James Cleverly clashed with the BBC’s Mishal Husain amid government claims to be cracking down on immigration.
The home secretary accused the Today programme presenter of using “retrospective maths” when she pointed out how many asylum seekers on average are crossing the Channel every week, despite Rishi Sunak’s promise to stop them.
It was confirmed yesterday that nearly 30,000 people made the perilous journey in 2023.
Husain said that meant there were “more than 500 arrivals coming every week.”
Cleverly told her: “No that’s not true.”
Husain responded: “If you take the figure of around 30,000 and you divide it by 52 weeks of last year ...”
But Cleverly told her: “That’s not how it works.”
The presenter then said: “That’s why I said it’s an average of more than 560 people arriving in the UK by small boats every week.”
Cleverly replied: “No that’s wrong, you’re jumping from one thing to another. So last year the average was that, but actually that doesn’t mean to say that is what is currently happening.
“The trend is downward, so the way you spoke about applying retrospective maths to current and future flows, I think, is wrong.”
The pair also clashed over the Home Office’s claim that Rishi Sunak had met his pledge to deal with outstanding asylum claims.
Husain said: “Why does your press release say that legacy asylum backlog cases, the target, have been met when it hasn’t?”
The home secretary said: “Because it has. Our commitment was to make sure we processed those 92,000 legacy claims pre-dating June 28, 2022.
“They hadn’t been assessed, those people needed to be accommodated, they needed to be supported financially, and the prime minister committed to processing all those applications.
“Every single one of those applications has been processed. In the vast majority, a final adjudication has been made.”
But Husain said: “So processed was never the same as resolved. It does not mean that those cases are done, dusted, decision made, ended.”
Cleverly told her: “In the vast majority of cases they are, but the commitment was to make sure they were all processed, to process that backlog, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Husain replied: “You didn’t make that clear, did you really, at the time?”
Cleverly said: “I’m sorry, we were very clear in what we promised to do. We have done what we promised.”
The home secretary also said it was “impossible” to say when the 100,000 asylum cases which remain outstanding will be dealt with.
Husain said: “Impossible? Impossible to say how long you’ll get through 100,000 cases?”
Cleverly said: “The point is last year we processed 112,000 cases, the largest in over 20 years. You can see the maths.”
Husain then asked him: “So why can’t you say this year we’ll get through the 100,000?”
Cleverly replied: “Because I don’t want to make predictions. But you can see our track record of delivery, we have delivered over 112,000 applications this year.
“There are fewer than that left in the system, so axiomatically you can see the order of magnitudes that we’re talking about here.
“The point is our plan is to reduce the number of applications coming forward by reducing the number of people claiming asylum in the first place.”