Home Secretary announces major asylum and other changes in new policy paper: “Restoring Order and Control”

Following a plethora of media briefings and coverage over the past few days, the Home Secretary has officially published her policy paper on “Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy“. She will give an oral statement in the House of Commons this evening and answer questions from MPs.

Let me say from the outset to those who are worried that we do not have any timescales for implementation or details of who will be affected (e.g. people who are currently waiting for a decision). Where it is indicated that changes will be consulted on or legislation will be brought forward, that obviously means that we will have a bit more notice before anything is implemented.

There are two forewords to the paper, from the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. With no indication that she feels any sense of ownership for the situation, the Home Secretary states that “Over 100,000 people now live in asylum accommodation, funded by the taxpayer. Many refugees remain unemployed several years after being granted protection, depending on taxpayer funded benefits to live in the UK.” This is of course a result of slow and inaccurate processing of claims as well as a ban on work for those waiting in the asylum system for so long, which makes it more difficult for them to get their lives up and running again following a grant of status.

She states “In 2024, asylum claims in the UK rose by 18 percent, to a record high. Across Europe, meanwhile, claims fell by 13 percent.” Yet fails to mention that Germany (218,550) receives twice as many applications as the UK (109,343) which is in fifth place in Europe, also behind Spain (164,830), France (159,260) and Italy (151,525).

The paper is in three sections. Part I: Reducing arrivals, Part II: Increasing removals, and Part III: Safe and legal routes. I have looked at the details below.

Part I: Reducing arrivals

This section begins with an assertion that various factors are acting as “pull factors” for people to come to the UK. These include “the generosity of refugee protection in the UK”, “the extent of support provided” to those waiting for a decision and the ability to work without permission to do so.

Notably and predictably, there is no reference to the Home Office’s own research showing that “welfare policies and labour market access have little impact on migrant decision making”, or indeed, to any evidence at all. There are several proposals to address this.

Extension of period needed to reach settlement from five to twenty years and “safe return” reviews every two and a half years

By way of quick background, before 30 August 2005, settlement was granted to people when their asylum claim succeeded. On 30 August 2005 this was changed to an initial grant of five years, after which the person could apply for settlement. A “safe return review” whereby the Home Office would consider whether a person could return to their country of origin at the end of the five years instead of being granted settlement was announced in 2017 but not much seems to have come of this.

Then there was the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 which introduced the “two tier” system of refugee status whereby certain refugees (those deemed to have entered “illegally”) were granted two and a half years’ leave to remain. They would be eligible for settlement only under the normal long residence rules and after holding leave for ten years. Robert Jenrick MP closed this process in June 2023.

In the new policy paper, reference is made to the asylum system in Denmark throughout. It mentions that settlement can be obtained there after eight years of residence, subject to various requirements being met. The Home Office’s proposal is for there to be no path to settlement in a protection route until a person has spent twenty years in the UK. No explanation is provided as to why even Denmark’s eight year waiting period has been deemed too generous. This twenty year route is referred to as the “core protection” route.

Instead of five years, refugees will be granted leave for two and a half years and will have to keep renewing this. Each time the Home Office will only grant the extension if they accept that there is still a need for protection. If it is decided that there is no longer such a need, the intention will be to remove that person. So the plan is that people will spend twenty years of their lives here living in terror of being sent back to a country where the UK has accepted that they have previously been at risk of persecution in.

These short periods of leave and inevitably lengthy periods spent with section 3C leave will make it difficult for people to work and find homes, as we have already seen happening with Ukrainians. It will also be enormously damaging to people’s mental health. Inevitably, more people will need support from the state.

If eligible, people will be able to switch into a new “protection work and study route”. This will be available to people who “obtain employment or commence study at an appropriate level and pay a fee. Once on this route, they will become eligible to ‘earn’ settlement sooner than they would under core protection alone”.

Family reunion

It seems that the intention is that family reunion will only be available to those who have moved into the work and study route. Under core protection we are told that there will be “no automatic right to family reunion”. It will still exist, but “stricter requirements will apply”. Those in the work and study routes may be subject to the same requirements to bring dependants as in other routes, presumably such as Appendix FM.

Public funds

They have also trailed changes to benefits for refugees, stating that:

we are now exploring a change to taxpayer-funded benefits to prioritise access for those who are making an economic contribution to the UK. This could see additional criteria that migrants have to meet to receive benefits and actions they need to take in order not to lose them. A consultation on this question will take place in 2026.

Asylum support

The government will be revoking The Asylum Seekers (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2005 and the paper states that they “will restore a discretionary power to offer support”. It is unclear to me how much will actually change here. Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1995 already says that the Home Secretary may provide support to people who appear “to be destitute or to be likely to become destitute”.

