Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 25
Fourth Report - Equality and the UK asylum process
Published 27 Jun 2023
Paragraph 154
Addressed to Government Equalities Office
Women and Equalities Committee Equality and the UK asylum process All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Home Office must publish an updated equality impact assessment of the Nationality and Borders Act’s asylum provisions within three months. Alongside this assessment it should publish a mitigation plan to prevent discriminatory effects of the Act’s asylum provisions on people with vulnerabilities arising from protected characteristics, including women with disclosed histories of sexual and gender-based violence and other forms of abuse, people with physical and mental disabilities, children and families, and LGBT people. It should seek the advice of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to ensure the equality impact assessment and mitigation plan follow best practice and fully comply with the Equality Act’s Public Sector Equality Duty.
From: Women and Equalities Committee, Fourth Report - Equality and the UK asylum process (HC 93), paragraph 154, 27 June 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 September 2023 (deadline 27 August 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response sets out its position recommendation by recommendation, accepting few of the Committee's calls for change and relying on existing policy, safeguards and reviews.
- On the Country Policy and Information Team, it considers that CPIT "can maintain and update high quality CPINs in a timely manner" and that "a discrete review of its performance is not necessary".
- On the 2019-20 internal review of sexual orientation and gender identity claims, it states: "we will not be publishing the main findings of the internal review".
- On asylum support, it does not consider that aligning payments with a proportion of Universal Credit "is appropriate". It reports an interim rise from £45 to £47.39 per week from 17 July, and says this year's review "is due to conclude later this year".
- On legal aid, it does "not accept the Committee's suggestion that there is insufficient access to legal advice and representation". It says the Ministry of Justice is undertaking a Review of Civil Legal Aid that will consider immigration.