THOUSANDS of failed asylum seekers are living in Britain without the Home Office knowing where they are, a report warns.
Officials have admitted they know only where the “vast majority” of failed applicants are and cannot say for certain who has left the country.
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Asylum seekers continue to arrive but the locations of some applicants is unknown Credit: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire
Analysis of 5,000 asylum claims found that 41 per cent were left unresolved years later Credit: Chris Eades
It is despite the Home Office and Ministry of Justice spending £4.9billion on asylum last year.
The revelation prompted MPs on the Public Accounts Committee to call for a “complete overhaul” of the system for monitoring those facing removal.
It demanded ministers revealed how many failed asylum seekers remained in Britain, how many they had lost contact with and how long it expected to take to deport them.
The cross-party spending watchdog also warned the wider asylum system was creaking under the strain of years of failed reforms, mounting backlogs and soaring costs.
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It concluded that control had been “all but lost”, while ministers still lacked a clear strategy and argued attempts to fix one problem often simply shifted pressure elsewhere
Analysis of 5,000 asylum claims lodged in January 2023 found that 41 per cent were left unresolved years later.
Many had neither been granted asylum nor removed from Britain.
Meanwhile, about 70,000 are waiting for asylum appeals, with cases taking about 60 weeks.
The report found asylum accommodation and support costs reached about £4billion last year.
More than £3.4billion of that went on housing asylum seekers.
Despite Labour’s pledge to end asylum hotels by 2029, about 36,300 were still living in them at the end of September 2025.
MPs welcomed the fall from peak levels but warned ministers still had no clear plan for where migrants will be housed instead.
They said previous attempts to move asylum seekers into alternative accommodation had ended in costly failures and accused the Home Office of lacking a credible long-term strategy.
Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said the report highlighting the failings in the system painted “a disturbing picture”.
He added: “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.”
