Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood published her Immigration and Asylum Bill yesterday, claiming that it would ‘save the asylum system for a generation’. At the heart of her approach was the idea that the government would ‘open new legal routes for genuine refugees’ while at the same time ‘closing loopholes that have too often been abused’.
The 53-clause Bill runs to over 80 pages and would establish an independent immigration appeals authority. It would make changes to the way that the courts approach Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, introduce a power to require payments from the recipients of asylum support and change rules relating to modern slavery.
Despite the Home Secretary’s best efforts, the Bill has been met with a strong degree of scepticism across the political spectrum. This is perhaps unsurprising. It is the tenth piece of legislation relating to asylum and immigration to be published since 2003.
Voters are unlikely to be persuaded by new rhetoric alone
The independent immigration appeals authority is designed to speed up decision-making, with appeals currently taking an average of 61 weeks to be determined. Mahmood argues that creating a single appeal route will ‘allow for faster outcomes’.
