Sir Keir Starmer will overhaul the asylum appeal system in an effort to deport failed asylum seekers faster and prevent the hotel crisis derailing the government’s immigration strategy.

The main tribunal courts used by failed refugees to challenge Home Office decisions are to be phased out and replaced by a fast-track system under plans to be announced by ministers within weeks.

A commission of professional adjudicators will rapidly assess appeals by migrants and determine whether the Home Office’s decision to refuse them asylum and deport them should be upheld.

The new body will be given statutory powers to prioritise the cases of asylum seekers being housed in taxpayer-funded accommodation, as well as foreign offenders who have received deportation orders.

The Home Office argues this will significantly cut the time appeals take to be heard — the average case now takes more than a year — enabling the government to move asylum seekers out of hotels faster.

There is concern among ministers that some first-tier tribunal judges are overturning asylum decisions based on an over-interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular Article 8, the right to family life. Under the reforms, the independent commission will eventually replace these first-tier courts.

In other developments:

● Protests were held in towns and cities including Bristol, Liverpool, Newcastle, Wakefield and Aberdeen, leading to at least 15 arrests.

Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, will host a meeting for Conservative councillors this week to provide advice on how they can launch legal challenges similar to the one that shut down the asylum hotel in Epping, Essex.

● Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, announced his plan for mass deportations in an interview with The Times, vowing to deliver five removal flights a day if made prime minister.

● This week the Refugee Council will urge the government to grant asylum seekers almost certain to have their claims approved time-limited permission to stay in the UK, to cut the backlog and end hotel use faster.

● The Home Office has requested that the use of Napier Barracks, a former military base, as temporary asylum accommodation be extended until the end of the year.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has pledged to tighten guidance for tribunal judges. The government is also trying to cut the appeal backlogs by increasing the number of tribunal sitting days.

However, ministers have concluded tribunals still cannot keep pace and an overhaul is now the only way to tackle the crisis.

The changes are due to be set out when MPs return to parliament in the first week of next month. They will require primary legislation. Ministers are looking at whether to amend the border security bill or draft a new bill.

On Saturday, Cooper said: “We are determined to substantially reduce the number of people in the asylum system as part of our plan to end asylum hotels. Already since the election we have reduced the backlog of people waiting for initial decisions by 24 per cent and increased failed asylum returns by 30 per cent.

“But we cannot carry on with these completely unacceptable delays in appeals as a result of the system we have inherited which means that failed asylum seekers stay in the system for years on end at huge cost to the taxpayer.

“Overhauling the appeals system so that it is swift, fair and independent, with high standards in place, is a central part of our plan for change.”

Yvette Cooper, Britain's Home Secretary, being interviewed.

Yvette Cooper said the government would appeal against the injunction forcing asylum seekers to be relocated in Epping

BENJAMIN CREMEL

Ministers have been working on the proposals for months but the announcement is understood to have been brought forward in response to the High Court granting an injunction that will force the Home Office to relocate up to 138 male asylum seekers from the Bell Hotel in Epping in a matter of days.

The challenge, brought by the council, has prompted dozens of other local authorities to threaten similar legal action in a development that risks throwing the asylum system into turmoil. Cooper has confirmed the government will appeal against the Epping decision.

At present, when an asylum seeker’s application is refused, he or she is usually able to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber).

A judge will hear the case and decide whether to uphold the Home Office’s decision to reject the application, or to overturn it, at which point the claimant is granted asylum.

While some migrants can go on to appeal again to the upper tribunal, the barrier to success is higher because the judge will not hear the full case again, instead only assessing whether the first-tier court made a legal mistake.

The tribunal system has come under growing strain due to the small boats crisis and attempts by the government to clear the backlog of asylum claims.

A record 111,000 asylum applications were made in the year to June, with high rejection rates, combined with a lack of immigration lawyers, culminating in a backlog of 51,000 appeal cases awaiting an outcome at first-tier tribunal courts. This was up from 7,173 appeals at the start of 2022.

Ministers have attempted to clear the backlog by announcing extra funding for lawyers and imposing a 24-week legal limit on appeals being heard.

But the government now believes far more radical options are needed. Home Office sources have confirmed that the average appeal is taking 53 weeks to be heard; some take years to be resolved.

This is seen as the primary cause of the asylum hotel crisis, as many of the asylum seekers waiting for their appeals to be heard are being housed in more than 200 hotels across the country.

As of June there were 32,059 asylum seekers in hotels, up by 8 per cent from when Labour came into office. A total of £5.4 billion has been spent on accommodation in the past financial year.

The overhaul of the tribunal system will be welcomed by dozens of Labour MPs in the red wall under threat from Reform, who are urging the government to do more to end the use of hotels.

Reform UK will pledge five deportation flights a day

The Home Office has said it will close them by 2029. Ministers are looking to buy student accommodation, old office blocks and more housing stock as alternative forms of accommodation. The government has also announced a £500 million fund to support local authorities in buying and building more basic temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.

The removal of judicial oversight from the appeal process is likely to anger those on the left, who will see it as an attack on asylum seekers’ rights and a further shift to the right by Starmer as he tries to counter Reform.

Separately, this week the Refugee Council will publish a report arguing that the government could end the use of asylum hotels years earlier than planned by granting certain asylum seekers permission to stay in the UK for a limited time subject to full security checks.

This would be granted only to those deemed most likely to have their asylum claims accepted and would be similar to the scheme used to bring tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees to the UK.

The charity will argue that taking a large cohort of asylum seekers out of the backlog will help to restore order to the system, save taxpayers’ money and reduce growing tensions in communities.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The answer to failed asylum hotels is not failed asylum camps. The government had rightly begun to move away from using more former military camps after its own spending watchdog found they cost more to run than using hotels.

“It’s time for a more pragmatic approach if the broken asylum system is going to be fixed. The solution is faster, fairer decisions and safe housing in communities, so refugees can work, study and rebuild their lives.”