THE Home Office has said that it will continue to put the asylum claims of people it is seeking to return to Europe on hold despite still not securing any return agreements with the EU. 

Since the beginning of 2021, the department has stalled more than 4,500 asylum claims while it considers whether those individuals can be returned to European countries, according to the latest official figures in August. 

But immigration minister Tom Pursglove told MPs on the home affairs select committee today that just five returns to EU countries under the new “inadmissibility” policy had been made so far this year. 

Mr Pursglove insisted that these new rules, enforced in January 2021, were still an “important part of our immigration system,” despite confirming that no return agreements had been secured, making the chances of their removal slim to none. 

Refugee rights groups have criticised the new inadmissibility rules, claiming they only build further delays into an already snail-paced asylum system. 

Jesuit Refugee Service’s detention outreach officer Naomi Blackwell told the Morning Star that many people who had had their asylum claims put on hold did not understand what this meant. 

“When you’re dealing with men who have children in Syria and families in Kabul and they’re being bombed, it’s incredibly distressing [for them],” she said.

“That awful unknown when you thought you were going to be part of an asylum process and suddenly you’re not, and you have no idea why.”

Under the new rules, if the Home Office has not found a country willing to accept the individual after six months, then their asylum claim goes back into the asylum system and is considered. 

Removals of asylum-seekers were previously carried out under an EU programme, which Britain ceased being a part of in January 2021. 

Home affairs committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper said that the Tories’ proposed reforms, which seek to make it easier to detain and remove asylum-seekers from Britain, will be of “limited impact” given the lack of return agreements.

It comes as new figures by the Refugee Council show that over 90 per cent of asylum-seekers who arrived to Britain via small boats are refugees fleeing persecution. 

The group said this contradicted claims by Home Secretary Priti Patel that 70 per cent those travelling across the Channel were “not genuine asylum-seekers.”