Asylum tribunals told to work twice as fast

Home Office plans to process asylum seekers’ appeals within 24 weeks may not be achievable, the Law Society has warned.

Immigration and asylum tribunals will be set a 24-week target to decide appeals brought by asylum seekers in hotels or receiving accommodation support or who are foreign offenders. Government statistics show appeals currently take about 50 weeks.

Other measures announced this week include a crackdown on unscrupulous advisers—the Home Office will amend the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to give the Immigration Advice Authority powers to fine unregistered immigration advisers up to £15,000.

Further amendment will block from refugee status any foreign national convicted of a crime that qualifies them for the sex offenders register. Home Office case workers will also be given artificial intelligence (AI) tools to speed up the asylum decision-making process.

Law Society president Richard Atkinson welcomed the proposed crackdown on unregulated advisers.

However, he warned the 24-week target, while ‘laudable in theory’, may not be ‘workable in practice as the justice system is already struggling to cope with current levels of demand’.

Atkinson said: ‘There is a long wait for appeals to be processed due to the sheer volume of cases going through the system.

‘Efforts to clear the legacy backlog of asylum claims have led to more initial claims being refused, resulting in the number of appeals increasing even further.’ On the use of AI, he called for safeguards to ensure any results produced by AI are accurate.

Laura Smith, co-head of legal, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: ‘People fleeing danger deserve a fair hearing, not blanket exclusions.

‘Singling out sex offenders for automatic exclusion—regardless of the seriousness of the offence or risk posed—goes against the core principles of the Refugee Convention. This isn’t about safety, it’s about headlines.’