Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 34
Fourth Report - Equality and the UK asylum process
Published 27 Jun 2023
Paragraph 211
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)
Accommodation of Afghan refugees in bridging hotels for many months has been deeply problematic, with serious safeguarding issues for people with vulnerabilities arising from protected characteristics, including women and children enduring crowded conditions alongside single men. For many, integration and employment support has been entirely lacking. The lessons of the Afghan resettlement programme must be learnt so that mistakes are not repeated in future migrant crises. The Government should commission, and publish within six months, an independent review and equality impact assessment of its approach to the resettlement of people from Afghanistan, including the funding model, use of hotels as bridging accommodation, and the integration support package.
From: Women and Equalities Committee, Fourth Report - Equality and the UK asylum process (HC 93), paragraph 211, 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.