Image source, PA Media

We've just heard from Yvette Cooper - now we can bring you some reaction from the political opposition.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp says there are "more immigrants in hotels than at the time of the election and fewer people are being removed".

The number of asylum seekers housed temporarily in hotels in the UK was 32,059 - an 8% increase since the end of June 2024, although a slight drop from the previous quarter.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeswoman Lisa Smart says the asylum backlog "has been far too large for far too long".

She points the blame at the previous Conservative government, saying that they "thrashed our immigration system and let numbers spiral".

But, in her view, the Labour government is no better as it "has lost control of our borders".

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says that under the current government "we have record numbers claiming asylum".

The Home Office data shows that 111,000 people claimed asylum in the past year - above the 2002 peak of 103,000.

Farage adds: "The public are right to be very angry with both Labour and the Tories for what they have done to us."

Image source, Reuters

We've just had reaction from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper:

She says: "We inherited a broken immigration and asylum system that the previous government left in chaos.

"Since coming to office we have strengthened Britain’s visa and immigration controls, cut asylum costs and sharply increased enforcement and returns, as today’s figures show.

"The action we have taken in the last 12 months - increasing returns of failed asylum seekers by over 30%, cutting asylum costs by 11%, reducing the backlog by 18% and our forthcoming plans to overhaul the failing asylum appeal system - are crucial steps to restoring order, and putting an end to the chaotic use of asylum hotels that we inherited from the previous government."

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There's some more detail in today's data that helps paint a picture of who is arriving in the UK on small boats:

• Since January 2018, three-quarters of small boat arrivals are men, while only 16% are children. However the proportion of children fell during the first half of this year to 10%
• More than half the people arriving to June 2025 came from five countries: Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Syria
• As we've mentioned, Afghan was the most common nationality at 15%, followed by Eritrean at 14%, and Iranian at 10%

Rob England
BBC Verify senior data journalist

Let's bring you more now on the backlog of asylum claims, which Dominic Casciani just mentioned.

As of June 2025, 90,812 people were awaiting an initial decision, down 17% on March and down almost 24% compared with the end of June 2024, just before the general election.

The government has pledged to clear the asylum backlog by the end of the current parliament, in 2029.

Record asylum applications - but government is processing them fasterpublished at 10:12 British Summer Time 21 August

10:12 BST 21 August

Dominic Casciani
Home and Legal Correspondent

As we just reported, the latest statistics show the UK has hit a new record for the number of asylum applications - but there are clear signs the government is processing them faster.

The Home Office figures show there were 111,000 asylum applications in the year ending June 2025 - up by 2,000 on the previous rolling quarter. The previous record was 103,000 in 2002.

Officials are however processing more cases than before the general election - meaning that over the long term there may be fewer people in the system needing housing support.

According to the statistics, there were 71,000 cases awaiting an initial decision, relating to 91,000 people.

That backlog is almost half the peak of 134,000 cases at the end of June 2023 - and means that there are 18,536 fewer people waiting for a decision today than there were in March.

Figures for accommodation show the numbers in hotels has dropped very slightly to 32,059, compared to the previous quarter. That is still higher than when Labour came to power but well below a peak of 56,000 in September 2023.

If new arrivals (including small boat migrants) do not out-run how quickly the Home Office is reaching decisions on existing cases, ministers hope to be able to reduce the use of hotels over the long term – however the success of that also depends on how quickly they can remove people who have no case to be in the UK.

In the year ending June 2025, the Home Office forcibly removed 9,100 people – up a quarter on the previous year. More than half were foreign national offenders who were being deported at the end of sentences.

The new government data shows there were 49,000 "irregular" arrivals in the year to June 2025 – an increase of 27% on the previous year.

Most of those (88%) came on small boats, an increase of 38%.

The most common nationality among people arriving on small boats in that period was Afghan, accouting for 15% of arrivals (6,400).

We're poring over the data drop from the Home Office. According to the figures, 111,000 people claimed asylum in the UK in the year ending in June 2025.

It marks a 14% increase from the previous year, and it is higher than the previous recorded peak of 103,000 in 2002, the Home Office says.

