Government goes on the offensive with immigration

Last month we reported on the Government’s ideas or plans about asylum hubs (“Asylum-seekers and return hubs”, 29th April). Things have moved on since then and the Government is now thinking about potentially making return hub deals with yet more Balkan countries; it seems they are serious about this.

There is one important difference between these plans and the Rwanda scheme that the previous Government was very keen on but which ultimately did not happen. The Rwanda scheme was for asylum-seekers to have their claims processed in Rwanda; these new proposed schemes are for failed asylum-seekers who have exhausted all rights of challenge. 

This raises a rather obvious question: what happens to these failed asylum-seekers? Well, it seems that it will work like this. These failed asylum-seekers get returned to the return hub and there they are, to borrow a word, “processed”. A Government spokesperson says: “Return hubs are targeted at failed asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal routes to remain in the UK but are currently here, costing millions of taxpayers.” The spokesperson went on to criticise migrants’ (or perhaps their lawyers’) “stalling tactics”. 

It seems that the Government believes that it will be better to return migrants to their home country from a return hub than it will be to return them from the UK. And, to be fair, there is some logic or purpose behind this, because there will be less incentive for migrants to resist removal from a return hub, in the knowledge that whatever happens they are not going to be able to stay in the UK. And also there should be a deterrent effect on migrants coming irregularly to the UK in the first place. 

But surely the UK Government will have to pay some money to those return hub countries to accept the migrants? It is difficult to believe that they will do it for nothing and we are often told that there is no such thing as a free lunch. And the question thus arises: will it be cheaper to have them processed in the return hub than in the UK? Well, here there are more questions than answers. 

Anyway, moving on, and on a roughly connected subject, the Government has now published a new White Paper about immigration. A White Paper is a set of proposals for future legislation. It is neither a Bill nor an Act of Parliament and has no immediate legal effect, but it provides a useful idea about the Government’s plans. It should be borne in mind that the Government has a very large majority in the House of Commons and it therefore has a good chance of getting legislation through into law. 

The White Paper is all about controlling – or more accurately reducing – immigration. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer explains that immigration “exploded” under the previous Government and that the subsequent “damage” to the UK is “incalculable”. (This rather ignores the reality that a major reason for the huge increase in immigration was membership of the EU and associated rules about free movement of people, and it also ignores the reality that Kier Starmer was at some point a keen opponent of Brexit – but this is a contradiction and paradox that he did not deign to explain.)

Anyway, moving on yet again, the White Paper is comprehensive and it deals with the following areas:

• Settlement and citizenship are going to be made more difficult and five-year routes may be changed to ten-year routes.
• English language requirements are going to be raised and/or broadened.
• Hiring by UK employers of overseas workers is going to be made more difficult and employers will have to invest in more training. And the skill level for skilled worker jobs will be increased. And the Immigration Skills Charge will be increased. 
• The Graduate route for graduated students, which currently confers leave for either two years or three years, will be shortened to 18 months. 
• Yet further restrictions are going to be put on care workers. 
• It will be easier for the Home Office to remove migrants from the UK who have committed criminal offences.
• The Government intends to tinker with the operation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to respect for private and family life) in such a way that judges in the UK are more constrained in their decision-maker than they are at present and it will be easier for the Home Office to remove/deport those overseas nationals that it wants to.
• And there will be a new digital ID scheme, which is supposed to make it easier for the Home Office to keep track of migrants.

We would observe that some of these proposed measures run a lot deeper than others. Some of the changes can be made very easily by tweaking the UK immigration rules but others would require an Act of Parliament and the creation of new bodies and structures. 

And the proposals about Article 8 look very controversial indeed. It is the sort of thing that right-wing Conservative politicians and others have been talking about for years but it never happened. And here again the Kier Starmer/politics syndrome raises its head. He is, we understand, a lawyer, and famously supportive of “international law”. But Article 8 is part of international law. So how is this going to work, we wonder?

Well, it is early days yet and we will have to see how it goes. But the Government has certainly given the impression that it is now going on the offensive in the immigration field. 

Oliver Westmoreland

Senior Immigration Lawyer