32-page paper outlines new basic and temporary 'core protection' offer for refugees
As previewed yesterday, the Government has today outlined sweeping reforms to the asylum system in a new policy paper. The 32-page paper, Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government's asylum and returns policy, can be read online here or downloaded here.
Image credit: WikipediaIt sets out what the Government calls a new 'core protection' offer for refugees, moving away from offering permanent protection and towards a more basic and temporary arrangement. The paper says the UK will still meet its international obligations to refugees but it will no longer exceed them.
On the major changes planned to refugee leave and settlement in the UK, the paper states: "Currently, refugees in the UK receive a five-year initial period of leave. In the future this will be reduced significantly. Refugees will instead receive 30 months of leave to remain, which can only be renewed if they are still considered in need of protection. Where protection is no longer needed the person will become liable for removal from the UK. … In the future there will be no path to indefinite settled status in the UK on core protection, until a refugee has spent 20 years in the country, an increase on the current five years. Settlement requirements will be considered in an upcoming consultation on earned settlement, covering both legal and illegal migrants."
The Government proposes introducing a new Protection Work and Study visa route for refugees, aiming to shift them away from long-term dependence on core protection. Under the reforms, refugees who obtain employment or begin study at an appropriate level will be eligible to move onto this route. Those who do so can "earn" settlement more quickly than they would under the standard core protection route, providing an incentive for integration into local communities.
The policy also imposes new restrictions on family reunion. Under core protection, there will be no automatic right to bring family members to the UK. Refugees who transition onto the Work and Study route may become eligible to sponsor relatives, but will be subject to conditions similar to those applying to other legal migrants and UK citizens.
In addition, the Government plans to reduce access to public funds for asylum seekers and refugees. Priority for taxpayer-funded benefits will be given to those who are actively contributing economically, with new criteria and obligations potentially affecting eligibility. A consultation on these changes is expected in 2026.
The statutory duty to provide asylum support, a requirement introduced in 2005 under EU law, will end. In its place, support will become discretionary, reserved for those who genuinely need it and comply with UK law. Asylum seekers who have the right to work will be expected to support themselves, and anyone who has deliberately made themselves destitute could be denied assistance. Support may also be withdrawn from those who break the law or refuse to follow the rules for accommodation, including relocation orders or behaving disruptively in housing facilities. The Government says this approach mirrors systems in Denmark, the Netherlands, and France, and is intended to ensure that assistance is targeted at those who engage constructively with the process.
A tougher approach to failed asylum seekers will be introduced to increase the number of removals. While the paper says that the UK will continue to honour the principle of non-refoulement, it outlines plans to expand the French returns pilot for small‑boat arrivals, resume returns to certain countries such as Syria, and explore the use of safe third-country “return hubs.” Stricter processes for family removals are also planned, including the withdrawal of support where families face no genuine obstacles to leaving. To ensure countries cooperate with returns, the government will continue to negotiate bilateral agreements, as recently signed with Iraq and Vietnam, and may impose visa penalties on countries that fail to take back their citizens, including suspending entry clearance for nationals until they comply.
Major changes are also proposed to streamline and accelerate the asylum appeals process. A new independent appeals body will be established, staffed with professionally trained adjudicators. The body will handle all relevant matters in a single appeal, reducing repeated or late claims. Early legal advice will be provided to prevent delays. Appeals deemed to have low merit or to be used to frustrate removal will be fast-tracked to enforce timely departures.
The reforms will introduce a single appeal route and if an appeal fails, the claimant will be required to leave the UK. Expedited processes will apply to first-time late claims, high-harm cases, and foreign national offenders. Fresh claims will still be allowed if appellants can demonstrate that it is substantially different from their initial claim and justify why the matter is being raised late. Changes to the Immigration Rules will require failed asylum seekers to follow the same application procedures as other migrants, including paying fees and providing evidence for European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) claims, closing what the policy paper calls a 'loophole' that currently allows unlimited Article 8 appeals to delay removal.
Under proposed reforms to human rights law, the Government will limit the use of Article 8 in immigration and asylum cases, placing greater emphasis on the public interest in enforcing the Immigration Rules, safeguarding communities, and reducing pressure on public services. It will legislate to define family narrowly, typically to immediate members, and set clear rules for how Article 8 claims can be made, including requiring overseas applicants to act through UK-based relatives. On Article 3, which prohibits torture and inhuman treatment, the Government says that as interpretations have expanded in ways that can prevent the removal of foreign national offenders, it will work with international partners to ensure human rights protections evolve while maintaining the ability to make sovereign migration decisions.
Other reforms proposed in the policy paper include changes to the modern slavery system to prevent misuse of protections by individuals seeking to block removal, including ending reconsiderations for certain countries, improving early disclosure of relevant information, and introducing new legislation to clarify obligations. The Government also plans to streamline deportations, including swift refusal of protection claims deemed unmeritorious, faster removal of foreign national offenders, and new age assessment methods using scientific and AI-based technology.
