Suella Braverman criticised Home Office staff for being too slow to process asylum claims today as she revealed they completed just one a week.
The Home Secretary told peers that caseworkers handling asylum cases had to speed up to help reduce a 100,000-strong backlog and reduce a multi-million-pound hotel bill.
Rishi Sunak last week pledged to clear that six-figure traffic jam by the end of 2023 under plans to get the immigration system functioning again.
Facing the House of Lords' Justice and Home Affairs Committee today, Ms Braverman said: 'There is a large amount of transformation that we want to embark upon when it comes to asylum caseworking and processes related to that.
'I should say just for context, what I have found during my few months here at the Home Office is that we have very different practices. Our asylum caseworking team do a great job but their productivity frankly is too low.
'The average decision-making rate of a decision-maker per week is one. We need to increase that considerably.'
She also refused to rule out housing migrants on disused cruise ships to cut costs.
The Home Secretary told peers that caseworkers handling asylum cases had to speed up to help reduce a 100,000-strong backlog and reduce a multi-million-pound hotel bill.
Rishi Sunak last week pledged to clear that six-figure traffic jam by the end of 2023 under plans to get the immigration system functioning again.
It came as it was revealed more than 400 asylum seekers were illegally detained at immigration removal centres last month.
She discussed the 'incredibly difficult' challenge of hitting the ambition of getting 100,000 asylum seekers in local authority accommodation - as opposed to resorting to hotels - with that figure currently at 57,000.
'You then asked about cruise ships, we want to end the use of hotels as quickly as possible because it's an unacceptable cost to the taxpayer, it's over £5 million a day on hotel use alone,' she said.
'We will bring forward a range of alternative sites, they will include disused holiday parks, former student halls - I should say we are looking at those sites - I wouldn't say anything is confirmed yet.
'But we need to bring forward thousands of places, and when you talk about vessels all I can say is - because we are in discussion with a wide variety of providers - that everything is still on the table and nothing is excluded.'
Mr Sunak proposed the hardline move in the summer when he ran for the Tory leadership, as a possible alternative to the £5million spent on hotels daily.
But questions have been raised over its legality.
It came as it was revealed more than 400 asylum seekers were illegally detained at immigration removal centres last month.
The detention of between 450 and 500 migrants held as 'overflow' from the Manston processing centre was described at the time as 'no longer legal', according to a chain of Home Office emails obtained by the BBC through a freedom of information request.
During a surge in Channel crossings in October, as many as 4,000 people were being detained at Manston, which is designed to hold just 1,600.
New arrivals were expected to be taken to the centre, which is designed for holding people for short periods during security and identity checks, before being moved to accommodation.
But some people were held for far longer periods due to a lack of alternative accommodation.
The BBC reports the emails show Home Office permanent secretaries were aware of overcrowding concerns at the time.
'Their detention is no longer legal as they can only be detained whilst their identity is locked down and then only for a maximum of 5 days,' one email said.
'Most have been there for a number of weeks, longer than some Manston cases. We need to move them to hotels ASAP...'
A Home Office spokesperson told the broadcaster an unprecedented number of small boat arrivals had put 'huge pressure' on the asylum system, adding it had 'worked tirelessly to move people into hotels or other accommodation as quickly as possible'.
English (United States) ·