Almost half of those applying for asylum in the UK are unable to access legal aid, analysis of new figures suggests.
The Home Office has come under pressure in recent days due to overcrowding at Manston immigration processing centre in Kent.
Concerns have also been raised about the speed that asylum cases are being processed, with only four per cent of people who arrived in small boats in 2021 getting a decision on their claims.
Now new figures shed a light on the difficulties faced by those caught up in the system.
Dr Jo Wilding, researcher at Sussex University, analysed the shortfall between the number of new asylum applications and the number of new immigration and asylum legal aid matters being opened.
In 2020-21 she found there was a deficit of at least 6,000. However, the situation in 2021-22 was much worse, with a deficit of at least 25,000 between provision and need.
This means that in the past year in England and Wales almost half of the main applicants who claimed asylum did not have a legal aid representative.
According to Freedom of Information data from the Ministry of Justice, 32,714 legal aid matters were opened in the year up to August 2022.
However, there were 63,089 asylum applications by main applicants (not including any dependent family members) in the year up to June 2022.
Accounting for 4,000-6,000 people being accommodated in Scotland, that leaves at least 25,000 people without help.
There is also widely varying access to legal aid across the country, with some regions having no firms offering legal aid for asylum claims at all.
Asylum seekers were reportedly transferred by coach from Manston centre to hotels in Norwich this week. However, there is no legal advice in the entire country of Norfolk, nor in Suffolk or Essex.
The closest legal aid provision is almost four hours away in Luton, Dr Wilding found.
Mike Brooker, immigration and asylum solicitor at Bristol Law Centre, said: “Providers who are giving specialist immigration advice are already inundated with requests for assistance… and we are constantly having to turn away work.
“This is true for Bristol and the picture is even more stark in Devon and Cornwall where large numbers of asylum seekers have been dispersed by the government into a legal aid advice desert.”
Siobhan Taylor-Ward, solicitor at Vauxhall community law and information centre, said her firm regularly sees “destitute migrants” who need legal help.
“We regularly see the harm caused by a lack of immigration advice as regularly people become destitute after applications are made without the correct information or evidence,” she said.
Nimrod Ben-Cnaan, head of policy at the Law Centres Network, said that the situation “continues to deteriorate”, adding that the asylum and justice systems were “crying out for reform and investment”.
“In the meantime, thousands of lives are in limbo, awaiting their fate in near-destitution, banned from working to support themselves and neglected by the government they have turned to for help.”
People board a bus inside the migrant processing centre, during the visit of Suella Braverman, in Manston
