Minister insists government committed to asylum reforms

Despite backlash from some Labour MPs, Communities Secretary Steve Reed has said that the government is "fully committed" to pushing through major asylum reforms.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced a string of reforms, including requiring refugees to wait 20 years for permanent residence and deporting more families who have been refused asylum.

Deporting children is controversial for a variety of Labour figures, including MP Stella Creasy, who said it is "not the British way," and peer Lord Dubs, who described it as "using children as a weapon." The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, said the plans were not appropriate but that her party could help get them through Parliament.

Following criticism from its own MPs, the government has recently been compelled to reconsider some of its programmes, including cuts to welfare and the winter fuel payment.

However, speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Reed said that the government was aiming to establish a "fair, tolerant, and compassionate" asylum system. When asked about doubts within his own party, the Communities Secretary replied: "We are completely committed to [the schemes]. We can't go on like this; in several respects, the issue is ripping the country apart."

Mr Reed referred to the "perverse incentives" in the current system, which he said were encouraging families to cross the Channel in small boats.

"We know we must bring an end to this barbaric trade in human life," he said. "When those boats capsized, 14 children who were put on those slippery dinghies and pushed out into the English Channel lost their lives over the last year. The current system provides perverse incentives for people to put their children on a boat where their life is at risk, and we are unable to deal with it."

The New Proposals

Ms Mahmood told MPs on Monday that her proposals would "restore order" to the asylum system. Under her administration, refugee status will be provisional and reviewed every 30 months, with refugees returned if their home country becomes secure.

Refugees will need to be resident in the United Kingdom for 20 years before applying for permanent residence, up from the previous five years. After ten years, new safe and legal routes will be developed. The government is also planning to remove families whose asylum cases have been rejected and have not left the country voluntarily, warning that they may face forced removal.

Around 20 Labour MPs have publicly condemned the plans, with others raising questions in private.

Olivia Blake, MP for Sheffield Hallam, accused Ms Mahmood of stoking division by suggesting refugees would have "won a golden ticket" if they were allowed to remain indefinitely. Steve Witherden, MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, called on the government to "lead with compassion and fairness, not requiring some of our country's most endangered citizens to live in limbo for two decades."

Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, agreed the asylum system needs to be changed but was worried about the measures, particularly deporting asylum seekers' children who "think of this as home."

"I think the British people want to contribute... but they know that if you have been here 5-10 years and your children see this as home, arresting and deporting you is not the British way forward," she said on the BBC's The World Tonight programme.

Lord Dubs, a Labour peer who came to the UK on the Kindertransport to escape Nazi persecution, said he was "depressed" by the government's decision to take such a "hardline" strategy, which he argued would not "deter people from coming here."

"To use children as a weapon as the Home Secretary is doing is a shabby thing," he told the Today programme. "We are a better country than that."

'Moral Responsibility'

Ms Mahmood told the Commons that it was an "uncomfortable truth" that the UK's generous asylum policy was attracting people to British shores relative to other European countries, and that the scheme "feels out of control and unfair" to British taxpayers.

Ms Mahmood said she was "not motivated by what other political groups are saying or doing" but that "it's a moral responsibility for me."

"If we do not win this argument, we will lose public consent for having an asylum system at all, and, in the meanwhile, we'll lose something amazing about this country," she said. "I'm not going to sit and watch this broken system cause more division in our world, and I'm certainly not willing to cede this territory of safe borders to groups of the far right, the hard right, or any other groups."

She acknowledged that some Labour MPs were concerned, but insisted that "the overwhelming majority of my colleagues support me."

Opposition Reaction

Max Wilkinson, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson, said he "cautiously welcomed" some of the changes, such as reforming rather than ripping up the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). However, he was concerned about the Home Office's capacity to review refugee statuses every two-and-a-half years.

Mrs Badenoch said that the steps were insufficient and that leaving the ECHR was crucial to solving the problem.

"We've looked at this issue from every possible direction," the Conservative leader said, "and the truth is that any proposal that does not include leaving the ECHR as a necessary step is wasting time we don't have."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage jokingly said he "largely agreed" with the majority of Ms Mahmood's actions, suggesting she could be the "next defector" to his party.

"I think a lot of what Shabana Mahmood said yesterday was motivated solely by fear that Labour are losing seats to Reform," he said, adding that her attention should be expanded to legal migration, which he claimed is "doing serious harm to the British economy."

Green Party MP Carla Denyer accused Labour of "trying to out-Reform Reform," warning this would "only deepen divisions."

"It's not people seeking sanctuary that are ripping people apart," she continued, "it's inflammatory, racist narratives, and the scapegoating of migrants and asylum seekers for what has nothing to do with them."