Shabana Mahmood set out her objectives with admirable clarity when she became home secretary in September. She said: “We can only be a tolerant, open, generous country when we are able to determine who can enter and who must leave.”
This is absolutely right: the British people are willing to provide sanctuary for desperate people fleeing war and persecution, but such compassion depends on firm control over who is eligible for our protection and who is not.
She will announce on Monday changes to policies on asylum that are intended to support the “tough” part of that prospectus. We understand her argument that this is a necessary condition of fulfilling our moral obligation as a nation to refugees, but we are concerned that some of her policies are intended to look tough without enough consideration given to whether they will be effective.
There are three main measures that the home secretary will announce. One is that refugee status will no longer be permanent. The plan is to copy Denmark in granting temporary protection, which will be kept under review. If the situation in the refugee’s home country improves, they may be required to return.
It seems unlikely that such a change would apply to a significant number of applicants, and it is likely only to create a cruel uncertainty for those potentially affected. If this change is made, it should be time-limited so that anyone living in Britain for 10 years should be granted permanent status.
Second, Ms Mahmood proposes to abolish the legal duty on the government to provide accommodation and a weekly allowance to asylum seekers who are waiting for the outcome of their application. Again, this seems unlikely to make a difference in practice except in a small number of cases. Most asylum seekers claim to have no means of support – even if many of them paid thousands of euros to the gangs running the cross-Channel small boats.
The Home Office does not have the resources to investigate the hidden financial means of every asylum seeker, and a discretionary policy risks driving migrants onto the streets in destitution.
Finally, the home secretary wants to take away state benefits, including the right to housing, from migrants who are allowed to work in the UK, who could therefore support themselves but who do not. That would apply to those waiting more than 12 months for an asylum decision and those who have been granted refugee status. The Home Office says: “Many refugees remain unemployed several years after being granted protection, depending on taxpayer-funded benefits to live in the UK.”
This seems to be designed to reinforce the prejudice against asylum seekers that holds that most of them are not “genuine” refugees. In fact, a majority are granted refugee status – and if they are accepted as refugees that should not be conditional on their finding work.
Indeed, too much about the home secretary’s measures seems to be concerned with appearing “tough” for a domestic audience rather than with what is effective. Ms Mahmood says: “For too long, the UK has offered a package of benefits and support that far exceeds our international obligations, creating a powerful pull factor for those crossing Europe to reach our shores.”
This is the opposite of what Home Office research has found, which is that there is little knowledge among migrants of British asylum rules or welfare policies – the main attractions of the UK are the English language, family connection and the relatively low level of racism compared with most other European countries. This last is something of which we should be proud, and we should be determined to do even better, rather than to risk moving in the opposite direction.
Ms Mahmood’s policies would be welcome if they helped to stop the dangerous traffic of small boats across the Channel, but we are not convinced that these measures will have a significant deterrent effect. Instead, they risk reinforcing anti-immigration sentiment in general, thus making it harder for the UK to be the “tolerant, open and generous” country that the home secretary claims to want it to be.
