Rishi Sunak claimed on Monday to have delivered on his pledge to clear a backlog of asylum claims, despite 4,500 cases still awaiting a decision.

In December 2022, the Prime Minister pledged to “abolish” the backlog of more than 91,000 outstanding “legacy” asylum cases older than June 2022 by the end of 2023.

The Home Office claimed the backlog had been cleared and that more than 20,000 additional applications, post-dating June 2022, had also been decided, bringing the total to 112,000 cases cleared.

However, officials admitted 4,500 of the 91,300 had been reviewed but not yet decided, claiming it was “impossible” to do so within the timescale.

This was because they included cases where there were disputes over the age of the asylum seeker, serious medical problems, national security concerns that had not been resolved or unresolved questions over criminal investigations into them or past convictions.

Mr Sunak said: “By clearing the legacy asylum backlog, deciding more than 112,000 cases, we are saving the taxpayer millions of pounds in expensive hotel costs, reducing strain on public services and ensuring the most vulnerable receive the right support.”

However, Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, said the claim to have cleared the legacy backlog was “false”. The Refugee Council said it was “misleading”.

There is still a backlog of 98,000 outstanding applications that were neither in the “legacy” backlog, nor among the 20,000 additional cases decided.

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