Even without these laws in place, people cannot simply be left without support where that would make them destitute. The “law of humanity” will still apply under the common law.

The paper goes on to say:

In doing so, we will deny support to those who have the right to work and could therefore support themselves. This would include those who enter the country on a work or student visa with permission to work before claiming asylum, or those granted permission to work where their claim has been outstanding for more than 12 months.

It is obviously much more difficult for people in that first group (with section 3C leave) to find work because employers do not know how long they will have that leave for, as it will only last until either their asylum claim is granted or once they are appeals rights exhausted.

People without leave who have claimed asylum are able to work only after they have been waiting for a decision on their claim for over 12 months and they have applied to the Home Office for permission to work and that request has been granted. Even then, they are only allowed to work in an extremely limited number of roles.

The Home Office cannot have it both ways and make it incredibly difficult for people to work and then withhold support from them if they are unable to do so.

The paper also says that support will be removed from those who “fail to abide by a removal direction”, work illegally, refuse to relocate to a different accommodation site or are disruptive in accommodation.

Removal of assets (aka “contributions mechanism”)

This proposal states that:

we will require individuals to contribute towards the cost of their asylum support where they have some assets or income, but not enough to support themselves independently. We will also take action to recover support costs in scenarios where any assets are not convertible into cash or declared at the point that asylum support is initially provided but become convertible or are discovered at a later date.

This wording looks fairly identical to section 31 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which provides for a “financial contribution by resident” of an accommodation centre. This section has not been brought into force but includes provision for the Home Secretary to make regulations to recover costs relating to accommodation and other facilities where the person has assets that can be converted into cash.

The Lords debate on removing that clause when it was still a bill is worth revisiting. Section 31 only covers accommodation centres, so the government’s proposal would presumably be to extend this to all types of support.

Large scale accommodation sites

This has already been announced and there are no new details here.

Illegal working

Again, nothing new here. Just mention of previously announced changes on expansion of right to work checks and the digital hostile environment.

Part II: Increasing removals

Removing failed asylum seekers

The paper says that the UK/France pilot will be continued, but with a “higher appetite” for removing people, apparently. It also says that removals to certain countries will be resumed and say that they have already started returning a small number of Syrians.

It refers to several European countries beginning “voluntary removals”, so presumably at this stage the UK has also just been helping those who wish to return. The paper goes on to say that they are “exploring resuming enforced returns” to certain countries, including to Syria.

A consultation is to be launched on the enforced removal of families with children. This consultation will also include “commencing measures in the 2016 Immigration Act which will allow us to remove support from families who do not have a genuine obstacle to leaving the country”. Taking a quick look, this seems to mean sections 66 and 68 and schedules 11 and 12 of the Immigration Act 2016.

Visa penalties

This proposal formed part of the Conservative government’s New Plan for Immigration, eventually making its way into section 72 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 which provides for “visa penalties for uncooperative countries”. I don’t think it has ever actually been used, presumably because there are non-Home Office related reasons which make it sensible to maintain good relations with other countries.

Appeals reform

Yet again there are some fairly glaring omissions in the Home Office’s assessment of the situation regarding the appeals backlog. For a proper picture of what is going on, see my explanation.

The paper mentions increased judicial sitting days and statutory timelines, neither of which are new announcements. A new appeals body has also already been announced, although one welcome point to note here is the mention that “Early legal advice will be a core part of system reforms, avoiding delays and late claims, leading to better decisions”. Again, this needs to be present at application stage as well, so that many cases can avoid being wrongly refused in the first place, but any mention of the importance of legal advice is a positive.

There is also mention of accelerating certain cases, again this is a process that already exists in detained cases. They also mention “strengthening” the approach to certifying cases to remove the right of appeal. It is unclear whether anything new is being proposed here beyond further use of existing processes.

What is new is proposed legislation for accelerated appeals in “removable high-harm cases, foreign national offenders, and others who are detained and readily removable”, but no more detail than this is provided.

Legislation is also proposed “to enable an expedited appeal for first time late claims where someone is being removed but has not previously made a claim. This will ensure these claims do not suspend removal, as is all too often the case today”. I have addressed this situation previously, the system often operates to prevent people from being able to make these claims earlier. 

Legislation is also to be made to ensure that a person does not accrue any private or family life rights if they do not leave the UK after an unsuccessful claim. This will presumably involve an amendment to section 117B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (as trailed in the immigration white paper in May).

