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Figures released Friday show the number of people seeking asylum in the UK went up 20% last year.

The rising figures come despite measures aimed at tackling asylum introduced by the home secretary.

In February, during an interview with the BBC, Prime Minister Tony Blair said he wanted asylum seeker numbers cut by 30% to 40% "in the next few months."

His comments have been criticised as unrealistic especially in the light of the situation with Iraq.

Leigh Daynes, spokesperson for Refugee Action, answered your questions in a live forum.

Newshost:
Hello and welcome to this BBC News interactive forum, I'm Andrew Simmons. The number of people seeking asylum in Britain reached record levels last year, figures released by the Home Office show that more than 110,000 people arrived in the country in 2002. The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, said government moves to reduce the number were already having an effect. The Prime Minister has pledged to halve the number by September.

We're looking at the issue from the perspective of the refugees themselves today and here to answer your many questions is Leigh Daynes of Refugee Action.

Okay a question from Jack: "Why don't refugee groups like yours ever admit that a significant proportion of asylum seekers are not genuine?"

Leigh Daynes:
Well in 2001, for example, half of all asylum applicants were recognised. The latest statistics, published today, show that more than one-third of asylum applicants were granted some form of refugee protection. There's no doubt that the Government must work very much harder and has had some success at making asylum decisions very much more quickly but those decisions - quick decisions - must never be at the expense of good decisions. Asylum seekers, themselves, don't want to be hanging on for many, many months without knowing the answer to their asylum claim and it's very important, given that people's lives are at stake, that those decisions are made properly with full rights of appeal.

Newshost:
Okay this e-mail that's come in from Rick Cuthbert: "I can understand the push factors that make people want to leave their own country but what are the pull factors making them want to come here?"

Leigh Daynes:
The Home Office commissioned research which found that asylum seekers very rarely know, in any particular detail, the kind of welfare support that's available to them. All the kinds of asylum policy procedures that are in place in the United Kingdom or indeed in any other European country and very often asylum seekers because it's so very difficult to get here find themselves in the hands of smugglers and often don't know where they are going to end up. So perhaps against popular perception asylum seekers don't have a very sophisticated understanding of what some might consider to be the attractions of a welfare support system which actually is set far below the agreed property line for the rest of us. But there's no doubt that said that there is a commonality of language, given Britain's history of empire, that people may feel more comfortable in communities where English is spoken, where they already have friends or family and frankly a reputation that we want to uphold - being in a society that is open, free, democratic and where they will be safe. And after all we're talking about people who are in desperate need of protection from persecution and who need to be safe.

Newshost:
Ben Drake from York wants to know: "Isn't it true that even with the increase the numbers seeking asylum are still tiny compared to the total UK population?" Important here that we get some perspective.

Leigh Daynes:
Yes I think that's absolutely right and that if you were to rank the number of applications per thousand head of population Britain comes out somewhere in the middle in relation to other Western European countries. And we, of course, host less than two per cent of the world's refugee population and we are one of the world's wealthiest nations at the same time.

Newshost:
Do you have any figures on - I mean we're talking about an increase which brings the figure from last year to 110,700 - off the top of my heard - now what is that in relation, in real terms, relation to the population? I've got you there haven't I?

Leigh Daynes:
What I would say is that in 2001 the Government spent less than one-fifth of one per cent of its budget on supporting asylum seekers, that without the contribution of people born outside of this country, including refugees, each of us would pay an extra penny in the pound in income tax such is the extent of their contribution. I think it's not only about providing protection but also extending a hand of welcome to people who want and are able to make very important contributions to our communities.

Newshost:
Let's move on a bit here because you make the point, the very valid point, about keeping the numbers in perspective but it is a fact that asylum seekers are put often in concentrated groupings in deprived areas. Now it doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out that that can lead to tension - which ever way you approach it. Matt wants to know: "Isn't the solution to find ways of integrating asylum seekers into society as quickly as possible so that they become contributing taxpayers?"

Leigh Daynes:
I think that's absolutely right and there's no doubt that the current Home Office policy of propelling asylum seekers away from London and the South East, placing them in hard to let housing in communities that are already under a great deal of pressure because of issues to do with social exclusion, lack of opportunity, has put those communities under pressure, especially where those communities haven't been very well consulted beforehand about the reasons why people become asylum seekers and need to be welcomed and supported in their communities. There's also a lot of misconception that somehow asylum seekers are treated to preferential treatment over and above people living in those communities and very often that's simply not the case.

Newshost:
Okay someone calling themselves Oscar: "Not wanting hoards of poor desperate strangers to descend on your town or village does not make a person a racist. Why don't campaigners such as yourself accept that asylum seekers often bring with them crime and poverty?"

