The $4.9 billion price tag for failure

The Home Office has spent a staggering $4.9 billion on asylum in 2024-25, yet the system remains in shambles, with at least 41,000 failed asylum seekers awaiting deportation.

The report by the House of Commons' public accounts committee paints a disturbing picture of a never-ending crisis, with the Home Office admitting that it does not know how many failed asylum seekers have absconded or left the country voluntarily.

The committee condemned this state of affairs as 'shocking and unacceptable.'

A system in crisis: 41,000 failed asylum seekers in limbo

The report found that at least 41,000 failed asylum seekers are awaiting deportation, with the Home Office unable to provide a clear plan for how it will deport most of them.

MPs expressed dismay at the Home Office's admission that it does not know how many failed asylum seekers have absconded or left the country voluntarily.

The committee called for a complete overhaul of the way the Home Office deals with failed asylum seekers, including a formal, up-to-date estimate of how many are in Britain, how many have absconded, and what action the Home Office will take to trace them.

No clear strategy , no direction: a directionless bureaucracy

The report found that the Home Office remains at risk of repeating past failures within a directionless bureaucracy.

Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP said: 'Our report prvoides an end-to-end snapshot of the entire asylum system, and its findings paint a disturbing picture.'

'At the time of our inquiry, control of it had been all but lost,' he added.

The asylum system: a never-ending crisis

The report found that asylum reforms had led to repeatedly shifting backlogs rather than reducing them.

In particular, Labour's drive to clear a backlog in the number of initial asylum applications had simply led to a new bottlenecks being created in the asylum appeal courts.

The report also condemned obscene profits made by suppliers of asylum accommodation, as highlighted in a separate inquiry by the home affairs select committee last year.

Open questions

Who is the unnamed buyer of the asylum accommodation suppliers?

What is the Home Office's plan to deport most of the failed asylum seekers?

How many failed asylum seekers have absconded or left the country voluntarily?

Broader context: a system in crisis

The asylum system was failing to cope in the face of severe pressure, the committee said.

The report found that asylum claims were down, but hotel use was still high, and immigration enforcement activity was at the highest level on record.

The committee found that the Government had announced an entirely new asylum model which would aim to cut speending by $1 billion a year by 2028-29, but there was still no clear plan.