Move designed to demonstrate PM’s commitment to ‘stop the boats’ policy criticised by legal experts
Lawyers who “coach” people to lie in their asylum applications will be targeted as part of a new government-led panel tasked with pursuing more prosecutions.
The move is designed to demonstrate Rishi Sunak’s commitment to “stop the boats”, but it was criticised by legal experts who said the record asylum backlog was the fault of the Home Office.
Continue reading...Deputy PM ‘confident’ asylum barge will soon be used and that fire safety concerns will be taken into account
Checks are still taking place on a barge designed to house asylum seekers, with the first group due to be housed there within “weeks”, the UK’s deputy prime minister has suggested.
Oliver Dowden said he was confident the Bibby Stockholm in Portland, Dorset, would become operational soon and that the government would “take into account those concerns” when pressed over fears raised about fire safety.
Continue reading...Fire Brigades Union questions large numbers kept on Bibby Stockholm and lack of exit points
Suella Braverman is facing demands from firefighters for an urgent meeting over the safety of a giant barge meant for asylum seekers amid a deepening row over whether it is a “deathtrap”.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has questioned a lack of exit points, the narrowness of corridors and increased occupancy on the Bibby Stockholm in a letter sent to the home secretary on Wednesday. Originally built with 222 cabins, the barge is now expected to contain more than 500 people in Portland, Devon.
Continue reading...FBU to write to Home Office with overcrowding concerns after first group’s arrival delayed due to safety issues on Dorset-based vessel
Firefighters have accused ministers of attempting to house asylum seekers on a “potential deathtrap” after health and safety officials prompted a further delay to the use of a giant barge until next week.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said it is planning to write to the Home Office about overcrowding and access to fire exits on the vessel. The health and safety officials’ intervention had already led to the postponement of the arrival of the first men who were due to stay on the 222-bedroom Bibby Stockholm in Portland, Dorset.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Officials carry out last-minute inspections after reports Bibby Stockholm could become ‘floating Grenfell’
The Home Office has been forced to delay moving people seeking asylum on to a controversial giant barge in order to carry out last-minute fire safety checks amid concerns the vessel has not received approval from inspectors.
The Guardian understands the initial plan to move refugees on to the Bibby Stockholm in Portland, Dorset, has been moved from Tuesday to Wednesday for officials to give a final survey.
Continue reading...Mayor of London hits back at prime minister over ‘pathetic gesture politics’
Rishi Sunak has failed to give his full backing to Sir Howard Davies, chairman of NatWest, in interviews this morning, PA Media reports.
PA says that Sunak did not back calls for the resignation of Davies in a pooled interview this morning – but also that Sunak would not say whether he had confidence in him.
What I said right at the start of this was that it wasn’t right for people to be deprived of basic services because of banking, because of their views.
This isn’t about any one individual, it’s about values – do you believe in free speech and not to be discriminated against because of your legally held views?
As a result of this policy, a dozen classrooms of children, including some of the most traumatised and vulnerable children in the world, have gone missing and, sickeningly for us, 50 children are still missing from the hotel used in Brighton and Hove.
Importantly the high court also makes clear that the home secretary already has the power to require local authorities across the country to take children into foster care via a statutory rota system called the national transfer scheme.
Continue reading...Court rules all potential victims must be assessed for support, after policy disqualified people with criminal convictions
A high court judge has ordered the home secretary to change a key part of a trafficking policy introduced just months ago.
In an urgent hearing on Wednesday, lawyers representing trafficking victims said they were at risk of human rights violations such as slavery, servitude and forced labour if the policy continued.
Continue reading...Family members of East Timorese in UK denied right to visit, as Home Office says too many hoping to work illegally
The Home Office has been accused of implementing discriminatory policies towards visitors from Timor-Leste, many of whom have the right to travel to the UK but who have been blocked from entering the country in large numbers.
Regulations were changed last week to require East Timorese visitors to apply for visas before travelling to the UK, after decades of visa-free travel. The Foreign Office said this was in response to a “sustained and significant” rise in the number of people travelling from the tiny south-east Asian island with the intention of working here illegally.
Continue reading...Government reportedly hands back two vessels after ports in the Wirral, London and Scotland deny permission to dock
Controversial plans to house asylum seekers on redundant cruise ships have been thrown into disarray after two vessels were unable to find somewhere to dock.
There had been tentative reported plans for cruise ships to be housed in the Wirral, just outside Edinburgh and in London, but the proposals were all rebuffed. Sky News reported that two ships have been returned to their prior owners after their acquisition by the government.
Continue reading...Former Labour leader says ‘even the Blair government’ helped lift children out of poverty
Labour MPs are “seething with anger” about Keir Starmer’s decision to say the party would not get rid of the two-child benefit cap, Jeremy Corbyn said this morning.
Corbyn, Starmer’s predecessor as leader, told LBC that he had spoken to “quite a lot of Labour MPs” about this issue. He went on:
They are seething with anger, particularly as commitments have been made regularly by the party that we would take children out of poverty. Even the Blair government, which Keir Starmer often quotes, did do a great deal to lift children out of poverty by not having a two-child policy …
Even in areas like mine, there are high levels of child poverty – probably 40% of the children in my constituency. All across the north-east, which Jamie [Driscoll] represents – a third of all children across the whole of the region are living in poverty. That has got to go and got to change.
This is not a shock – it is what I and my team expected.
None of my fellow Bernie Grant leadership programme alumni have been selected.
Continue reading...Murals at Manston and Kent Intake Unit understood to have been painted over last week by MoJ estates team
The Home Office ordered the removal of child-friendly murals from the controversial Manston detention camp near Ramsgate, as well as a separate reception centre, the Guardian has learned.
