MORE than 100,000 asylum-seekers were waiting for an initial decision on their claim last year, with almost two-thirds left in limbo for over six months, official figures show. 

The figure is far above the previous record set in 2020, when there were initial applications outstanding from 60,548 people, whose immigration status left them without permission to work and living off less than £6 a day. 

Refugee Action said today that the Home Office figures are “a damning indictment of the government’s total mismanagement of our asylum system.”