Against the backdrop of the current leadership chaos engulfing Labour, in Wednesday’s King’s Speech the government announced new legislation that would ‘increase confidence in the security of the immigration and asylum systems’. A briefing document published shortly afterwards put some flesh on the bones, revealing that a package of contentious measures first floated by the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, in November last year would be taken forward in a Bill.
No. 10 has described the proposals as the ‘most significant’ on asylum ‘in a generation’. They include plans to ‘introduce a new asylum model based on contribution, integration and respect for UK laws’.
While detail remains scant, the Home Office indicates that it will introduce ‘a single “core protection” model’, designed to simplify decision-making, reduce the number of legal challenges, and cut costs by incentivising refugees to work. It also promises to ‘define in law when protection can be revoked’ and to require asylum seekers who receive taxpayer-funded accommodation and other support to ‘contribute to the cost borne by the British taxpayer once they are able to do so’.
The real challenge for Mahmood will not be in altering the mood music, but rather in delivery
