• Home Office statistics going back as far as 1979 show that 2002 was the year with the highest number of asylum applications in the UK, with 84,132 applications for asylum.
  • However, this number was nearly exceeded in 2022, when 81,130 asylum applications were received.
  • The claim that people who originally came to the UK to seek asylum comprise 0.6% of the population is supported by analysis from the University of Oxford – however, this research is based on data from 2019.

In their manifesto for the 2024 general election, the Alliance Party claimed: 

“The annual number of asylum applications to the UK peaked in 2002, and people who originally came to the UK seeking asylum make up a mere 0.6% of the UK’s total population.”

There are two aspects to this claim: whether the number of asylum applications peaked in 2002, and whether the number of people who originally came to the UK seeking asylum make up only 0.6% of the UK’s total population.

The first aspect is supported by official data published by the Home Office.

The second is also backed by evidence – however, it relies on an analysis from the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory based on data from 2019. As things stand, this remains the best-available information on this issue.

For more details, read on.

  • Sources

FactCheckNI asked the Alliance Party for information that supports their claims.

In support of the numbers of asylum applications peaking in 2002, they referred us to a May 2024 paper from the House of Commons, Asylum statistics, which states:

“The annual number of asylum applications to the UK peaked in 2002 at 84,132. After that the number fell sharply to reach a twenty-year low point of 17,916 in 2010. It rose steadily throughout the 2010s, then rapidly from 2021 onwards to reach 81,130 applications in 2022, the highest annual number since 2002.”

Regarding the percentage of the total UK population who originally arrived seeking asylum, the party pointed us to observations from the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, first published in August 2022 and since updated in January 2023, which note:

“People who originally came to the UK to seek asylum made up an estimated 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population in 2019, and 0.6% of the UK’s total resident population.”

Let’s take a closer look.

  • Asylum applications by year

Data for asylum applications between 1979 to 2018 is available from the Home Office here, with data for 2001 to the present available here.

Combining these datasets allows for a comparison of the number of asylum applications from 1979 to 2023 (the most recent full year as at the time of writing):

Figure 1 – source: Home Office data

Note that there is a difference between the number of asylum applications and the number of people applying for asylum, as some applications concern multiple people (such as family members). This check largely focuses on the number of applications, as that is the focus of the claim – which is the purple line on the graph above – but the total number of applicants is included in blue for some extra context.

This matches the observation made in the Commons paper sent to us by the Alliance Party, and confirms that this aspect of the claim is backed by evidence.

However, some caution is advised in not misinterpreting what it means that asylum applications “peaked” in 2022. That does not mean there has since been a broad decline.

As is clear from the graph above, main applicant asylum applications did recede considerably from their 2002 peak of 84,132 and, every year between 2004 and 2020 inclusive, they stayed under 36,000.

However, more recent years have seen a significant increase and 2022 was the year with the second highest total of applications received.

The increase in asylum application volumes in 2022 was driven in part by an increase in applications from Albanian nationals (15,070 up from 4,853 in 2021) and citizens of Afghanistan (10,310; up from 2,727 in 2021). Note that these figures do not include people who moved to the UK under the Ukraine Family Scheme or the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme.

  • Asylum seekers in the population

The second part of the claim (that people who originally came to the UK seeking asylum make up 0.6% of the UK’s total population) is more complicated.

This claim is sourced from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, and is based on their analysis of Labour Force Survey data as of 2019. The Migration Observatory’s analysis states:

“An estimated 388,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2019 originally came to the UK to seek asylum, according to Migration Observatory analysis of the Labour Force Survey. This made up 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population in 2019 of 9.48 million, and 0.6% of the UK’s total 2019 resident population of around 67 million. Of these, 56% had lived in the UK for sixteen years or more.”

Historically, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the UK measured the foreign born population of the UK using the Annual Population Survey, which in turn was based on data from the Labour Force Survey.

However, as explained by the ONS on their website, data quality issues with the Labour Force Survey means that this approach has been discontinued.

As of the time of writing (June 2024), the ONS are still working on a replacement for this data. This means that up-to-date figures on the percentage of the current UK resident population who originally came to the UK to claim asylum are not currently available.

From the start of 2020 until March 2024, there were 299,277 asylum applications processed in the UK. The estimate provided by the Migration Observatory analysis was 388,000 UK residents who had originally come to the UK to seek asylum.

Whilst not all of those who claimed asylum in the UK will have stayed, it is possible that high application volumes from 2021 to the present mean that the percentage of the UK resident population who originally came to the UK to claim asylum is now higher than 0.6%. However, given issues with the data normally used to estimate the foreign born population, it is not currently possible to answer this question conclusively.

Instead, the analysis by the Migration Observatory based on 2019 figures remains the best-available information and, as such, it is fair to say that the second aspect of this claim is supported by evidence.
If anyone knows of a more recent analysis on this issue, please get in touch.