Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will tomorrow unveil radical plans to end what officials called Britain’s ‘golden ticket’ for asylum seekers by quadrupling the current five-year period before refugees can apply for permanent settlement.
She is also set to outline plans to scrap automatic state handouts to many asylum seekers and restrict their access to other benefits.
The Home Secretary will unveil the proposals as part of wider plans, based on hardline Danish laws, to curb immigration and reduce the ‘pull-factor’ bringing migrants to the UK.
Mahmood boasted last night that she will set out ‘the most sweeping changes to our asylum system in a generation’.
In an interview, she also warned that ‘illegal migration is tearing our country apart’.
The new 20-year qualifying period will apply to those who arrive illegally, such as in small boats or in lorries, and claim asylum, or those who overstay their visas and then claim.
Home Office sources said last night that it will be the longest route to settlement in Europe – tougher even than Denmark’s eight-year pathway, the second longest in Europe.
However, the plans have already sparked fury among Labour’s Left-wing MPs.
Last night, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch warned that Labour was ‘incapable of getting any real change past their Left-wing backbenchers’ and offered to work with the Government to deliver meaningful reform of the asylum system.
According to Labour insiders, Ms Mahmood has told colleagues that she would do ‘the unthinkable for a Labour Home Secretary’.
And it emerged last weekend that it would include copying parts of the hardline immigration reforms introduced by the Danish centre-Left government to combat Right-wing populism.
The reforms, introduced in 2016, have led to a 40-year low in asylum claims there. Ms Mahmood’s officials revealed she will propose revoking the statutory legal duty to provide asylum-seeker support, including housing and weekly allowances of £49.
The presumption is that asylum seekers who have the right to work and support themselves but choose not to would be denied the benefits.
There are currently 8,500 people in asylum accommodation on visas with the right to work.
It emerged last week that the plans will also include no longer granting permanent asylum to refugees. Instead, they would have their asylum status in the UK reviewed every two to three years.
Last night, Home Office sources said that Denmark had reduced the number of asylum applications to its lowest level in 40 years and removed 95 per cent of rejected asylum seekers.
They said the UK offered a package of benefits and support that far exceeded our international obligations.
Last week, Labour MP Nadia Whittome called some of the Danish reforms ‘undeniably racist’.
