Fourth Report - Equality and the UK asylum process

The asylum system is undergoing substantial reform, in part due to the Home Office’s inability to process the volume of asylum claims it receives effectively and expeditiously. The Government is now seeking to reduce the ability of people to claim asylum in the UK despite recent figures showing the majority of those seeking to do so will have a genuine claim and would, in all likelihood, meet the criteria to be accepted. As this Report will set out, people with vulnerabilities arising from Equality Act protected characteristics are particularly affected. This cohort is experiencing unnecessary risks under the Home Office’s current management of the asylum process, and recent and proposed changes to the system may lead to those risks increasing. (Paragraph 32) Equality data on decisions and final outcomes

It is not currently possible from published official data to monitor outcomes in the asylum process for groups of people with vulnerabilities arising from Equality Act protected characteristics. Experimental statistics on sexual orientation-based claims are a good start and we welcome the Home Office’s intention to increase its collection of data on protected characteristics and UN Convention protection grounds. Data collection and transparency is the vital first step needed to ensure that inequalities in the process can be identified and addressed. We recommend the Home Office collect and publish data in relation to claims, initial decisions, appeals and final outcomes disaggregated by: UN Convention ground; whether the claim included sexual and gender-based violence and other abuse; and the protected characteristics of claimants. (Paragraph 40) Asylum decision-making

The Home Office’s heavy reliance on a single substantive asylum interview disadvantages women with histories of sexual and gender-based violence and abuse. These women will invariably be experiencing the effects of trauma and related mental health issues, with potential effects on memory and their ability to provide a cogent, chronological narrative of what has happened to them. This can unfairly harm their claim. We recommend the Home Office establish a specially trained team to determine the claims of women with histories of sexual and gender-based violence and abuse. It should not rely on a single substantive interview to determine such claims. Women should be afforded sufficient time and space to recount distressing and traumatic experiences in a safe and supportive environment. They should be supported in all aspects of the process by an independent specialist advocate.

The Home Office document, ‘Gender issues in the asylum claim’, includes very welcome guidance on gender sensitive asylum interview practice, including on meeting claimants’ requests for female interviewers, providing childcare where necessary and allowing female claimants to have a friend or other companion present to provide emotional or medical support. It is regrettable that awareness of 72 Equality and the UK asylum process these policies among asylum-seeking women appears to be low and that requests, when made, often go unmet. It is crucial that all asylum-seeking women are aware of the opportunity to make gender sensitive interview requests, and that such requests are met. We recommend that the Home Office immediately carries out, and publishes within three months, a review of the implementation of its gender sensitive interview guidance, including requests for female interviewers and interpreters, provision of childcare, and presence at substantive interviews of emotional and medical support companions. Alongside this review, it should publish an action plan to ensure all female asylum claimants are aware of these policies and requests made in accordance with the guidance are met.

The Home Office should demonstrate it is taking effective steps to mitigate the risk of unequal effects in the asylum process. There is a range of distinct difficulties faced by people claiming asylum on grounds of sexual orientation or gender-identity. These claims are difficult to evidence, legally complex and difficult to determine accurately. They are not determined consistently well, leading to expensive appeals and overturned decisions. We were disappointed that the Minister was unable to set out in any detail the steps the Department has taken since the internal review it conducted in 2019–20 to improve the accuracy of its initial decision-making in such cases. In response to this Report the Home Office should set out the main findings of the 2019–20 review and the steps it has taken to improve decision-making in cases involving sexual orientation and gender identity-based claims.

We share expert witnesses’ concerns about the performance of the Home Office Country Policy and Information Team and the accuracy and timeliness of Country Policy and Information Notes (CPINs). We heard several examples of outdated or otherwise inaccurate CPINs leading to poor initial decisions and flawed legal arguments being made, particularly in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity-based claims.

We recommend the Home Office conduct a review of the performance of the Country Policy Information Team, including its ability to maintain and update high quality CPINs in a timely manner. We further recommend the Home Office introduce a new programme of training for asylum decision-makers and presenting officers on correctly using and interpreting CPINs in the claim determination process.

