At least 2,900 asylum seeker families who have exhausted all their appeal rights to stay in Britain will each year have to leave the country within 28 days, or face destitution, under hardline plans on asylum support published by Home Office ministers on Tuesday.
An official consultation paper and impact assessment estimates that as much as £49m a year could be saved by withdrawing support of £36.95 a week from refused asylum seekers.
The consultation paper reveals that ministers are considering introducing the change, which will require primary legislation, from July 2016 and debating whether it should apply to existing as well as new cases.
Ministers have said they want to take a tougher approach to asylum seekers who have exhausted all their appeal rights, as part of a drive to demonstrate to people that Britain “is not a land of milk and honey”.
The Home Office estimates that as many as 2,900 families, totalling about 10,100 people, would be affected by the withdrawal of support. Ministers are also proposing that applicants should no longer be called asylum seekers once their appeals have been rejected. People would be exempted from the 28-day notice to leave the UK if there were practical obstacles beyond their control affecting their departure, such as a lack of correct documents or unfitness to travel.
The consultation paper also makes clear that ministers will confirm in legislation, putting “beyond doubt”, that local authorities will not be obliged to help rejected asylum seekers and their children who could leave Britain – and so avoid destitution.
Ministers also propose to withdraw support from a further 4,900 individual asylum seekers who have also exhausted their appeal rights but who are not part of a family.
The proposals are to amalgamate two categories of state support for refused asylum seekers and are expected to lead to much more rigorous case-by-case decision making determining who gets support rather than any automatic entitlement.
The first category, known as section 95 support, is at present paid to 10,000 or so rejected asylum seekers and their families who face a threat of destitution – meaning they do not have adequate accommodation or money for living expenses now or within the next 14 days. Those who qualify in this category get “no-choice” accommodation in a dispersal area outside London and the south-east, and a weekly cash payment, which is to be fixed from 10 August at £36.95 for each adult or child. (This payment is a reduction of up to 30% for some families on the current rates; for example, a single parent with a child will have their weekly cash cut from £96.90 to £73.90.)
The Home Office says that the consultation paper seeks “to establish how best to remove failed asylum-seeking families from the support system while ensuring there are mechanisms in place to ensure protection for children”.
This carries echoes of the 2004 legislation introduced by the Labour government and still on the statute book, which not only provided for the withdrawal of support for those families who had failed to leave the country but also threatened to place their children in care if their parents did not leave. The move led Michael Howard, the then Tory leader, to tell Tony Blair that the proposal “offended against all standards of decent behaviour”.
Home Office sources deny that they are considering such a move now. However they do intend to merge section 95 support with a second category of support given to rejected asylum seekers known as section 4.2 support – a provision to be repealed. Under 4.2 about 4,000 individual asylum seekers who have exhausted all their appeals currently receive basic help designed to be temporary to ensure they do not stay in Britain. They also get basic “no-choice” accommodation outside London and the south-east but instead of the addition of cash receive an Azure prepayment card with credit of £35.39 a week that can be used only in specified shops to buy essential food and toiletries.
Government sources say that adequate support will remain in place for those in genuine need of it, such as those who face a genuine obstacle to their departure from the UK.
According to House of Commons library research more than 3,600 of the 4,941 individuals getting section 4.2 support have been living on this basis for more than 12 months, implying they have legitimate barriers to going home. Barriers to leaving might include the threat of being returned to a war zone, such as Syria, or the refusal of their home country to issue them with travel documents.
Ministers say they will also consider changing the law to ensure the costs of supporting rejected asylum seekers are not simply passed on to local authorities through destitute people claiming to be homeless.
The Refugee Council has attacked the government’s plan. “This harsh proposal seems to be based on the flawed logic that making families destitute will coerce them into going home. The government has a duty to protect all children in this country and previous governments have recognised it morally reprehensible to take support away from families with children,” said Lisa Doyle, the council’s head of advocacy.
