Reforms to the UK-wide asylum system will “lead to less community cohesion”, Scotland’s Social Justice Secretary has said.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced sweeping changes to the system on Monday, including cutting the length of time asylum seekers are initially allowed to stay in the UK from five years to 30 months and extending the time required for settled status from five years to 20.
There will also be no automatic right to family reunion while housing and weekly allowances will not be guaranteed to those within the system.
The Home Secretary told the Commons the “pace and scale of change has destabilised communities” and made the UK “a more divided place”.
The announcements have caused anger among some Labour backbenchers while the Scottish Government voiced its opposition on Tuesday.
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, Shirley-Anne Somerville said the new proposals would further divide the country, rather than bring people together.
“There does need to be reform but what we have here are reforms that will actually lead to less community cohesion and destitution for more people, including those who actually have had their asylum process completed and granted,” she said.
“And that is deeply disappointing, because it seems to me that the Home Secretary is not just looking for stronger policies, but is pandering to Farage rather than actually having an asylum system that will work, both for those that are seeking asylum and indeed for the communities that are here in Scotland already established.”
Under the new plans, asylum claims will be reassessed every 30 months to see if the applicant’s home country is safe to return to.
Ms Somerville said this would lead to the “uprooting” of families embedded in communities across Scotland.
“What’s being suggested here is you can live here for 20 years, you can raise a family here, you can be contributing to your economy, to your society, and then you will be told to go back to where you came from,” she said.
“Is that seriously the type of society that we want to live in, uprooting families that are actually part of our communities? That doesn’t help integration and community cohesion, it actually panders to people who want to other those who come to Scotland.”
In tense exchanges in the Commons, which saw a number of Labour MPs voice their opposition to the plans, the Home Secretary said: “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.”
In an exchange with Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson – who accused Ms Mahmood of claiming the “country is being torn apart by immigration” – the Home Secretary said: “I wish I had the privilege of walking around this country and not seeing the division that the issue of migration and asylum system is creating across this country.
“Unlike him, unfortunately, I am the one that is regularly called a f****** Paki and told to go back home.
“It is I who knows, through my personal experience and that of my constituents, just how divisive the issue of asylum has become in our country.”