Biased or prejudiced interpreters can adversely affect a person’s asylum claim, particularly in cases where claims are based on sexual orientation or gender identity and religion or renunciation of religious belief. No interpreter contracted by the Home Office should be able to influence the determination of any claim, particularly where this is motivated by their own beliefs, prejudices or stereotyping.

We recommend the Home Office establish a programme of religious impartiality and LGBT sensitivity training for all language interpreters on its approved list. We further recommend the Department review and enhance its training of asylum interviewers on avoiding application of stereotypes to asylum claimants in sexual orientation and gender identity-based claims. (Paragraph 75) Equality and the UK asylum process 73

There is a lack of access to expert legal representation for people claiming asylum in the UK. This is particularly problematic in relation to complex claims, often involving sexual orientation or gender identity, religious belief or renunciation of belief, and sexual and gender-based violence and abuse. There is evidence that lack of legal representation during the initial claim determination phase leads to poor initial decisions and unnecessary and expensive appeals later in the process. We agree with expert witnesses that an overhaul of legal aid for these types of complex asylum cases is needed.

We recommend the Government increases funding for asylum legal aid to ensure specialist support is available for claimants across the UK during the initial determination process, particularly for sexual orientation and gender identity, sexual and gender-based violence and abuse, and religious belief and apostasy-based claims.

In order to fulfil the Prime Minister’s pledge to clear a substantial part of the backlog of asylum cases this year, the Home Office will need many more highly-trained decision-makers making initial decisions faster. Data on decision-making rates and appeal outcomes show initial decisions are far too slow and too often wrong. Evidence also shows delays in the Home Office engaging with the Tribunals and actioning its decisions.

The Home Office must establish a new programme of training for Home Office decision- makers and presenting officers particularly on matters concerning gender, sexual orientation and gender identity-based asylum claims. Training should be delivered by independent expert stakeholders, drawing on lived experiences of refugees. The Home Office must also improve the timeliness of its actions once notice of an appeal has been served and when an outcome is known. It is simply unacceptable, as well as unnecessarily costly for the taxpayer, for successful appellants to then have to wait months for their leave to be granted. (Paragraph 94) Asylum support

£40 per week was clearly inadequate to meet the essential living needs of people seeking asylum in the UK. Women, including those with children, face particular difficulties and near-impossible choices about how to provide for themselves and their families. It is unsurprising that the High Court ordered an immediate increase to £45—the “minimum legal action required” for the Home Secretary to meet her legal duty. It is clear that a long-term solution is required after many years of below inflation increases to asylum support have left people facing severe poverty. We believe the simplest, fairest and most sustainable solution is to link the rate of asylum support to that of the main annually uprated mainstream social security benefit. In the context of the asylum system, this would also be relatively inexpensive, at a likely initial annual cost in the low tens of millions of pounds.

We recommend the Government set the weekly asylum support payments at 70% of the standard over 25s rate of Universal Credit. The Government should also consider increasing the payment for women to address specifically concerns regarding period poverty. (Paragraph 111) 74 Equality and the UK asylum process

Substandard conditions in asylum accommodation are unacceptable. No one should have to endure unsanitary conditions, particularly people who are vulnerable. The slow claim determination process means people can be stuck in poor accommodation for excessive periods leading to and exacerbating adverse effects on people’s physical and mental health. Concerns over the standard of asylum accommodation have been raised repeatedly over many years. It is disappointing that the latest round of contracts to provide such accommodation appear to have yielded little improvement. It is also concerning that the Government is now planning to exempt those properties from basic safety requirements.

The Home Office must do more to ensure contracted providers of asylum accommodation provide accommodation of a decent, safe standard and hold contractors to account with financial penalties when they fail to do so. The Home Office should enhance its resources for inspection and contract management and give particular regard to the experiences of pregnant women and those with young children.

We were disturbed to hear reports of serious safeguarding issues, including LGBT hate crime and violence against women, occurring in all types of asylum accommodation. Despite the asylum support contracts safeguarding framework, published in May 2022, many settings appear to lack effective complaints and safeguarding mechanisms. It is unacceptable that reported issues are routinely ignored.

