BRITAIN: Asylum has forced its way back to the top of the political agenda, amid warnings that failure to reverse the rising numbers seeking entry to Britain could prompt social unrest.
A report by the influential home affairs select committee of MPs suggested that "a growing political backlash" may already be under way as it described the dramatic growth in the numbers of people seeking asylum in the UK as "unacceptable."
The report charted an increase in the number of asylum applications - from 4,223 in 1982 to 110,700 in 2002 - and declared: "If allowed to continue unchecked, it could overwhelm the capacity of the receiving countries to cope, leading inevitably to social unrest."
Just a week after the far-right British National Party won 16 council seats and became the second-largest party in Burnley, the report continued: "It could also, and there are signs this may already be happening, lead to a growing political backlash which will in turn lead to the election of extremist parties with extreme solutions."
The Conservative shadow home secretary, Mr Oliver Letwin, said the report was "a damning indictment of a system in chaos" and renewed his call for the replacement of the present regime with a system of quotas.
However, Home Office minister Ms Beverley Hughes insisted the government had made significant progress in dealing with the asylum issue and repeated the Prime Minister's commitment to halve the number of people entering Britain by September.
Ms Hughes told the committee that compulsory identity cards could help prevent asylum claims by tackling the problem of people working illegally. The minister also said the first out-of-EU asylum processing centre could be operating by the end of the year.
Home Secretary Mr David Blunkett's plan would involve establishing centres, possibly in Africa, where asylum-seekers wanting to settle in EU countries would remain while their applications were determined.
Claiming "warm interest" in this proposal around the EU, Ms Hughes said Mr Blunkett's plan would probably be discussed by EU interior ministers at their next meeting in June.
With unofficial estimates suggesting that tens of thousands of those whose asylum claims are rejected will stay in the UK illegally, the MPs criticised the lack of "reliable statistics" indicating how many failed applicants remained. However, Ms Hughes said the government was as frustrated as the public over the lack of reliable figures on the numbers seeking asylum. The system, she said, was still suffering from the impact of the late delivery of a new computer system in 1999 on the claims backlog.
Committee chairman Mr Chris Mullin said it was important to remember that "whether we are dealing with genuine asylum seekers or economic migrants, we are dealing with human beings, not numbers, and they should be treated accordingly."
The report said it was "morally unacceptable" for the system to leave people destitute while awaiting deportation.