Ministers cleared of asylum fiddle

A watchdog's report is today set to clear ministers of charges that they fiddled the asylum figures by counting refugees as legal migrants.

The National Audit Office was asked to investigate the allegations, which helped to trigger the resignation of Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes.

Westminster sources said the findings would reject the most serious charges against the

Home Office. At the same time, Government figures out today were set to show a continuing fall in fresh asylum claims. Ministers have put the fall down to tighter border security and tough restrictions on benefits.

But critics say it has been achieved by opening a back door to other forms of migration. The departure of Ms Hughes last month, in a row over checks on Romanians and Bulgarians applying to enter Britain legally, brought a crisis of confidence in the system to a head.

The Prime Minister asked the NAO to examine the relationship between the falling asylum numbers and the rise in migrants entering to find work under official schemes. The watchdog also studied whether the method used by the Home Office to compile the asylum data is in line with the official guidelines on government statistics.

Home Office figures published in February revealed that asylum applications fell by 41 per cent last year to 49,370, excluding dependants.

Counting children and spouses the figure was 61,050, down from 103,080 in 2002.