The Conservative government’s relentless focus on small boat crossings and delays processing asylum claims played a role in stoking August’s UK riots, the chair of the Commons equalities committee has said.

The Labour MP Sarah Owen, whose committee has launched an inquiry into improving community cohesion after the unrest, warned that Reform UK MPs were also making the task of strengthening communities more urgent.

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Owen said multiple factors contributed to August’s disorder, which sprang up in more than two dozen places across the UK after the killing of three young girls at a dance class in Southport, Merseyside.

However, she said, it was notable that in a number of violent incidents not just mosques were attacked, but also hotels that housed asylum seekers waiting for their claims to be processed.

A backlog of asylum claims built up as Rishi Sunak’s government tried to push through its Rwanda plan, under which anyone arriving in the UK would have been deported without having their claim heard.

“I can’t help but think that the backlog was deliberate,” the Luton North MP said. “We’ve been able to clear quite a lot of that backlog. It was a political choice they made.