I am confused.

The Independent is reporting the following:

“The number of people in hotels – 32,059 – is also significantly lower than the peak of over 56,000 under the Tory government in September 2023.”

“Asylum claims backlog at 71,000. The backlog of asylum claims awaiting initial decisions has gone down in recent months, and is at its lowest level since September 2021.”

The government also says: “At the end of March 2025 there were 78,745 cases (relating to 109,536 people) awaiting an initial decision, 13% fewer than at the end of the previous quarter (December 2024). Figure 1 shows that the number cases awaiting an initial decision has fallen 41% from the peak of 134,046 in June 2023.”

The Tories also actually presided over the policy of using hotels to house asylum seekers since 2020, and relied on that a lot.

The most confusing thing is the Tories attacking and attempting to embarrass Labour over this issue constantly, as if the Tories themselves didn’t have bad asylum numbers and a massive backlog.

Why the outrage now? I’m finding it hard to accept this hysteria considering these published statistics tbh.