"What we were unprepared for were the eyewatering costs – human and financial – of the wider system that underpins support for people seeking asylum in the UK. Nor were we prepared for the levels of incompetence, confusion and chaos, sometimes to the point of being manifest as cruelty, in that system." Helena Kennedy
"It is time for a re-think. There is no data to suggest that the numbers of people seeking asylum will reduce. If anything, numbers of climate refugees, refugees from war and persecution are likely to grow. This country needs immigration and, as recent surveys have shown, attitudes to immigration have become more positive over recent years and were exemplified by UK society’s response to specific refugee programmes, for example, for Ukraine and Afghanistan.
Data also shows the ineffectiveness of the asylum process. We have tens of thousands of people in hotels many of whom have been waiting for more than 6 months for the Home Office to consider their claims for asylum. We know that people from so-called ‘high recognition’ countries, such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen, are highly likely to be accepted as refugees. But they are kept in indeterminate limbo before this is acknowledged by the Home Office. We heard repeatedly about the Home Office and its contractors operating with a ‘culture of disbelief;’ a presumption of an intent to ‘cheat the system,’ that I believe must stymie the efforts of conscientious junior officials in the Home Office and which creates enormous backlogs, ineffectiveness and, ultimately, financial and human cost.
I cannot see a rationale or justification for an approach to asylum determination that takes years, costs the taxpayer extraordinary amounts and that prevents the individual from contributing to the economy and society (because of the bar on participation in the labour market and because hotels and other congregate living arrangement have been evidenced as poor bases for social integration)."Helena Kennedy