Prime minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to recruit more specialist personnel to clear the asylum system backlog by the end of next year, as well as informing MPs that changes to asylum law will be forthcoming.
Speaking in the House of Commons, the PM unveiled a plan to deploy 400 new specialist staff to handle asylum claims from Albanian nationals, while UK border officials will be sent to Albania’s main airport under new arrangements with the Balkan state.
700 staff will also be recruited as part of a new task force that will probe the Channel to detect boat crossings, while the workforce of asylum caseworkers will be doubled.
While Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said that the recruitment of additional personnel to clear the backlog was welcome, he criticised the government’s “total failure” thus far to muster “any co-ordinated response” to tackle the problem at source and target traffickers.
To this end, Sunak announced that additional funding will be channelled towards tackling trafficking gangs on the continent, adding that the government could bring a motion to Parliament to introduce an annual quota for refugee arrivals in the UK.
Stopping new illegal arrivals and bringing new staff on board to clear the backlog form part of a two-pronged approach being taken by Sunak’s government. Nevertheless, a monumental task lies in waiting, with 143,377 people awaiting an initial decision on their asylum applications.
Headlines have also emerged recently around the number of migrants being temporarily housed in hotels as they await the outcome of their asylum applications. To generate more temporary accommodation capacity, part of the plan will see disused holiday parks and student halls, as well as surplus military sites repurposed.
Labelling the current global legal framework for asylum “obsolete”, Sunak vowed that his government would change UK asylum law and send a message which made “unambiguously clear that if you enter the UK illegally, you should not be able to remain here”.
Calling it “unfair” that some migrants arriving illegally were making “unfounded” asylum claims, Sunak said: “Over the coming months, thousands of Albanians will be returned home, and we’ll keep going with weekly flights until all the Albanians in our backlog have been removed.
“It is not just our asylum system that needs fundamental reform, our laws need reform too. We must be able to control our borders to ensure that the only people who come here, come through safe and legal routes.”
Sunak added that the changes would prevent migrants from “exploiting” the courts to “frustrate their removal” by making “late or spurious” claims of appeal.
He said: “However well intended our legal frameworks are, they are being manipulated by people who exploit our courts to frustrate their removal for months or years on end. Early next year, we will introduce new legislation to make unambiguously clear that if you enter the UK illegally you should not be able to remain here.
“Instead, you will be detained and swiftly returned either to your home country or to a safe country where your asylum claim will be considered.
“You will no longer be able to frustrate removal attempts with late or spurious claims or appeals, and once removed you should have no right to re-entry, settlement or citizenship.”
Image by HM Treasury and The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP, OGL 3, on Wikimedia Commons
