Charities said the backlog came at enormous human cost. The Refugee Council said the delays were "having a devastating impact on the people we work with, whose lives are put on hold indefinitely while they anxiously wait to hear whether they will be allowed to stay in the UK".
Data on asylum cases for the year to the end of June showed that while the number of people given a decision rose against the year before, this was more than cancelled out by a bigger increase in applications.
Almost 10,000 Afghans applied for asylum over the year, making them the second most common nationality entering the UK asylum system after Albanians.
The statistics showed there were 78,768 asylum applications to the UK in the year to June 2023, concerning 97,390 people, up from 66,384 applications in the previous 12 months.
This rise helped push the total number of people awaiting an initial decision on their claim to 175,457, 44% higher than the 122,213 total at the end of June 2022, and the highest figure since records began in 2010.
This story is from the August 25, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the August 25, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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