from 132.2k to 95.3k cases. The government measured only the «legacy backlog» and in January 2024 declared it cleared.
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A person who asks for asylum in the UK waits for a first decision: granted or refused. The Prime Minister promised that by the end of 2023 no cases would be waiting. Here is how many cases were waiting at the end of each year.
First the words: who said it, when and where, verbatim (translations are ours). Answer Yes or No, or just open the answer: the stamp is the outcome, below it what came of it. On the chart the dark line is the fact year by year up to the deadline, the pale one after it; the blue dashed line is the promised number from the year of the words to the deadline, the light band the time the promise gave; the ring on the line is when it was said, the ring in the stamp’s colour the fact in the deadline year, beside it how far it landed from the goal. The numbers on the right are the scale.
- Rishi Sunak, statement to the House of Commons on illegal migration quote
«As a result of all these changes, we will triple the productivity of our caseworkers… …and we expect to abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of next year.»
GOV.UK, «PM statement on illegal migration: 13 December 2022»
- What happened did not come true
132,200 cases were awaiting an initial decision at end-2022 and 95,300 at end-2023.
Quote: the Prime Minister’s statement in the House of Commons of 13 December 2022 (GOV.UK). Fact: Home Office, Immigration system statistics, table Asy_D03 (2026 release). Outcome: «came true» — the promised number reached by the deadline («about» within 5%), an event happened before the end of the year promised; «exceeded» — with room to spare; «nearly» — short by no more than 10%; «late» — reached, but after the deadline; «did not come true» — not reached; «came true, then undone» — reached, then reversed. The deadline is the end of the year named.
The Home Office then measured the goal by the «legacy backlog», cases lodged before 28 June 2022 (over 92,000), and on 2 January 2024 declared it cleared, with about 4,500 complex cases left. Claims lodged after that date were not in this goal; here all waiting cases are counted. Figures in the 2026 release may differ from the first publications.
A question for this picture
What counts as a kept promise when the government itself chose which part of the queue to measure?