Select committee: Home Affairs Committee
Conclusion 9
Second Report - Asylum and migration: Albania
Published 12 Jun 2023
Paragraph 55
Addressed to Home Office
Home Affairs Committee Migration and asylum All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We have focused on Albania because of its unexpected emergence as the source of most people trying to cross the English Channel on small boats and the subsequent interest in why that should have happened so suddenly and unpredictably. Albania is not the cause of the UK’s current migration concerns. It should not be singled out as such or scapegoated for home-grown failure to process asylum applications quickly and to return to their own or other countries those who do not have a right to be in the UK. That said, the substantial number of Albanians arriving across the Channel last year unquestionably contributed to the overwhelming of the asylum system, and particularly to the overcrowding seen at Manston in October. A new focus on faster decision-making for Albanian and all other applicants is welcome, but we need clear evidence soon that the Home Office is getting a grip on a complex, expensive system.
From: Home Affairs Committee, Second Report - Asylum and migration: Albania (HC 197), paragraph 55, 12 June 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 8 September 2023 (deadline 12 August 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government response sets out its position on the Committee's Albania report without framing it as accepting or rejecting the recommendations as a whole, stating that it is "on track to clear the historic asylum backlog by the end of 2023" and that it does not intend to publish asylum decision data weekly.
- On work visas, the government says the Seasonal Worker route "is not and has never been designed to act as a lever to reduce illegal migration", and that it does not believe it would operate effectively in that capacity.
- On the UK-Albania Joint Communique, the UK commits to support Albanian structures for referring victims and to "provide investment in additional protection services", with funded reintegration support for up to 240 individuals between January 2023 and March 2025.
- On the Albanian grant rate, it says direct comparison with other European countries cannot be undertaken, and that the rate fell to 34% in the year ending March 2023, or 5% when withdrawn cases are taken into account.
- On the Committee's request for quarterly progress reports, it points to existing Home Office published statistics and says it does "not intend to do this on a weekly basis" for decisions on asylum claims.