Fresh claims will seemingly require a paid application, this is a bit unclear but seems to be saying where the fresh claim is based on article 8. It is unclear what the process would be if e.g. it was a sur place claim (where the need for asylum only arose later on because of a change of circumstances in the country of origin). This change will be made via the immigration rules.

Legal reform

As set out in the immigration white paper earlier this year, the government is unhappy with the number of families of British citizens and those who are settled here who are unable to meet the minimum income requirement, yet have the audacity to still want to live together.

The paper also mentions that 86% of people who raised rights based applications in detention awaiting removal were released. A significant factor in this which goes unmentioned will of course be the decimation of legal aid advice generally, but particularly the removal of article 8 cases from the scope of legal aid, meaning that people are unable to access their rights at an earlier stage.

In response to the above two “problems”. Again, several changes are proposed.

The first is to:

legislate to set out to Home Office decision makers, and the courts, how to properly balance the public interest against individual rights. This intends to narrow the circumstances in which an individual’s Article 8 rights would outweigh the public interest in removing them.

The second is to set out in primary legislation a more narrow definition of family, largely restricted to immediate family members, with limited exceptions. The second is to change the application process for leave outside the rules applications based on article 8. Applications to bring people from outside the UK will need to be submitted by the UK based family member.

For in-country applications:

we will prescribe how and when Article 8 claims can be made. This will prevent migrants from frustrating removal by making late human rights claims, avoiding fees and relying on the courts to remake Home Office decisions, or in some cases having the courts consider Article 8 claims that have not even been considered by the Home Office.

This doesn’t make much sense to me and I can’t really see a change in here.

The third proposed change is to work with other countries to limit the definition of “inhuman or degrading treatment” in article 3 claims.

Next, reform to the modern slavery system (which is very much not being abused). Here the paper mentions the guidance change on reconsiderations made in September. It also talks about improved screening processes, with no acknowledgement of the well known fact (contained in the Home Office’s own guidance) that survivors of modern slavery often have difficulty in disclosing their experiences. New legislation is mentioned, without any further detail.

Other barriers to removal

Here, we are told that the immigration rules will be changed to allow consideration and refusal of protection claims after the screening interview. It is unclear whether any form of longer screening interview will take place in these circumstances.

The paper states that this process will be used to “target citizens of manifestly safe countries”. I will raise my usual concerns here that generally when countries are deemed “safe”, the safety of LGBTQI+ people is not considered. This will be one to keep an eye on.

Apparently processes and systems will be improved to ensure that they do not miss opportunities to deport foreign national offenders waiting for trial on other more minor offences.  

The use of AI in age assessments was announced back in July 2025 but is repeated here. Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit published a good response at the time.

There is already evidence of racial bias in AI. In Australia, there is evidence of this specifically in using AI to carry out age assessments (in the context of their social media ban for children, rather than for asylum). The trial was carried out by a UK based company and found that racial bias in the system meant that the tests were less accurate for certain groups.

Part III: Safe and legal routes

Unsurprisingly, this is the smallest section of the paper. Let me be clear from the outset, because I have already seen this argument being made a couple of times. There is no trade off which would make the above proposals for refugees in any way more acceptable. There are no circumstances in which it is okay to treat people like that, to forcibly separate families and to keep people living in limbo for decades. And what is on offer here is thin gruel indeed.

Let’s also remember that the context for this is that the past couple of years has seen the closure of “safe and legal routes”, namely the Ukraine, Afghan and family reunion schemes with little if any advance notice. The latter two closures have taken place under this government. Other routes still exist but seem to have stalled through government inaction on quotas.  

All that the paper says is that:

To achieve this, we will:

• reform refugee sponsorship to give voluntary and community sector organisations a greater role in resettlement through named sponsorship, within caps set by government
• introduce a capped route for refugee and displaced students to study in the UK, helping talented refugees to continue their studies, realise their potential and be able to return to their country and help rebuild it as soon as circumstances allow
• establish a capped route for skilled refugees and displaced people to come to the UK for work, building on the experience of the Displaced Talent Mobility Pilot

It is proposed that those arriving through these routes will have to wait ten years before they can settle, this will be subject to consultation. It is unclear whether they will also have to renew their leave every two and a half years and live under the threat of removal during that decade.

Conclusion

A bullet point summary of the proposals is available as an appendix to the paper. As I said at the outset, it is unclear what will happen when. Where it has been indicated that changes will be made to the immigration rules, this can potentially happen sooner that those subject to consultation and changes to primary legislation.

This is a shameful day for Labour. These proposals are cruel, unnecessary and perhaps most importantly for the two authors of the foreword, will have no impact on the desperate people who continue to make that dangerous journey across the Channel.