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...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...Committee concerned illegal migration legislation will jeopardise sharing of DNA, fingerprinting and criminal records
The UK’s post-Brexit policing pact with the EU on sharing DNA, fingerprinting and criminal records could be put at risk by Suella Braverman’s migration laws, a House of Lords committee has said.
Lady Hamwee, the chair of the Lords justice and home affairs committee, has written to the home secretary to say its members are “particularly concerned” that the new illegal migration legislation along with new data laws could lead to the “termination and/or suspension” of the security cooperation elements of the Brexit trade deal.
Continue reading...Brian Bell says ministers have let social care become reliant on low-paid and vulnerable foreign workers
Ministers have allowed England’s creaking social care system to become too heavily reliant on low-paid foreign workers who are vulnerable to exploitation, the government’s migration adviser has warned.
In a strongly worded intervention, Prof Brian Bell, who has just been reappointed by the home secretary, Suella Braverman, as chair of the migration advisory committee (MAC), called the government’s tacit acceptance of exploitation in the sector “appalling”.
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...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...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...‘Impact assessment’ of the illegal migration bill reignites bitter rows over the controversial scheme
The cost of sending a single person seeking asylum to Rwanda could be nearly £170,000, according to government analysis, which has immediately reignited bitter rows over the controversial scheme.
A long-awaited “impact assessment” of the illegal migration bill has conceded that ministers do not know the overall costs of implementing plans to detain and deport anyone who arrives in the UK by irregular means.
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...Theresa May says parliament must punish MPs who break rules as Penny Mordaunt says Johnson ‘undermined democratic process’
At the Labour event Keir Starmer is now speaking. He starts with a jibe at the SNP, saying the tide is turning in Scotland.
Turning to energy policy, he says Labour wants to promote security.
Can we still achieve great things? Can we unite and move forward? Can we still change, can we grow, can we get things done, can we build things? New industries, new technologies, new jobs; will they come to our shores, or will the future pass us by?
You can put it even more starkly. Around the world people want to know, are we still a great nation? If the question is about the British people, the answer is emphatically: yes.
Continue reading...UK home secretary says police have her full support in using tactic to prevent violence and save lives
Suella Braverman has called on police to increase the use of stop and search powers “to prevent violence and save more lives”.
In a statement aimed at all 43 forces in England and Wales, the home secretary said officers who used the powers had her “full support”.
Continue reading...Survey comes as government rhetoric on immigrants gets increasingly toxic, adopting far-right slogans
Britons have among the most positive attitudes towards refugees in the world, a new global poll has found, despite increased hostility from the UK government to asylum seekers.
An international survey of almost 22,000 adults across 29 countries found British people had the third-most enthusiastic outlook towards refugees, just behind Spain and New Zealand.
Continue reading...Chief inspector of immigration says there is ‘real danger’ that inhumane and dangerous conditions will return at Kent facility
Suella Braverman is facing the “real danger” that conditions for asylum seekers held at Manston processing facility will once again become inhumane and dangerous, the immigration watchdog has found.
David Neal, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, said the Kent asylum centre that became overcrowded and disease-ridden last year could again become overwhelmed because ministers and officials in the Home Office are unable to say where they plan to house at least 55,000 arrivals by small boats this year.
Continue reading...PM’s office says Mid Bedfordshire deserves ‘proper representation’ and delay to resignation ‘obviously unusual’
Fell put it to Braverman that customers were not learning to protect themselves from online fraud because, if they are cheated, they tend to get their money back from banks. He suggested that people were being “coddled”. It was as if they were leaving their front door open, leaving themselves vulnerable to burglary, he said.
Braverman said Fell had a point. She told him:
I think that’s a really important point and I’m passionate about increasing awareness - much like practice changed when it came to wearing a seatbelt …
I think we need a step change when it comes to online activity. We are far more vulnerable than we appreciate and I think people’s lives are lived so politically online that they forget that there are fraudsters operating in that online world.
Continue reading...The London-born singer of Kosovan-Albanian parents says the way Albanians have been discussed has ‘hurt’
Singer Dua Lipa has criticised the way ministers have discussed migrants as “shortsighted and small-minded”.
Lipa, born in London to Kosovan-Albanian parents, said the way the government has discussed Albanians caused her “hurt” as she called for “more empathy”.
Continue reading...Armed officers at the scene but no reports of injuries, Metropolitan Police says
Rishi Sunak is being interviewed on ITV’s This Morning.
He says immigration levels are too high, but he rejects claims it is out of control. This is from the Daily Mirror’s Lizzy Buchan.
Continue reading...Committee highlights serious problems with residence schemes affecting Brits already living in the EU before Brexit
An influential House of Lords committee has urged Suella Braverman to step up efforts to protect the rights of vulnerable British citizens in the EU after the case of an elderly woman with dementia who was threatened with deportation from Sweden.
It also said more needed to be done to ensure the rights of EU citizens in the UK – also guaranteed under the Brexit withdrawal agreement – were protected to prevent a “Windrush-type scenario”.
Continue reading...Release on Thursday has already prompted responses from politicians but complex factors behind probable rise in numbers coming
The release of official statistics is often the focus of political scrutiny, but the latest annual figures for overall net migration to the UK, due Thursday at 9.30am, are sufficiently anticipated they have prompted two separate policy announcements already.
On Tuesday, Suella Braverman rushed through a plan to reduce the number of people arriving via student visas by greatly limiting the scope for them to bring along family members.
Continue reading...Only students on courses designated as research programmes will be able to bring dependants under home secretary’s policy
Suella Braverman has rushed out stringent curbs on international students who come to study in the UK amid growing pressure on the home secretary over her conduct in office.
Under proposals released in parliament on Tuesday, overseas students will no longer be able to bring family with them except under specific circumstances as the government seeks to reduce immigration numbers.
Continue reading...Angela Rayner tables question about criteria for launching investigation into potential breach of ministerial code
And here are some of the lines from what Rishi Sunak has been saying at the London defence conference.
Sunak said the challenge posed by China should not lead to a “blanket descent into protectionism”. He said that China’s rise represented an “epoch-defining challenge”. He explained:
It is a country that has both the means and the intent to reshape the global order.
Its behaviour is increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive abroad and in light of that we do need to take the steps to protect ourselves.
There are a limited number of very sensitive sectors of our economy, or types of technology, where we want to take a particularly robust approach: semiconductors, for example, dual-use technologies, quantum, etc.
But this is not an excuse for a blanket descent into protectionism.
He said that G7 countries should not be engaged in subsidy competition. Asked whether the UK needed an industrial strategy, he replied:
That means different things to different people. If that means we should just be focusing on who can subsidise industries the most, then my answer is no.
We discussed that at the G7 and actually you will see in the G7 communique very specific language acknowledging that subsidy races that essentially just shift industrial capacity between allies in some kind of zero-sum competition are not appropriate.
Continue reading...