Research
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Articles
The true cost of asylum: £234 per income taxpayer, per year
The total annual cost of the UK asylum system is around £8.0 billion, or £234 per income taxpayer per year. The largest component is now an audited figure rather than an estimate: the Home Office spent £4,181 million on asylum support, resettlement and accommodation in 2025-26, down from £4,513 million. Detention is the one line moving the other way, up 21.3%.
Read the full article →Asylum grant rates rise sharply on appeal, across 101 nationalities
Of 105 nationalities tracked in the Asy_D04 outcome analysis, 101 see asylum grant rates rise between initial decision and final outcome after appeal, by an average of 14.6 percentage points. Sri Lanka 26.9 percent initial to 60.1 percent after appeals. Iraq 30.9 percent to 57.0 percent. Russia 57.8 percent to 79.4 percent. The published initial grant rate of 39 percent for YE March 2026 understates the true protection rate by roughly 14 percentage points.
Read the full article →Pakistani UK asylum decisions: 989 in 2022, 17,592 in 2025
Pakistani UK asylum decisions rose from 989 in 2022 to 17,592 in 2025, a 17.8 times increase in three years. Initial grant rate fell from 60 percent (2022) to 32 percent (2025) as throughput rose. The true grant rate after appeals stabilises at 49.8 percent. Pakistan is now the largest single source of UK asylum claims. The Pakistani political situation since 2023 (Imran Khan jailed, PTI persecuted, blasphemy laws, religious minority attacks) is the demand-side driver. The Home Office's own Country Policy and Information Note February 2026 documents the case-handling framework.
Read the full article →Britain returns 39,000 people a year. Every political manifesto promises more.
The Home Office's headline return figure for year ending March 2026 is 39,000 people removed from the UK. The Reform UK 2024 manifesto wanted approximately 250,000 returns a year. Labour's Border Security Command produced a 13 percent rise in enforced removals and a 5 percent rise in voluntary returns, but no order-of-magnitude shift. The 39,000 ceiling is structural, produced by limited return-agreement coverage, tribunal pipeline length, and identity verification constraints.
Read the full article →Findings
86 local authorities projected minority White British by 2051
86 English local authorities are projected to have a White British population below 50% by 2051. 59 of those have a White British majority today. This is not a London story: Bolton, Pendle, Oldham, Thurrock and Broxbourne all cross the threshold. Recomputed 13 August 2026 on a model recalibrated against an out-of-sample test, replacing an earlier count of 109.
Census 2021 + Hamilton-Perry v8.0 projection model →Albanian asylum seekers don't change ethnic minority statistics. 90% identify as White
Census 2021 data shows 89.7% of people identifying as Albanian classify themselves as White Other. Albanian asylum seekers (the second-largest claiming nationality with 57,360 decisions) reduce White British percentage but do NOT increase ethnic minority statistics. This distinction matters for accurate demographic analysis.
Census 2021 TS022 Detailed Ethnicity →Arab population projected to triple in 20 councils by 2051. a group no model has tracked before
Our model is the first to project the Arab ethnic group separately. Census 2021 counts 319,452 people identifying as Arab. previously hidden inside 'Other ethnic group'. In areas like Brent (5.3% to 12.9%) and Westminster (7.6% to 9.2%), the Arab population is projected to grow faster than most other groups.
ONS Census 2021 Custom Dataset →Birmingham: 43% White British today, projected under 15% by 2051
Birmingham's White British population fell from 53% (2011) to 43% (2021). Ten percentage points gone in a single decade. Hamilton-Perry projects 14.9% by 2051. Pakistani fertility (TFR 2.52) against White British fertility (TFR 1.31) does the rest.
Census 2021 + Hamilton-Perry projection model →Blackburn projected minority White British by 2027. Three more Lancashire towns follow by 2050.
Blackburn with Darwen: 56.9% White British in Census 2021. Projected below 50% by approximately 2027. Pendle follows around 2034, Preston around 2037, Burnley around 2050. Four Lancashire towns crossing the same threshold within a generation.