It says that the number of people claiming asylum has "almost doubled" since 2021 and half of those seeking asylum "arrived through irregular routes".

In the year ending in March 2025, the Home Office adds, the UK received "the fifth largest number of asylum seekers in the EU+, after Germany, Spain, Italy and France".

According to the new Home Office statistics, there were 32,059 asylum seekers being housed in hotels at the end of June.

That's an 8% increase since the end of June 2024, but a 43% drop compared to the 56,042 peak recorded at the end of September 2023.

It's also a slight decrease on the total at the end of March, which was 32,345.

The Home Office has just released its latest quarterly statistics on immigration, with data up to the end of June.

We're combing through the figures now - so stick with us as we bring you the latest.

Image source, PA Media

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp says his party - in office until July 2024 - made a "mistake" when it allowed asylum seekers to be housed in hotels around the country.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Philp was asked whether using hotels to house people seeking asylum was an error, to which he replied: "Yes it was, and we wanted to get it down and we did it get it down."

The shadow home secretary says that, in the last nine months of the Conservative government, they "halved the number of asylum hotels".

Under the last Conservative government, in June 2023, the number of asylum seekers living in hotels reached a record 58,636.

However, in June 2024, a month before Labour took office, the number of asylum seekers in hotels was 29,585.

Philp adds: "Mistakes were made by the last government. Kemi Badenoch and I have said that, we gave a speech on that topic referring in particular to legal migration that was far too high.

"We've openly acknowledged it was a mistake and we've set out credible plans to fix that."

The Home Office releases a range of immigration statistics quarterly. Today we’ll get the data for April to June - but before that, let’s take a quick look back at what the data showed last time.

In total, 109,000 people claimed asylum in the UK in the year ending March 2025, the Home Office said in its last quarterly update. That was a 17% increase on the year before.

About a third of those claiming asylum in the UK arrived in small boats.

In the year to March, 44,000 irregular arrivals were detected - an increase of 14% on the previous year.

Of those, 38,000 (86%) came on small boats - that was 22% more small boat arrivals than the previous year, but fewer than in 2022.

There were 32,345 asylum seekers living in taxpayer-funded hotels in March, a 9% increase since Labour came to power, but down from 38,079 in December 2024, and lower than the peak under the Conservative government.

The figures also showed there were 109,536 people waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of March.

Joshua Nevett
Political reporter

Image source, PA Media

About a third of those who claim asylum in the UK arrive in small boats launched by people smugglers off the coast of France.

Labour’s main policy to crack down on those crossings - and reduce asylum cases as a result - is to "smash" the people-smuggling gangs.

But what has that slogan meant in practice since Labour took office - and has it worked?

One of the Labour government’s first steps was to create a Border Security Command, tasked with co-ordinating efforts to target people-smuggling gangs.

Then came a new law designed to give UK authorities expanded powers to strengthen border security. That’s making its way through Parliament.

More recently, the government has been working on migrant-return deals with international partners (such as Iraq) and signed a "one in, one out" agreement with France in July.

The plan proposes that for each migrant the UK returns to France, another person with a strong case for asylum in Britain will be allowed to stay.

So the government has been busy - but so too have the people smugglers.

As of 30 July, more than 25,000 people had crossed the Channel in small boats in 2025 - about 49% higher than at the same point in 2024.

And earlier this month, the number of migrants to cross the Channel in small boats since Labour came to power last summer surpassed 50,000.

Image source, Reuters

At 09:30 BST, the Home Office will release quarterly statistics on immigration, with data up to the end of June.

The numbers will include asylum applications, the backlog of unprocessed asylum cases, and how many asylum seekers are being accomodated in hotels.

The data will be closely watched in Westminster as the row over hotels for asylum seekers grows.

This week, the High Court said an ex-hotel in Epping being used as asylum seeker accomodation should close, after a challenge from the local council.

Other councils are now considering their own challenges - which would give the government a major headache on where to house people claiming asylum.

Our experts will be combing through the data from 09:30, so stay with us.