Home Office Risks Passing Asylum Pressures on to Courts, Report Warns

In a highly critical report, the Public Accounts Committee said the department’s current handling of the crisis could have ‘grave consequences.’

An inflatable craft carrying illegal immigrants crosses the shipping lane in the English Channel off the coast of Dover, England, on Aug. 4, 2022. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

The government’s current business case for asylum system reform is “incomplete and unrealistic,” the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has warned.

In a damning report investigating the Home Office’s handling of the huge asylum backlog, the committee said the department risks shifting pressures created by the small boats crisis onto the courts.