Home Secretary sets out controversial reforms to the UK’s asylum and returns system

HOME SECRETARY SHABANA MAHMOOD’s STATEMENT TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS YESTERDAY:

I will make a statement about how we restore order and control to our borders. I do so as this Government publishes the most significant reform to our migration system in modern times.  

This country will always offer sanctuary to those fleeing danger, but we must also acknowledge that the world has changed and our asylum system has not changed with it.   

Our world is a more volatile, and more mobile, place. Huge numbers are on the move. While some are refugees, others are economic migrants seeking to use, and abuse, our asylum system. Even genuine refugees are passing through other safe countries searching for the most attractive place to seek refuge.  

The burden that has fallen on this country has been heavy. 400,000 have sought asylum here in the last four years. Over 100,000 people now live in asylum accommodation, and over half of refugees remain on benefits eight years after they have arrived. 

To the British public, who foot the bill, the system feels out of control and unfair. It feels that way, because it is. The pace and scale of change has destabilised communities. It is making our country a more divided place. 

There will never be a justification for the violence and racism of a minority, but if we fail to deal with this crisis, we will draw more people down a path that starts with anger, and ends in hatred.  

I have no doubt about who we really are in this country. We are open, tolerant and generous. But the public rightly expect that we can determine who enters this country, and who must leave.

To maintain the generosity that allows us to provide sanctuary, we must restore order and control. 

[Political content redacted]

My predecessor as Home Secretary picked up this [political content redacted] inheritance, and rebuilt the foundations of a collapsed asylum system. 

Decision making has been restored, with a backlog now 18% lower than when we entered office. Removals have increased – reaching nearly 50,000 under this Government. 

Immigration enforcement has hit record levels, with over 8,000 arrests in the last year. 

The Border Security Bill is progressing through parliament, and my predecessor struck a historic agreement with the French, which means small boat arrivals can now be sent back to France. 

These are vital steps, but we must go further. Today, we have published “Restoring Order and Control”, a new statement on our asylum policy. Its goals are two-fold: firstly, to reduce illegal arrivals into this country, and secondly, to increase removals of those with no right to be here.  

It starts by accepting an uncomfortable truth: while asylum claims fall across Europe, they are rising here, and that is because of the comparative generosity of our asylum offer when compared to so many of our European neighbours.

This generosity is a factor that draws people to these shores, on a path that runs through other safe countries. Nearly 40 percent come on small boats and over perilous channel crossings, but a roughly equal number come here legally, via a visitor, work or study visa, and then go on to claim asylum.  

They do so because refugee status is the most generous route into this country. An initial grant lasts five years, which is then converted, almost automatically, into permanent settled status. In other European countries, things are done differently.

In Denmark, refugee status is temporary, and they provide safety and sanctuary until it is possible for a refugee to return home. In recent years, asylum claims have hit a 40-year low, and now, across Europe, countries are tightening their systems in similar ways.  

We must act too. We will do so by making refugee status temporary, not permanent. A grant of refugee status will last two and a half years, not five. It will be renewed only if it is impossible for a refugee to return home. Permanent settlement will now come at 20 years, not five. 

I know this country welcomes people who contribute. For those who want to stay, and are willing and able to, we will create a new ‘work and study’ visa route, solely for refugees, with a quicker path to permanent settlement.   

To encourage refugees into work, we will also consult on removing benefits for those who are able to work but choose not to.  

Outside of the most exceptional circumstances, family reunion will not be possible, with a refugee only able to bring family over if they have joined a work and study route, and if qualifying tests are met.  

While over 50,000 were granted refugee status in the last year, more than 100,000 claimants and failed asylum seekers remain in taxpayer funded accommodation, and we know that criminal gangs use the prospect of free bed and board to promote their small boat crossings. 

We have already announced that we will empty asylum hotels by the end of the Parliament, and we are exploring a number of large military sites as an alternative.  

We will now also remove the 2005 legislation that created a “duty” to support asylum seekers, reverting to a legal “power” to do so instead. While we will continue to support those who play by the rules, those who do not – be that through criminality or anti-social behaviour – can have their support removed. We will also remove our duty to support those who have a right to work.   

It is right that those who do receive support, pay for it if they can, so those with income or assets will have to contribute to the cost of their stay. This will end the absurdity that we currently experience. Where an asylum seeker receiving £800 each month from his family, and who had recently acquired an Audi, was receiving free housing at the taxpayers’ expense, and the courts judged we could do nothing about it.   

These measures are designed to tackle the pull factors that draw people to this country, but reducing the number of arrivals is just half of the story. We must also enforce our rules and remove those who have no right to be here. This will mean restarting removals to countries where they have been paused.  

In recent months, we have begun voluntary removal of failed asylum seekers to Syria once again; however, there are still many failed asylum seekers here from Syria, most of whom fled a regime that has since been toppled. Other countries are planning to enforce removals, and we will follow suit. Where a failed asylum seeker cannot be returned home, we will also continue to explore the possibility of return hubs, with negotiations ongoing.  

