In July to September this 12 months, the variety of appeals obtained by the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) elevated by 123%, to 30,000, in comparison with the identical interval final 12 months. Disposals (the variety of concluded appeals) elevated by 50% to fifteen,000 and the tribunal’s complete open caseload elevated by 92% to 121,000.
The essential context for that is that the Dwelling Workplace is now refusing over half the asylum claims which are made. Yesterday the Nationwide Audit Workplace’s report discovered that asylum “[d]ecision high quality stays a problem, with 42% of sampled choices in a rolling twelve months to Might 2025 having important or fail errors” (backside of web page 35). It’s unclear whether or not this is similar measure used within the Dwelling Workplace’s inner high quality checks, which present a fail charge of 48% in essentially the most not too long ago revealed figures.
The tribunal statistics present that 39% of asylum appeals had been allowed within the interval July to September 2025, and this should even be positioned within the context of a authorized support disaster meaning an growing variety of these appellants are unrepresented, which may have a downward impression on that determine. One other related issue is prone to be the rise in withdrawal of asylum appeals, that is up from 15% for July to September final 12 months to 37% this 12 months.
No breakdown or purpose is given for the withdrawal, however a big proportion of those are prone to be the place the Dwelling Workplace has withdrawn the choice beneath enchantment, accepting that it was incorrect. This can be a good factor for the Dwelling Workplace to do (it could after all be higher if the choices had been made correctly the primary time round), and it may possibly even have a downward impact on success charges.
You’ll be able to see receipts vs disposals for the tribunal as an entire within the beneath chart, with a little bit of a breakdown.
I’ve set out beneath a breakdown of the several types of appeals and the primary information we’re given, together with the proportion change from the identical interval final 12 months. You’ll be able to see that the proportion of appeals which are being allowed has dropped virtually totally throughout the board, with deprivation of citizenship appeals the one space which has seen a rise within the success charge of appeals.
| Receipts | Disposals | Proportion allowed after being decided at listening to/papers | Open caseload | |
| Asylum appeals | 16,398 (+240%) | 6,941 (+59%) | 39% (down from 47%) | 69,670 (+104%) |
| EEA appeals | 8,495 (+179%) | 4,704 (+103%) | 29% (down from 36%) | 24,892 (+116%) |
| Human rights appeals | 5,245 (-6%) |
2,972 (-2%) |
45% (down from 51%) | 26,158 (+54%) |
| Deportation | 17 (-43%) | 26 (+8%) | 21% (down from 43%) | 70 (-36%) |
| Deprivation of citizenship | 38 (+19%) | 15 (-67%) | 29% (up from 9%) | 220 (+51%) |
This chart offers a greater image of the state of the asylum appeals backlog specifically, taking a look at receipts and the whole open caseload.
Additionally related to the open caseload figures is the period of time the tribunal takes to resolve a case. The imply time taken throughout all appeals was 52 weeks for the interval July to September 2025, up eight weeks from the identical interval final 12 months. Asylum appeals now take effectively over a 12 months to conclude, at 60 weeks, with human rights appeals simply behind that at 58 weeks with EEA appeals at 36 weeks.
The main focus right this moment will little doubt be on the tribunal’s capacity to deal with this big enhance in its caseload. I’ll, as ever, remind you that it is a downside that’s largely brought on by the Dwelling Workplace and will (and will) be helped by them placing some severe work into reviewing and withdrawing poor refusals (I’m specifically pondering of Afghan circumstances right here).
Within the 12 months ending September 2025 the Dwelling Workplace refused 7,041 Afghan nationals’ safety claims which, assuming all of them appealed, would have been over 12% of the asylum appeals obtained by the tribunal over the identical interval. There may be nowhere to ship these folks and a few of these refusals are being withdrawn by the Dwelling Workplace at appeals stage, as it’s accepted that they’re unsustainable.
The Dwelling Workplace has given each indication that in addition they have Syrian circumstances of their sights. Once more, in the event that they do begin refusing these circumstances in giant numbers then that can be one other giant variety of circumstances moved to the tribunal, presumably in a comparatively brief time frame. There have been over 9,000 asylum claims made by Syrians previously two years, with there being a pause on choice making for round a 12 months of that.
The ultimate level I’ll make is that the dearth of capability within the authorized support sector is clearly additionally affecting the power of the tribunal to handle its caseload, it’s significantly harder for the tribunal to work with an appellant who’s unrepresented and should not communicate English than it’s to take care of an appropriately certified and skilled lawyer. The extraordinarily belated enhance in authorized support charges is unlikely to be sufficient to show the sector round to the extent wanted to assist deliver the tribunal’s caseload down.