Census 2021 + Hamilton-Perry v8.0 →Blackpool: worst on every metric. Simultaneously.
Blackpool ranks worst or near-worst across every domain we track: highest crime rate (142.8 per 1,000), highest ASC spend per capita (£724), fastest SEND growth, and an asylum rate of 40 per 10,000. 577 people on asylum support. One town. Every pressure at once.
Multiple official sources →107,003 on asylum support at end-2025. 20% are in just 10 councils.
21,205 of the 107,003 people on asylum support at 31 December 2025 are concentrated in just 10 local authorities. Glasgow leads with 3,835 (rate 59 per 10,000). Birmingham: 2,637. Liverpool: 2,189. Meanwhile dozens of councils take zero. The dispersal system is not dispersing.
Home Office Local Authority Data, Dec 2025 →18,869 family reunion visas in 2025: up 153% since pre-COVID
Refugee Family Reunion visas surged to 18,869 in the year ending December 2025, up 153% from the pre-COVID baseline of 7,456 in 2019. Every granted asylum claim generates the right to bring dependants. With grant rates rising after appeal, the family reunion pipeline is accelerating.
Home Office Immigration Statistics, Dec 2025 →Women in the most deprived areas have 66% more births. Poverty drives fertility, not just ethnicity.
ONS 2024 births data by IMD deprivation decile: most deprived quintile accounts for 25.5% of births, least deprived just 15.4%. Deprivation-fertility ratio: 1.66x. Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations are concentrated in deprived areas. Part of the apparent ethnic fertility gap is poverty, not culture.
ONS Linked Births 2024, Table 8 →White British fertility has fallen to 1.31. lower than any demographic model assumed
ONS 2024 births data reveals White British fertility has fallen to an empirical TFR of approximately 1.31. well below the 1.55 assumed by academic models and the 1.71 implied by Census 2021 child-woman ratios. Pakistani fertility remains at 2.52. The fertility gap between ethnic groups is wider than any published model uses.
ONS Linked Births 2024 →Yemen 95%, India 3%. the grant rate gap the Home Office won't publish as a league table
First full grant rate league table from Home Office decision data. 107 nationalities. 11 have 75%+ initial grant rates (genuine refugees). 41 have under 25% (overwhelmingly refused). The gap between the two groups is the clearest evidence that the system processes genuine refugees and economic migrants alike, then treats them identically until decision.
Home Office Immigration Statistics (Asy_D02) →Hotels house 29% of asylum seekers and take 76% of the contract cost
197 asylum hotels house approximately 31,000 people, 29% of the 107,003 on the supported asylum population at 31 December 2025. Hotels took around 76% of the cost of the accommodation contracts in the first seven months of 2024-25, £1.3 billion of an estimated £1.7 billion. Dispersal housing is roughly 10x cheaper per person per night. The hotel-heavy model is a policy choice, not a necessity.
National Audit Office, HC 874 as corrected 1 July 2025 →The North West carries 1 in 5 UK asylum seekers. More than London.
20,864 people on asylum support in the North West. 19.5% of the 107,003 national total at 31 December 2025. Liverpool (2,189), Manchester (1,846), Rochdale (1,359), Bolton (1,281), Oldham (1,111). Lancashire carries its share too: Blackburn (649), Preston (554), Burnley (461). The region that voted most heavily for change carries the heaviest load.
Home Office Local Authority Data, Dec 2025 →Ribble Valley vs Blackpool: 15 miles apart, different planets
Ribble Valley: 31 asylum seekers, rate 4.7 per 10,000, crime 32.4 per 1,000, ASC spend £442/capita. Blackpool: 577 asylum seekers, rate 40.0 per 10,000, crime 142.8, ASC spend £724. Same county. Same region. Same prime provider. Different universe.