We must remove those who have failed asylum claims, regardless of who they are. Today, we are not removing family groups – even when we know that their home country is perfectly safe. There are, for instance, around 700 Albanian families living in taxpayer-funded accommodation having failed their asylum claims.

This is true despite an existing returns agreement, and that Albania is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. So, we will now begin the removal of families. Where possible, we will encourage a voluntary return, but where an enforced return is necessary, that is what we will do.  

Where the barrier to a return is not the individual, nor the UK Government, but the receiving country, we will take action.

I can announce today that we have told Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Namibia that if they do not comply with international rules and norms we will impose visa penalties on them. And I am sending a wider message here: unless other countries heed this lesson, further sanctions will follow.  

Much of the delay in our removals, however, comes from the sclerotic nature of our own system. In March of this year, the appeals backlog stood at 51,000 cases. This Government has already increased judicial sitting days, but reform is required, so we will create a new appeals body, staffed by professional independent adjudicators, and we will ensure there is early legal representation available to advise claimants and ensure their issues are properly considered.  

Cases with a low chance of success will be fast-tracked, and claimants will have just one opportunity to claim and one to appeal, ending the merry-go-round of claims and appeals that frustrate so many removals.  

While some barriers to removal are the result of process, others are substantive issues related to the law itself. There is no doubt that the expanded interpretation of parts of the European Convention on Human Rights has contributed.

This is particularly true of Article 8: the right to a family life. The courts have adopted an ever-expanding interpretation of this right.

As a result, many people have been allowed to come to this country, when they would otherwise have had no right to, and we have been unable to remove others when the case for doing so seems overwhelming. 

This includes cases like an arsonist, sentenced to five years in prison whose deportation was blocked on the grounds that his relationship with his sibling may suffer.

More than half of those detained are now delaying or blocking their removal by raising a last-minute rights claim.  

Article 8 is a qualified right: that means we are not prevented from removing individuals or refusing an application to move to the UK if it is “in the public interest”. To narrow Article 8 rights, we will therefore make three important changes, in both domestic law and our immigration rules.  

Firstly, we will define what, exactly, a family is – narrowing this down to parents and their children.  

Secondly, we will define “the public interest” test so the default becomes a removal or refusal, with Article 8 rights only permissible in the most exceptional circumstances.   

Thirdly, we will tighten where Article 8 claims can be heard, ensuring only those who are living in the UK can lodge a claim, rather than their family members overseas, and that all claims are heard first by the Home Office and not in a courtroom.  

We will also pursue international reform of a second element of the European Convention: the application of Article 3 – the prohibition on torture and inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment.

We will never return anyone to be tortured in their home country, but the definition of “degrading treatment” has expanded into the realm of the ridiculous.

Today, we have criminals we seek to deport, but discover we cannot because the prisons in their home country have cells that are deemed too small, or even mental health provision that is not as good as our own. 

As Article 3 is an absolute right, a public interest test cannot be applied. For that reason, we are seeking reform at the Council of Europe, and we do so alongside international partners who have raised similar concerns. But it is not just international law that binds us.

According to data from 2022, over 40% of those detained for removal claimed they were modern-day slaves. This well-intentioned law is being abused by those who seek to frustrate a legitimate removal.

So, I will bring forward legislation that tightens the Modern Slavery system to ensure that it protects those it was designed for, and not those who seek to abuse it.  

Taken together Madam Deputy Speaker, these are significant reforms. They are designed to ensure our asylum system is fit for the modern world, and that we retain public consent for the very idea of providing refuge. 

We will always be a country that offers protection to those fleeing peril, just as we did, in recent years, when Ukraine was invaded, when Afghanistan was evacuated, and when we repatriated Hong Kongers. 

For that reason, as order and control is restored, we will open new, capped, safe and legal routes into this country. These will make sponsorship the primary means by which we resettle refugees, with voluntary and community organisations given greater involvement, to both receive refugees and support them, working within caps set by Government.  

We will also create a new route for displaced students to study in the UK, and another for skilled refugees to work here. Of course, we will always remain flexible to new crises, across the world, as they happen.  

I know the British people do not want to close the doors. But until we restore order and control, those who seek to divide us will grow stronger. 

It is our job – [political content redacted] – to unite where there is division, so we must now build an asylum system for the world as it is. One that restores order and control. One that opens safe and legal routes to those fleeing danger across the world, and one that sustains our commitment to providing refuge for this generation and those to come.  

I know the country we are. We are open, tolerant and generous. We are the greater Britain that those on this side of the House believe in. Not the littler England that some would wish we would become. These reforms are designed to bring unity, where others seek to divide.   

Madam Deputy Speaker, I commend this statement to the House.

Campaigning organisation Asylum Matters said: ‘Today’s asylum reforms put the basic principle of refugee protection under threat. They won’t stop irregular migration.

‘But they would make us a country that has given in to extremists and abandoned vital protection principles set up after the horrors of the Second World War.’