Minister urges Labour MPs to ‘look closely’ at asylum plan amid backbench outcry

The borders minister has urged Labour MPs to wait for the Home Secretary’s announcement amid a backbench outcry over plans to toughen up the asylum system.

Shabana Mahmood is expected to announce sweeping changes in the Commons on Monday, including an overhaul of human rights laws and a series of other measures designed to deter people from seeking asylum in the UK.

But the plans have already sparked opposition from backbench MPs.

Kent MP and former immigration lawyer Tony Vaughan said ministers’ rhetoric “encourages the same culture of divisiveness that sees racism and abuse growing in our communities”.

But borders minister Alex Norris urged his colleagues to wait before passing judgment, saying he disagreed with Mr Vaughan’s “characterisation” of the policy.

Mr Norris told Times Radio that backbenchers “have not seen the package yet and I ask them to look at it closely. I know they will.”

He added: “What I say to them is we cannot be defenders of a broken system.

“The system is not safe, the system is not controlled and it’s eroding public confidence.”

Ms Mahmood’s reforms have been billed as the largest change to the UK’s asylum system in the modern era, and have been inspired by a strict approach taken in Denmark.

They include changes to how the right to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights is applied in migration cases and restricting the number of appeals allowed against refusals for asylum.

The Home Office has also announced a ban on visas from three African countries – Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo – if they do not co-operate more on the removal of illegal migrants.

And Ms Mahmood is reported to be considering requiring some asylum seekers to contribute to the cost of supporting them, emulating Denmark’s “jewellery law” that allows officials to confiscate refugees’ valuables.

Mr Norris said it was “right if people have assets that they should contribute” to asylum costs, but insisted the Government would “not be taking family heirlooms off individuals”.

It is understood people with income from illegal working and assets such as cars and e-bikes will contribute to their costs, but this will not include sentimental jewellery.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson said that stripping people of family heirlooms will not fix a system already costing the taxpayer millions of pounds a day on hotels.

“The Liberal Democrats are calling for the end of asylum hotels and to give asylum seekers the right to work, so that they can support themselves financially, integrate and pay tax,” he added.

Other reforms already trailed as part of the raft of reforms include that refugee status will be made temporary, so that people are returned to their homeland once it becomes safe.

At the same time, safe and legal routes to the UK will be introduced as a way to cut dangerous journeys in small boats across the English Channel.

But several of Labour’s already restive backbenchers have expressed opposition to the proposals ahead of Ms Mahmood’s statement on Monday afternoon.

Mr Vaughan warned plans to review refugees’ status every few years would divert “huge amounts of resource away from making our asylum system work”.

And referencing Sir Keir Starmer’s speech at the Labour Party conference, he said: “The Prime Minister said in September that we are at a fork in the road.

“These asylum proposals suggest we have taken the wrong turning.”

Other backbenchers expressed support for Mr Vaughan’s comments, with one telling the PA news agency the Government’s policy was “incoherent” and saw communities “pitted against each other”.

Another told PA that “performative cruelty” would undermine efforts to both solve problems in the immigration system and improve Labour’s polling position, adding that Monday’s announcement was unlikely to help MPs show loyalty at a difficult time for the Government.

And while others were more receptive to “difficult discussions” about how to improve border security, they said ministers lacked the “moral authority” to do so and attacked the proposals as a “visionless shambles”.

Labour MP Brian Leishman told Times Radio the plans were “absolutely” a betrayal of Labour values and some of the proposals sound “very Reform in their nature”.

But ministers insisted that the policy was not designed to appeal to voters now backing Reform UK and its hard line on immigration.

Mr Norris told BBC Breakfast that “political considerations don’t come into this”, while another frontbencher told PA it would be “the right thing to do even if Reform never existed”.

Conservative shadow Home Office minister Matt Vickers dismissed Monday’s announcement as “largely gimmicks”, arguing that the Government was “not going far enough”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “People need to know that when they arrive in this country they will be removed.”

Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice suggested his party could support the proposals, telling a press conference in London that Ms Mahmood was “beginning to sound as though she’s sort of bringing an application to join Reform”.

Downing Street insisted it was “responding to the mandate we have been given” to “secure our borders and deal with the asylum system”.

Asked whether the Government was “talking the language of Reform”, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “No, we are talking the language of dealing with an asylum system that is in chaos.”

Some 39,292 people have made the journey across the Channel in small boats so far this year, according to PA analysis of Home Office figures.

The arrivals have already passed the number for the whole of 2024 (36,816) and 2023 (29,437) but the number is below the total for 2022 (45,774).