Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Bristol - How Many?
I have pulled together some information about Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Bristol from the available Council Data. Most of the data comes from the report referenced below, and from "Bristol Spending over £500" data. I am providing this analysis in order to inform a discussion about this important topic and am not presenting any personal opinions about this subject.
How Many?
This chart and the quotes below are from "A Strategic Needs Assessment of Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire" which was published in February 2025.
Over the past five years there has been a substantial increase in the number of asylum seekers and refugees in BNSSG; each person bringing their own skills and life experience to enrich the local area. There are approximately 9,402 asylum seekers and refugees. (September 2024).
Bristol: Has the highest numbers of refugees and asylum seekers across BNSSG. As a rate per 1,000 population and has :
• Highest rate of supported asylum seekers at 2.4 per 1,000 population
• Highest rate of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children (UASC) at 1.0 per 1,000 population (U18)
There is a clear sense of a lack of resilience in response to growing demands to support Refugee and Asylum Seeker communities. We found that services in every sector are stretched or at capacity.
Figure 8 below shows the growth of asylum seekers in receipt of support either for subsistence and/or accommodation from the Home Office across each of the three local authorities, prior to 2022 numbers had remained relatively stable over an eight-year period. The data shown reflect the number of people in receipt of support as at the end of the period, rather than the total supported throughout the period. There has been a fourfold increase (467%) in the numbers of asylum seekers who were in receipt of support in BNSSG from 300 in Quarter 4 of 2014 to 1,701 in Quarter 1 of 2024.
We have learnt that the needs of ASRs are wide ranging, and everyone will have varying physical and mental health needs. We know that a high proportion of ASRs have complex health and social needs, particularly driven by trauma and mental health. We found that accessibility of the healthcare system is difficult for ASRs. There are many barriers including literacy, language, digital exclusion, understanding of the healthcare system and being able to physically access services. We found that there are gaps in provision for some services, such as dentistry and many healthcare services supporting ASRs are seeing increasing demand, which further increases pressures on services such as longer waiting times.
We were told about the importance of being able to learn English as key for ASRs during resettlement and feeling engaged with their local communities. Language skills can support people to get employment. The waiting lists for ESOL are long, with 1,000+ people currently waiting to join classes. Sometimes people have to travel for long distances to attend when they receive a place. We were told that there is a need for schools to be supported when welcoming children and families with a need for training, particularly support for understanding the impact of trauma.
Voices of Refugees
“Can you tell me about any challenges you have faced since arriving in the UK?”
I have a positive experience, 2 ladies, probably from the council but not too sure, they helped me to enrol my children into school. They brought me food parcel, help me about the house, paying the bill. I am so appreciative for help
“Do you have any recommendations for what could be done differently to support you?”
Everywhere we have good people but some of them very very kind and showing compassion, some of them a little bit less. As we are in a foreign country we need more support; emotionally, physically, everything.
“Can you tell me about some positive experiences you have had with services here in the UK?”
“we are not different to other people, you know we are asylum, and some of them think we are not human and our situation is very different. And after coming there, the charity and refugee action, we are so happy because we can chose to, our friends, or other people, different people and situation. I had a problem and after coming to this one and Bristol Refugee right, I can change my problem and I am so happy now”.
“Do you have any recommendations for what could be done differently to support you?”
“You cannot choice about life to which city in UK, but I really like living in Bristol because I can find a job here now as I have many friends here and they can help me now. And its difficult to me to transfer to other city. And you need a long time after moving to other city, you need a long time to find a friend and to find a job. It’s difficult. And I don’t want to stay on universal credit or, for example, other people are under universal credit or disability. I don’t want it. I can work now and I want to start my life”.
“Like when we are in the hotels, we are just there, what we do is wake up and go to the kitchen, even there are meals they are offering, we have no choice. You can eat the same thing from Monday to Monday, when you complain they say that’s the rules of home office”.
“And it is important for yourself, and how you can start life in the UK, or Bristol. It’s not good. I want to start my life in UK, when? We don’t know. What happened for our futures? We don’t know.”
