Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 35
Fourth Report - Equality and the UK asylum process
Published 27 Jun 2023
Paragraph 218
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 online visa application processes for the Ukrainian humanitarian protection pathways are a barrier to access for several groups of people with protected characteristics. These include older and younger people, Roma and other ethnic minority groups, and disabled people. We appreciate that the schemes were designed at pace and that barriers to access may have been unavoidable in the early stages. However, more than a year later we expect action to have been taken to improve access to visa applications for those previously excluded. The Government should 78 Equality and the UK asylum process set out in response to this Report the actions it has taken or plans to take to address these barriers. In relation to disabled people’s access to the scheme and suitable accommodation, we recommend the Government expand across the UK the enhanced support previously available via the Scottish and Welsh governments’ “super-sponsor” schemes.
From: Women and Equalities Committee, Fourth Report - Equality and the UK asylum process (HC 93), paragraph 218, 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.