- By Tamara Kovacevic & Lucy Gilder
- BBC news
Rishi Sunak said his plan to deal with small boat crossings “is starting to work”.
The prime minister was speaking in Dover, almost six months after he launched his “stop the boats” policies.
We examine several claims he made in his speech.
Are small boat crossings reduced by 20%?
Sunak said: “In the five months since I launched the plan, crossings are now down 20% compared to last year.” The Home Office clarified that Mr Sunak was talking about the first three months of 2023.
Between January and March last year, 4,548 people arrived in small boats.
In 2023, the number of people who arrived between January and March was 3,793. This is a 17% decrease.
However, the largest increase in the number of small vessel arrivals in 2022 occurred during the summer months. This is usually when the weather is best for crossing the Channel.
Between July and September last year 20,282 people arrived. This was up 147% over the previous quarter and was the largest number ever recorded in three months.
So, even if small boat crossings decrease in 2023 they may rise again in the summer months.
Will the asylum backlog be cleared this year?
The prime minister said the government was “on track” to clear the asylum backlog by the end of the year.
He referred to initial decisions on asylum applications made before 28 June 2022 – called “heritage cases”.
He said that the backlog has been reduced by 17,000 cases.
When the pledge was made, there were 90,358 applications.
By 28 May 2023, that number had dropped to 74,410 – a drop of almost 16,000.
However, at the current rate of progress – an average of 3,200 a month – it will take more than 23 months to make the first decision on the remaining applications. Therefore, the deadline at the end of the year will not be missed.
If you look at all asylum claims, including those made since 28 June 2022, the number of people in the UK waiting for an initial decision on their asylum case is at a record high 172,758.
Are more Albanian asylum seekers being turned back?
Sunak said: “We have now returned 1,800 to Albania in just six months.”
This is correct. Home Office figures show that since a new agreement was signed between the UK and Albanian governments in December 2022, 1,788 Albanian nationals have returned to their homeland.
However, this figure includes foreign national offenders and people who have returned voluntarily – not just people who have applied for asylum.
Between January and March 2023, 390 Albanians were forcibly returned.
Albanians accounted for nearly 30% of the small boat arrivals in 2022. Most of them (85%) applied for asylum.
