Labour shambles exposed as Home Office admits it's lost control of vanished asylum seekers

Labour cannot accurately say how many failed asylum seekers have vanished off the radar as they have "all but lost" control, a scathing report has revealed.

The Home Office was accused of a “shocking and unacceptable state of affairs” after civil servants admitted they only know where the "vast majority" of people are.

And Shabana Mahmood is under growing pressure to estimate how many failed asylum seekers are living in the country – and when they will be deported.

In a scathing assessment, MPs said: “The Home Office told us, in relation to asylum seekers who have been processed through the system and had their application rejected and appeals rights exhausted, it knows “where some of them are”, but that individuals “not complying with their bail conditions” would be treated as absconders and that the department would “seek to trace them”.

“The Home Office also admitted that it does “not count absolutely everybody out of the country” and therefore does not know with certainty who has left the country and who has not, while claiming that it knows where the “vast majority” of people are through its enforcement contact regimes. This is a shocking and unacceptable state of affairs.”

And the Public Accounts Committee demanded: “The Home Office should write to the Committee…with its best estimate of how many failed asylum seekers are in the country and what proportion it is actively engaged with.”

Labour is moving asylum seekers out of hotels and into the “suburbs and shires”.

Almost 100,000 migrants are receiving taxpayer support.

There are now 68,719 asylum seekers living in houses, flats and bedsits - including large HMOs - in communities across the country.

Britain's asylum crisis was laid bare as 93,525 sought sanctuary in the UK last year, down from 106,130 in the previous 12 months.

An alarming 38,980 people applied after crossing the Channel on a dinghy, while 36,711 claimed refuge after arriving on a study, work or visitor visa.

Of this group, 10,835 held a study visa, 13,994 arrived on a work visa, 7,048 used a visitor visa and 4,834 held other forms of leave.

One in 10 asylum seekers was from Pakistan, with 9,438 in total. Most sought protection after arriving on a visa. Eritreans, Afghans, Iranians, Sudanese and Somalis have accounted for the biggest cohorts of small boat migrants so far this year.

But the PAC warned the Home Office “does not yet have a credible long‑term strategy for asylum accommodation and local authorities still lack a meaningful say over accommodation decisions.”

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “Our report provides an end-to-end snapshot of the entire asylum system, and its findings paint a disturbing picture - at the time of our inquiry, control of it had been all but lost.

“The focus on short term, reactive ‘fixes’ has left the government chasing after pressures pushed from one part of the system to the next.

“There is no clear strategy uniting these efforts, and engagement across departments and with local authorities is patchy at best.

“Given senior officials’ inability to articulate what the asylum system is collectively trying to achieve, it is no wonder such a directionless bureaucracy ends with people at the heart of it either left in limbo, or lost entirely.”