Rishi Sunak’s claims on small boats fact checked
- By Tamara Kovacevic & Lucy Gilder
- BBC News
Rishi Sunak says his plan to deal with small boat crossings is “starting to work”.
The prime minister was talking in Dover, nearly six months after he launched his “stop the boats” insurance policies.
We’ve examined a lot of claims he made in his speech.
Are small boat crossings down 20%?
Mr Sunak stated: “In the five months since I launched the plan, crossings are now down 20% compared to last year.”
The Home Office says that between January and May of final yr, 9,607 individuals arrived in small boats.
In 2023, the variety of individuals arriving between January and 30 May was 7,610. This is a lower of virtually 21%.
Earlier on Monday, the Home Office instructed BBC News that Mr Sunak had truly been evaluating January to March 2022 (4,548 arrivals) with the identical interval of 2023 (3,793 arrivals). This is a 17% lower. The Home Office later acquired in contact to say that the prime minister was evaluating the January to May durations in any case.
Despite the decline in numbers in the beginning of 2023, the most important enhance within the numbers arriving by small boats in 2022 occurred in the course of the summer time months. This is often when the climate is finest for crossing the Channel.
Between July and September of final yr 20,282 individuals arrived. This was up 147% on the earlier quarter and the most important quantity ever recorded over a 3 month interval.
So, though small boat crossings have decreased in 2023 they may nonetheless rise once more over the summer time months.
Will the asylum backlog be cleared this yr?
The prime minister stated the federal government was “on track” to clear the asylum backlog by the top of the yr.
He was referring to preliminary selections on asylum purposes made earlier than 28 June 2022 – so-called “legacy cases”.
He stated that the backlog had already been lowered by 17,000 instances.
When the pledge was made, there have been 90,358 such purposes.
By 28 May 2023, that determine was right down to 74,410 – a discount of about 16,000.
However, on the present price of progress – a median of 3,200 a month – it could take greater than 23 months to make the preliminary determination on the remaining purposes. So, the deadline of the top of the yr could be missed.
If you have a look at all asylum claims, together with these made since 28 June 2022, the variety of individuals within the UK awaiting an preliminary determination on their asylum case is on the report excessive of 172,758.
Are extra Albanian asylum seekers being returned?
Mr Sunak stated: “We’ve now returned 1,800 to Albania in just six months.”
This is appropriate. Home Office figures present that since a brand new settlement was signed between the UK and Albanian governments in December 2022, 1,788 Albanian nationals had been returned to their house nation.
However, this determine contains international nationwide offenders and individuals who have returned voluntarily – not simply individuals who utilized for asylum.
Between January and March 2023, 390 Albanians had been forcibly returned.
Albanians accounted for almost 30% of small boat arrivals in 2022. Most of them (85%) utilized for asylum.