6th Report - The work of the Immigration Directorates (Q3 2015)

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The government's response notes the Committee's concerns and sets out current and planned measures on asylum capacity, accommodation, refugee resettlement, detention and enforcement, while disputing the Committee's framing of a backlog and of absolute exclusions from detention.

• On asylum capacity, the government "will carry on providing resources" for processing claims and "keep the position under review" so that processing times are kept within service standards "as far as possible".
• On accommodation, it welcomes the repainting of doors in Middlesbrough and the end of wristbands in Cardiff, and says an audit found "no deliberate red door policy". It is establishing an Advisory Board to discuss accommodation issues with stakeholders.
• On detention, it says decisions "have never been predicated on absolute exclusions of any particular group". It points to the Immigration Act 2016 time limit on detaining pregnant women (seventy-two hours, extendable to up to a week with Ministerial authorisation), and intends to ask Stephen Shaw to undertake a follow-up review of implementation next year.
• On backlogs, it says the number of cases in the system "does not necessarily constitute a backlog" and that the Migration Refusal Pool "is not a casework backlog".

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error