Leigh Daynes:
Two very important things in response to that question. One is the year before last the Association of Chief Police Officers reported that asylum seekers are no more likely to commit crime than you and I. Our experience shows very clearly and very disturbingly that if anything asylum seekers are far more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators. And the second is what we do know, from the profile of asylum seekers here, is that very often they are highly motivated, well educated, often come with a profession and want to work, want to contribute to communities. Of course asylum seekers are barred from working but even successful applicants, who receive refugee status, are very often prevented from working because there's barriers like racism, prejudice and ignorance. And there are huge shortages of skills in this country that asylum seekers and refugees would do well to fill.

Newshost:
Mike Johnson from Welwyn Garden City asks: "Does the Government stand any chance in reducing the number of asylum seekers?" Here we're putting this into context - the Prime Minister has promised to reduce them by half by September, and Mike also asks: "Will the European courts let them?" So two questions in one.

Leigh Daynes:
Well I don't believe that providing refugees protection can be reduced to any kind of numbers game, it can never be a lottery of chance, people's lives are at stake. Just yesterday I was hearing about the case of a 24-year-old young woman called Grace from Uganda, Grace was a university student, she was arrested and placed in a torture house for seven months, she was repeatedly raped day after day, her partner was murdered in front of her, she's here because she's in desperate need of protection and she's trying to find a place of safety. It cannot be right that we suggest that providing Grace with protection falls to some kind of random quota or lottery - that can never be the case. And we are well able to provide asylum seekers with protection. We do have international obligations under the 51 UN Refugee Convention, we also have very clear and unequivocal commitments, of course, to the European Convention on Human Rights. Those human rights are the very things which protect us from some of the tyrannical things that happen around the world that drive people from their homes.

Newshost:
Mr Jones from Bath wants to know: "Why aren't refugees just given temporary asylum? When war or persecution has stopped why can't they return to their countries?"

Leigh Daynes:
Well refugees and asylum seekers do return to their countries of origin when the conditions that have forced them to flee change and Refugee Action has a specialist project which advises refugees and asylum seekers who are thinking about returning to their country of origin. What we must not forget though is that very often asylum seekers have such an acutely difficult time here that some are so desperate that they're driven to wanting to go back even though they may face death and that can never be right. But the fact is people do return and there is an assisted programme of return, for example, to Afghan returnees and the Government is keen to promote those kinds of programmes as it sees fit.

Newshost:
A. Dean wants to know: "Other countries like Australia and the USA only grant asylum if asylum seekers can speak the language and bring a skill to the country. When will the UK do the same?"

Leigh Daynes:
Well asylum seekers do come with many, many skills which are not known about and not utilised. Australia, for example, is a country where if you arrive as a spontaneous applicant for asylum you will be automatically detained in the middle of the desert, in horrendous conditions because they have a very strict quota system. I would be very reluctant to suggest that the United Kingdom should in any way renege on its international obligations to provide refugees with the protection they so desperately need.

Newshost:
Martin Pipe asks: "The US took in just over 48,000 asylum seekers in 2000. The same year Britain took in over 76,000. Yes, 58 per cent more in a country a fraction of the size so why isn't the US forced to take on more by international convention in order to lessen the load on smaller and poorer European countries?"

Leigh Daynes:
Well let's not forget that in actual fact by far the greatest number of refugees are hosted by the world's poorest countries - Iran, India, Pakistan - host millions of displaced people and refugees who've been caught up in global political events. The United States is very restrictive in its understanding of international treaties and conventions and sees its obligations to refugees very, very differently from many other Western democracies. There's no doubt within Europe itself that we need to do much more to assert a common understanding of the reception and treatment of asylum seekers but heads of government are working on that right now and we expect to see much more of a level playing field in the way asylum seekers are received across Europe.

Newshost:
Okay can I just put to you this question from Frans in Amsterdam asking: "Isn't it embarrassing to focus on radical restrictions of asylum seekers at the same time when the UK government is steering into war with Iraq, which will undoubtedly force many more to apply for asylum?"

Leigh Daynes:
Yes there's no doubt of course that the Government cannot berate the regimes of Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe - interestingly the countries from which there were the most asylum applicants in the United Kingdom last year - Britain cannot berate those regimes without at the same time taking responsibility here for refugees from those very regimes.

Newshost:
Leigh thank you very much for joining us, I'm afraid that's all we've got time for. And you're from Refugee Action, thank you so much. From me Andrew Simmons and the rest of the interactive team goodbye for now.