Multiple official sources →Roma and Gypsy/Traveller populations now separately tracked. concentrated in specific boroughs
Our model separates Roma (98,785) and Gypsy/Irish Traveller (63,348) from the White Other category for the first time. Roma are concentrated in London boroughs (Hammersmith 0.81%, Haringey 0.76%). Gypsy/Travellers are concentrated in rural LAs (Maidstone 0.58%, Fenland 0.57%). These populations were previously invisible in demographic projections.
ONS Census 2021 Custom Dataset →Three companies control every asylum hotel in Britain
Serco, Mears Group, and Clearsprings Ready Homes operate regional monopolies over asylum accommodation under the AASC. Each controls a geographic region. All hotel procurement, dispersal housing, and support services flow through three companies. The 10-year contract: £15.3 billion.
National Audit Office, HC 874 as corrected 1 July 2025 →Academic ethnic projections over-predicted White British share in 95% of areas
The NEWETHPOP cohort-component model, the UK's most cited academic ethnic projection, over-predicted White British population share in 282 out of 296 local authorities. NEWETHPOP MAE against the Census 2021 actuals: 3.95pp across 296 areas. A previous version of this piece set that against a 1.71pp score for our own model and claimed we were 33 per cent more accurate. That comparison has been withdrawn: our 1.71pp came from a backcast fitted on the same two Censuses it was tested against, so it measured our own guardrails rather than forecast accuracy. On a genuine out-of-sample test, fitting 2001 to 2011 and forecasting 2021, our model scores 1.56pp.
NEWETHPOP (University of Leeds) →What is really driving ethnic change: national trend, not local migration
Shift-share decomposition of 305 local authorities shows that 84% of Burnley's White British decline is explained by the national trend, not local immigration. Most areas are changing because the whole country is changing, not because of exceptional local migration.
ONS Census 2011 & 2021 →Councils with fastest demographic change spend most on adult social care
The five councils with the fastest White British population decline spend an average of £612 per capita on adult social care, compared to £472 for the five with the slowest change. Ageing populations, deprivation, and demographic transition all contribute to higher social care demand.
NHS Digital ASC Report →Higher asylum dispersal rates correlate with higher recorded crime, but deprivation is the common driver
Among 25 tracked local authorities, areas with higher asylum dispersal rates tend to have higher police recorded crime rates (r = 0.68). However, both metrics correlate strongly with the Index of Multiple Deprivation, so the association likely reflects deprivation-driven placement policy rather than a causal link between asylum seekers and crime.
ONS Crime Statistics →64,426 asylum seekers waiting for a decision
The initial-decision backlog stands at 64,426. Every person in that queue costs money: hotel beds, support payments, legal aid. The Home Office made 39,395 initial decisions in Q4 2025 but 20,725 new claims arrived in the same quarter.
Home Office Statistics →Blackpool, Preston and Blackburn face the highest combined pressure across 5 domains
A composite index across asylum dispersal, demographic change, crime rates, SEND demand, and social care spend places Blackpool, Preston, and Blackburn with Darwen as the three most pressured local authorities in our tracking set. No other UK transparency platform combines these five domains at local authority level.
Multiple official sources →Home Office spends £5.77M PER DAY on asylum hotels
The House of Commons Library puts Home Office spending on asylum hotel accommodation at £2.1 billion in 2024/25, equivalent to £5.77 million per day, out of £4 billion on asylum support in total. That is down 17 per cent on 2023/24, when hotels cost £3 billion, or £8.3 million a day.
House of Commons Library, CDP-2025-0184 →EHCP demand grew fastest in areas with rapid demographic change
Across 25 tracked local authorities, the average five-year growth in Education, Health and Care Plans is 42%. Areas experiencing faster demographic change, including Blackpool (+51%), Preston (+47%), and Doncaster (+45%), tend to show above-average SEND demand growth. Multiple factors drive this pattern.
DfE SEND Statistics →41,472 arrived by small boat in 2025
41,472 people were detected arriving via small boat across the English Channel in 2025. Small boats now account for 89.2% of all illegal entry routes. The Rwanda scheme was scrapped. The boats keep coming.
Home Office Statistics →