You know, we leave our country for bad situation and for big problem, ok. And we are asylum, we are human. Someone think we are animal
“regarding the schools, we had an accident myself and my wife. One of the schools was very close to our house, apparently there wasn’t a place there, they couldn’t register my children. Now my children going to another school, maybe 20-25 minutes from my house, because we had accident, difficult for us taking them to school or picking them up from school. If you able to register asylum seeker children close to their house that is very helpful as well.."
“Here there are some charities, borderlands, they bring some courses, English courses. This is ok, but when you go to the college they give you bus pass and this is helpful for us. So like this, people doing courses and getting for future jobs, it’s very good for them and UK as well..”
“I am a student actually of medical psychology in my country. If I could continue my study in my country ,6 months later I have a certificate of doctorate medical psychology. I don’t have anything here.”
Can you tell me about any challenges you have faced since arriving in the UK?”
“I came here 2017, first thing difficult, language. Because I’m coming here from Somalia I don’t understand English good, not very well. If you going housing, if you going to school, if you going to hospital; it’s very difficult for the people they coming here, if its you, you need 1 person understand language because you make it everything. The first challenge is the language..”
“Yes, no dentist. No dentist. Big problem. Tried garlic, turmeric, no pain. Problem, no dentist. And big money, me no money on benefits, big money.
I have nothing, my life is worse to worse. I have no documents. No accommodation. I’m not working. These three things is the main. Not education. These three things; education, house and work, if you have not these 3 things in your life then your life is worse.
Challenges that I have faced since I arrived here, because the time when I enter, I entered here in this country, I was depressed and stressed not knowing anything about the asylum seekers and refugees because of the trauma that I was in from home
And after arriving in the UK, first my problem is the language. It is so difficult. Because we don’t understand very good English and we’re learning English in my country through American accent and it’s so different, so different. So it’s very hard for me now because British accent is so strong and you use often the short forms
Now I am actually worried about my family, I think, if they’re going to the park or shopping, you know, I don’t want someone to attack them, or you know abuse them or something like that. That’s main worries at the moment.
I come across with the, information talking about the asylum seekers, but all of the time I was afraid to ask because I thought if I ask someone the person maybe will call the police on me because that was the thing that was making me not feel free.
Definitions
Asylum Seekers - Asylum is the protection that is granted by a nation-state to a person who has fled their country to escape serious threat to their life or liberty. People granted this protection, which arises out of the United Nations 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the “Refugee Convention”), are called refugees. The word refugee is also used more generally to refer to anyone who has fled their country to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster, even if they have not been granted protection under the Refugee Convention.
Refugees - The Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country”. An asylum seeker (or asylum applicant) is a person who has applied for recognition as a refugee under the Refugee Convention, to which over 140 nations are signatories (UNHCR, 2020)
Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Child - The Home Office defines an Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Child (UASC) as an individual who is under 18 when the asylum application is submitted, is not being cared for by an adult who by law has responsibility to do so, is separated from their parents and has applied for asylum in the United Kingdom in their own right. They are not a homogenous group but vary by age and background with a range of experiences of trauma, separation and loss, both before and during their asylum process. Unaccompanied children are entitled to care and protection under the provisions of the Children Act 1989 (as amended by the Children and Young Persons Act 2008). The responsibility for these children is devolved to local authorities and once they reach 18 years old, the duty is held within the Care Planning and Care Leavers Regulations 2010 (amended in 2014 to take account of unaccompanied asylum seeking children)
No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) - A person will have no recourse to public funds when they are ‘subject to immigration control’. A person who is subject to immigration control cannot claim public funds (benefits and housing assistance), unless an exception applies. Section 115(9) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 states that a person will be 'subject to immigration control' if they have one of the following types of immigration status: Leave to enter or remain, which has a 'No Recourse to Public Funds' (NRPF) condition Leave to enter or remain that is subject to a maintenance undertaking Leave to enter or remain as a result of a pending immigration appeal No leave to enter or remain when they are required to have this.
Spending Data
These items of spending are taken from the "Local Authority Housing Fund - Refugee Resettlement" category and the "Asylum Seekers - Asylum & Immigration" category of spending over £500 between Jan 2023 and Jan 2025.
The total amount of spending using this criteria was £10.5 Million, with £1.1 Million spent in Jan 2025.
These are the suppliers that received this money:
See Also:
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