Thousands of ‘legacy’ asylum cases awaiting decisions despite Sunak’s pledge

PM promised to clear backlog of cases from before June 2022 by end of 2023 but 4,500 complex cases need further checks

The Home Office is yet to make decisions on thousands of asylum applications from before June 2022 despite Rishi Sunak’s promise to clear the legacy backlog.

Caseworkers have been offered financial incentives to help hit the prime minister’s target of processing 92,000 cases from before June 2022. But in a statement released on Monday, the department said 4,500 complex cases from the backlog were still subject to further investigation.