The i newspaper revealed last week that the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, had ordered the removal of colourful murals of Disney cartoon characters including Mickey Mouse and Baloo the bear painted on the walls at the Kent Intake Unit (KIU) at Dover.
Continue reading...NGOs behind report suggest minimal savings for Home Office if Bibby Stockholm barge used in place of £5.6m-a-day hotels
Controversial plans to house asylum seekers on a barge to reduce reliance on expensive hotels will save less than £10 a person a day, according to a report.
The report, Bibby Stockholm – At What Cost? from the NGOs Reclaim The Seas and One Life To Live, provides the first detailed estimated costings of the Bibby Stockholm, the barge the Home Office is planning to use in Dorset to accommodate asylum seekers.
Continue reading...Peers voted against government-proposed measures on detention and deportation of asylum seekers
The government’s small boats bill has suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords, as Channel crossings in June by people seeking asylum set a new record.
Peers voted on Monday to limit the time that children and pregnant women who claim asylum after arriving by irregular means can be detained, and backed preventing LGBTQ+ people from being deported to a country where they would have a well-founded fear of persecution.
Continue reading...Tom Tugendhat asks Treasury to review whether banks are blacklisting those with controversial views
It should be “completely unacceptable” for banks to close accounts on “political grounds”, a Home Office minister has said, as Conservatives weighed in on a so-called freedom of speech row prompted by claims from Nigel Farage.
Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, was speaking in parliament after the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, urged regulators to take action against banks that shut off access to people with controversial views.
Continue reading...Home Office sent 24,083 letters of intent warning refugees they were being considered for forcible removal
More than 24,000 asylum seekers from about one-third of the world’s countries could face removal to Rwanda by the UK Home Office in the future, even though the scheme was found to be unlawful in the court of appeal on Thursday.
Home Office data obtained under a freedom of information request shows that, between January 2021 and March 2023, 24,083 asylum seekers were issued with letters warning them that they were being considered for forcible removal to Rwanda.
Continue reading...Sunak insists Rwanda is safe country to be sent to after court rules in favour of charities and 10 asylum seekers
The bitter legal battle over the government’s flagship immigration policy is set to reach new heights after Downing Street insisted it would fight to overturn a ruling that sending refugees to Rwanda was unlawful.
Charities and others were jubilant on Thursday after judges at the court of appeal ruled in favour of campaign groups and 10 affected asylum seekers, while the opposition claimed the policy at heart of Rishi Sunak’s “Stop the Boats” pledge was now unravelling.
Continue reading...Children are being left in limbo so long that they are at risk of harm, social workers warn
Lone child asylum seekers are facing fivefold increases in delays in having their claims processed by the Home Office, with devastating consequences, according to a new report.
Social workers, legal professionals and the children themselves have warned that the impact of being left in limbo about their future for so long includes the risk of suicide, self-harm and persistent insomnia.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie.
Continue reading...The site, set up as a standard asylum seeker hotel, has no care workers or nurses there as part of the contract
The Home Office has been accused of abandoning 55 asylum seekers with a range of severe disabilities and life-limiting conditions at a former care home in an Essex seaside town.
The asylum seekers, who fled various conflict zones including Sudan and Afghanistan, are struggling with a range of health conditions they have suffered from since childhood or life-changing injuries suffered in war zones.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: The special unit meant to reform the Home Office is to be closed – leaving many to wonder what comes next
Good morning. In late 2017, the Guardian started publishing a series of stories that highlighted numerous cases of mistreatment from the Home Office towards Caribbean-born UK residents who had migrated during the Windrush era, between 1948 and 1971. For six months the investigation quietly rumbled on, revealing how people’s lives were destroyed after they were incorrectly classified as illegal immigrants, rendering them unable to stay employed, or to access housing or other public services. Many were deported to countries they had not lived in since they were children – 24 of those people died before the government could contact them to apologise for its error.
By the time of that apology, the issue had become a political scandal that resulted in the resignation of the home secretary, Amber Rudd. An independent review found uncovered “profound institutional failure” that had destroyed hundreds of people’s lives.
Titanic | Search and rescue teams have been in a race against time to find a tourist sub that went missing in the north Atlantic while on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic. One of those on board is Hamish Harding, a British explorer. US and Canadian ships and planes have been conducting an intensive search. The five-person craft has 96 hours of oxygen on board and can dive to depths of 4km.
Politics | Boris Johnson faces being blocked from obtaining special access to parliament after only seven MPs voted against the damning Partygate report, dwarfed by the 354 who voted for it.
Environment | Scientists have warned that an “unheard of” marine heatwave off the coasts of the UK and Ireland poses a serious threat to species. Data shows that sea temperatures are several degrees above normal, smashing records for late spring and early summer.
Housing | Rishi Sunak has ruled out extra help for UK homeowners struggling to pay soaring mortgage costs, as the average two-year fixed-rate loan rose above 6%. The prime minister said the government should “stick to the plan” to halve inflation in its attempts to tackle the cost of living crisis.
Health | David Cameron has admitted failures in his government’s preparations for a pandemic but defended the austerity drive that he and his chancellor, George Osborne, imposed, saying “your health system is only as strong as your economy”.
Continue reading...Student who took part in anti-Beijing protests is in legal limbo after withdrawing her asylum claim to make a visa application that was then rejected
A Hongkonger who fled to the UK after being targeted by Chinese security officials has been left fearing deportation after appearing to be wrongly advised by the Home Office.
Olivia (not her real name) left Hong Kong in July 2022 after someone claiming to be from the new national security department – created two years earlier when the Chinese Communist party (CCP) imposed a draconian security law on the city – approached her in the street and accused her of supporting Hong Kong independence.
Continue reading...