THE number of people waiting for a decision on an asylum claim has risen to 172,758, showing “staggering” human cost of failure to process claims, campaigners have warned.

Latest official figures show that the backlog hit a record number in March — up 57 per cent from the end of March 2022.

The number of people waiting more than six months for an initial decision stood at 128,812 at the end of March, up 76 per cent from last year and another record high.

More than three-quarters of all small boat asylum applications since 2018 are still waiting for a decision.

The Home Office said that the rise was due to “more cases entering the asylum system than receiving initial decisions.”

There were 19,706 initial decisions made on asylum applications in 2022-23, up 35 per cent from 2021-22 but below the 20,766 in the pre-pandemic calendar year of 2019.

In December, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to “abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions” by the end of 2023.

Refugee Action chief executive Tim Naor Hilton said: “Many people wait years for a decision in which time they’re forced to live in poverty, banned from work, segregated from communities and detained in rundown hotels.”

He criticised the government’s Illegal Migration Bill, saying it will “make things much worse” as no new safe routes will be created.

“People will still have to make the deadly Channel crossing because this Bill creates no new routes for people to safely reach the UK while our refugee resettlement schemes are failing,” he said.

“The government must end its addiction to hostility and deterrence, ditch its anti-refugee Bill and create a compassionate, just and accessible asylum system that benefits refugees and the taxpayer.”

Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said the figures are “unacceptable” and called for “real commitment and resourcing to tackle the backlog, which crucially must include making quick and good-quality decisions based on the merit of each claim, so refugees can start rebuilding their lives.”

The figures also showed that net migration is estimated to have reached a record high of 606,000 in 2022 — up 24 per cent from 2021.

Amnesty International UK refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds said that the net migration figures exposed the “pointless harm of the toxic political debate on immigration.”

He said: “A political obsession with numbers is going hand in hand with racist government policies and hateful rhetoric, particularly against those seeking asylum.

“People with hopes, skills and rich life stories are being stripped of their individuality by ministers who are ruthlessly using them as political weapons while stirring anxiety and hostility about migrant numbers.”

Mr Valdez-Symonds called for a major rethink of the entire immigration debate, “no longer treating people as mere units of economic cost or benefit, and certainly not demonising — as [Home Secretary] Suella Braverman and others have done — the relatively small number of people who seek asylum in the UK.”

British Red Cross executive director of strategy and communications Christina Marriott said that leaving people in limbo, unable to work, separated from family and uncertain about their future is costly to both people’s physical and mental health and the taxpayer.

“Processing claims more quickly would help people settle into communities, start work and get on with their lives,” she said.

But immigration minister Robert Jenrick suggested that speeding up the processes would be likely to lead to an increase in asylum claims from people arriving via so-called illegal means.

He said he was “confident” that the government would clear the asylum backlog by the end of the year and that it will introduce other measures if necessary.

Mr Sunak faced a backlash from his own MPs on the figures, with some voicing their frustration at “unsustainable” levels of net migration.