The Home Office published some ad hoc stats yesterday (the Q3 stats are out next week - today's tell us a bit more). A few things to pick out.

54% of people who have crossed the channel up to end of Oct were from Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Syria or Sudan. 1 in 5 were Afghan. The vast majority of people crossing the channel continue to be likely to be recognised as refugees if their claims were processed. Going by the most recent annual grant rates, 75% of those who have crossed the channel so far this year would be expected to be granted asylum.

🧵Tomorrow afternoon, MPs debate the bill that all but ends the ability for refugees to claim asylum in the UK. It will do nothing to reduce dangerous journeys, will be massively expensive, and will leave tens of thousands in a permanent limbo. Here are some of the reasons why. Clause 4(2) means any asylum claim made by someone covered by the bill - pretty much anyone who arrives irregularly - must be deemed inadmissible. This means the Home Office refuse to consider it at all. There are no exemptions. It applies to men, women and children.

New asylum stats are out. At the end of September this year, there were 117,400 asylum claims waiting for an initial decision - a 74% increase over the last year.

Those claims apply to 143,377 men, women and children. 97,717 of them have been waiting for more than 6 months. 34% of the backlog is made up of cases from five countries (39,408 applications) - Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Syria and Sudan. The grant rate for Iranians over the last year was 82%, Afghans, Eritreans and Syrians 98%, and Sudanese 86%.

Today is a sad day. Many aspects of the Nationality and Borders Act come into force, including those that treat refugees differently depending on how they entered the UK, criminalisation of people entering the UK to seek asylum, and measures that increase barriers to protection none of these things will do anything to address the serious issues facing the asylum system right now - the lack of safe routes, huge delays in decision making, and people being stuck in unsuitable and overly expensive accommodation

The best way of reducing the number of people taking dangerous journeys to reach the UK is to create more safe ways for people to do it.

Yet for the vast majority, it is becoming harder and harder.

#EveryRefugeeMatters the Home Office is very clear that in order to claim asylum in the UK, a person has to be physically present here.

Yet there is no "asylum visa" to come to the UK to do this.

The immigration & asylum stats for the first three months of this year come out at 9.30am today. Some important things to look out for, including backlogs of asylum decisions, resettlement numbers (should include the Afghan scheme for the first time) and inadmissibility stats. should also get updated channel crossing data broken down by nationality.

And will the high grant rates - 72% last year - have continued?

The impact of Ukrainian visas on family reunion decisions won't show until the Q2 stats, but there were already significant delays before.

It's taken most of the day to get my head around what I think the UK Government is doing regarding removing people to Rwanda who have claimed asylum in the UK, and the interaction (or not) with the Nationality and Borders Bill.

But I think it centres around inadmissibility... the term "offshoring" can mean a lot of things in an asylum context. It could mean that a country such as the UK accommodates/holds people in another territory while it determines their asylum claim.

Here is the Memorandum of Understand between the UK and Rwanda gov.uk/government/pub… some important points at first glance:

- initial screening to be done in the UK, before referral to Rwanda
- If Rwanda accepts the referral, UK then responsible for transfer
- does seem like people would then be detained in Rwanda

In @UKHouseofLords, Peers now voting on whether to remove the powers on depriving people of their British Citizenship #NationalityAndBordersBill @UKHouseofLords result imminent...