Rishi Sunak has been rebuked by the UK’s official statistics watchdog for making false claims about the backlog of claims made by asylum seekers.
The prime minister had told parliament in December that the backlog was only “half” of the number of claims in the system when Labour left office in 2010.
But Robert Chote, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) said this was incorrect and “do not reflect the position shown by the Home Office’s statistics”.
The number of asylum applications awaiting a decision was 166,000 at the end of December 2022, according to Home Office figures.
The number of undecided asylum applications in June 2010 – as Labour made way for the Tory-Lib Dem coalition – was just under 19,000.
“This means that during the period from June 2010 to December 2022 there has been a net increase in undecided asylum applications of 147,307, not a halving,” Mr Chote pointed.
The UKSA correction came in response to a request from Labour’s shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock to investigate statements made by Mr Sunak and Tory immigration minister Robert Jenrick.
Mr Kinnock has written to the PM to demand he corrects his statement in the Commons. “If such misleading statements remain on the record uncorrected, this will mislead the public and could amount to a breach of both the official code of practice for statistics,” he said.
The Labour frontbencher added: “I strongly urge you to lead by example and correct the erroneous use of figures in that...
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