Britain's Porous Borders
'Soft Touch' Britain suffers tidal wave of asylum seekers

28th February 2003

The number of refugees arriving in Britain topped 100,000 in 2002.

But the Prime Minister's promise to halve the number of asylum applicants by September is "realistic", David Blunkett says.

Tough measures to curb the number of asylum seekers entering Britain would help meet the pledge, the Home Secretary adds.

Asked by the BBC if the target would be met, Mr Blunkett said: "Well, we have a firm commitment to doing it, to getting there.

"The Prime Minister gave that commitment. We've made it clear not only that we will implement the measures that we fought very hard to get through both Houses of Parliament last year against enormous odds, but actually we will take any other measures that are necessary to get those figures down.

"It's realistic in terms of the effectiveness of the measures we put through."

The statistics were expected to show there were about 90,000 asylum applicants in 2002 - which did not include dependants such as spouses or children.

When dependants were added, the total was expected to top 100,000.