- The Home Office plans to ask asylum seekers to pay back £10,000 to cover their own housing and financial support once they start working, in a system similar to student loans.
- New powers introduced to Parliament by Shabana Mahmood on Monday will enable the Home Office to recover these costs from adults who received support while their asylum claim was pending.
- Charities and campaigners have condemned the proposals as “performative cruelty” and an “extra tax on refugees”, arguing they will impede integration and fail to address chronic delays in the asylum system.
- The Home Office said that only those with “sufficient” funds would be required to pay, but further details on which asylum seekers will be affected and how repayments will be managed are still being finalised.
- This policy aims to reduce the £4bn annual cost of asylum support, alongside recent announcements of new safe routes for refugees through community and university sponsorship, inspired by a Canadian model.
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