Accompanying the sweeping reforms, new safe and legal routes will be introduced to allow refugees to come to the UK. The Government says these routes will prioritise those formally referred for resettlement, with a focus on refugee sponsorship, giving communities and voluntary organisations a greater role in supporting refugees as they settle, become self-sufficient, and contribute to local areas. Capped routes will also be established for displaced students and skilled workers. Those arriving on the reformed resettlement routes will be on the ten-year route to settlement, though the paper notes that this will be subject to wider consultation. The Home Secretary said yesterday that the new safe routes will be "modest" at first, but will grow over time.
Justifying the proposals, the Prime Minister said the asylum system is under severe strain, as it was not designed to cope with the significant increase in the movement of people across the globe seen in modern times. In addition, he said the UK needs an approach with a stronger deterrent effect and rules that are robustly enforced in order to reduce Channel crossings. The Home Secretary said rapidly increasing asylum claims and falling removals were placing considerable strain on the country and the taxpayer.
Many of the headline reforms will require primary legislation and Parliamentary approval, and while early reaction suggests the Government looks set to face resistance from a number of Labour backbenchers, the Conservatives have indicated they are likely to offer supportive opposition and help pass the proposals, despite insisting they are "nowhere near enough."
Numerous NGOs working with refugees and asylum seekers have condemned the proposals. Asylum Matters called them an attack on asylum rights that puts the very principles of post-Word War II humanitarian protection under threat. The NGO's Head of Campaigns commented: "Just a week after the Prime Minister expressed fears about racist rhetoric tearing Britain apart, his Government is proposing radical anti-refugee laws that can only be an attempt to placate extremists." Refugee and Migrant Forum Of Essex & London (RAMFEL) said the proposals were cruel, draconian and counter-productive, and they would make people’s lives worse whilst failing to achieve their goal.
In a statement published yesterday in response to the Home Secretary's preview of the reforms, Asylum Aid said: "These new measures will not deter people seeking safety from coming to the UK but will instead significantly harm the mental health and social integration of those recognised as needing protection in this country. These are men, women, children and families who have fled war, conflict, torture, trafficking, persecution and extreme cruelty. At a point when they most need safety and security, they will be left in a state of ongoing limbo and anxiety about being removed from the country, even once they have been recognised as refugees, and made to wait for over twenty years before they can settle here."
Following the publication of the policy paper, the Home Secretary delivered the following statement to Parliament on the proposals late this afternoon:
The Secretary of State for the Home Department
(Shabana Mahmood)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement about how we restore order and control to our borders. I do so as this Government publish 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 past 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 have 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.
Rather than deal substantively with this problem, the last Conservative Government wasted precious years and £700 million on their failed Rwanda plan, with the lamentable result of just four volunteers removed from the country. As a result, they left us with the grotesque chaos of asylum seekers housed in hotels and shuttled around in taxis, with the taxpayer footing the bill.
My predecessor as Home Secretary picked up this dreadful 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 an historic agreement with the French so that small boat arrivals can now be sent back to France.
Those 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 twofold: first, 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 compared with many of our European neighbours. That generosity is a factor that draws people to these shores, on a path that runs through other safe countries. Nearly 40% come on small boats and over perilous channel crossings, but a roughly equal proportion come legally, via visitor, work or study visas, 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 and 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 in Denmark have hit a 40-year low, and now countries across Europe 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 for two and a half years, not five years. 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 years.
I know that this country welcomes people who contribute. For those who want to stay, and who 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 the most exceptional circumstances, family reunion will not be possible, with a refugee able to bring family over only if they have joined a work and study route, and if qualifying tests are met.
Although over 50,000 claimants have been granted refugee status in the past year, more than 100,000 claimants and failed asylum seekers remain in taxpayer-funded accommodation. 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 this 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. We will continue to support those who play by the rules, but those who do not—be that through criminality or antisocial 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 receive support pay for it if they can, so those with income or assets will have to contribute to the cost of their stay. That will end the absurdity that we currently experience, in which an asylum seeker receiving £800 each month from his family, and who had recently acquired an Audi, was receiving free housing at the taxpayer's expense, and the courts judged that we could do nothing about it.
The 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. That will mean restarting removals to countries where they have been paused. In recent months, we have begun the voluntary removal of failed asylum seekers to Syria once again. However, many failed asylum seekers from Syria are still here, 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—despite an existing returns agreement, and Albania being 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 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. 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 have 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 that early legal representation is 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 that 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. That 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, which 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 to our immigration rules. First, we will define what, exactly, a family is—narrowing it down to parents and their children. Secondly, we will define the public interest test so that 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 convention: the application of article 3, and 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 who we seek to deport, but we 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.
It is not just international law that binds us. According to data from 2022, over 40% of those detained for removal claimed that they were modern-day slaves. That 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, these are significant reforms. They are designed to ensure that 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 Hongkongers. For that reason, as order and control are 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 that 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 as a Labour Government 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, that opens safe and legal routes to those fleeing danger across the world, and 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 wish we would become. These reforms are designed to bring unity where others seek to divide, and I commend this statement to the House.