The Home Office should conduct an urgent review of safeguarding policies and practices across all asylum support contracts, to ensure the asylum support contracts safeguarding framework is being consistently and effectively implemented in all settings. It should publish its review and an action plan within three months. We further recommend the Home Office increase contracted provision of female-only and family-only accommodation, and dedicated safe asylum accommodation for LGBT people.

Accommodation of asylum seekers with a range of vulnerabilities arising from protected characteristics, including single women, mothers, children and LGBT people, in crowded hotel and other contingency accommodation, including the recently acquired accommodation barges, is unacceptable from both safeguarding and equalities perspectives. Despite the asylum support contracts safeguarding framework, we heard evidence of clear safeguarding risks and people living in fear, often for many months. While the practice of accommodating asylum seekers in hotels and other forms of contingency accommodation persists, there must be effective policies and practices in place to protect vulnerable adults and children from harm.

As part of the safeguarding review and action plan recommended above, the Home Office must publish a robust safeguarding policy in relation to the use of hotels and other facilities as contingency accommodation. This should include a requirement for a needs-based risk assessment to be carried out before any women, families, children, or LGBT people at risk of hate crime are housed in hotels and other types of contingency accommodation alongside single men. (Paragraph 134) Equality and the UK asylum process 75

The Home Office is too often failing to comply with guidance on moving pregnant women and new mothers between asylum accommodation settings. The guidance is clear that such moves are potentially harmful and should only be made where advice on safety has first been sought from a clinician and acted on. We heard that the health of mothers and babies has been put at risk, with moves taking place within days of women’s due dates and shortly after births. This is dangerous and unacceptable. There is a lack of data on pregnant women in the system by which to monitor the Home Office’s compliance with its own guidance.

The Home Office must stop moving pregnant women and new mothers between asylum accommodation settings unless clinical advice has been sought and acted on, the mother has consented to a move, and it is in the mother’s and baby’s best interests. The Home Office must collect and publish data on the number of pregnant asylum-seeking women and new mothers in the asylum system, the category of accommodation in which they are living, the number of times they are moved, and in which trimester, and whether on each occasion clinical advice was sought and acted on. (Paragraph 140) Nationality and Borders Act 2022

We agree with legal and policy experts that the Government’s equality impact assessment of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022’s asylum provisions is inadequate. There are clear risks, acknowledged by the Government, of unequal effects on asylum claimants with vulnerabilities related to Equality Act protected characteristics. These include women and girls with histories of sexual and gender- based violence and abuse; LGBT people who have complex sexual orientation and gender-based claims; and disabled people. Without effective mitigations, these groups are likely to be disadvantaged by the new procedures. It is unacceptable that the Home Office remains unable to set out a clear plan to monitor and mitigate unequal effects.

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. (Paragraph 154) Detention

The prolonged detention with no certainty of release of asylum-seeking people who pose no threat to the public and for whom there is little prospect of removal from the UK is potentially harmful, impractical and costly. We are deeply concerned that current and planned reforms in the Nationality and Borders Act and Illegal Migration Bill risk turning back the clock on policies intended to ensure detention 76 Equality and the UK asylum process is used only as a last resort, and to reduce the risks of harm to vulnerable people. We recommend the Government set out in response to this Report its planned approach to mitigating risks of harm to vulnerable adults in detention under Nationality and Borders Act and Illegal Migration Bill provisions, including whether it remains committed to the Adults at Risk in detention policy established after the Shaw reviews in 2016 and 2018. The Government has not yet set out its planned approach to the detention of children under Illegal Migration Bill provisions. We strongly believe the Government should abandon any intention of detaining asylum-seeking children under those provisions.

Monitoring and mitigating adverse effects of detention on groups of asylum seekers with vulnerabilities arising from Equality Act protected characteristics requires much improved data. The Government should collect and publish data on the protected characteristics of detained asylum seekers, including where they are detained and for how long.

We welcome the Government’s announcement that all Detained Duty Advice Scheme appointments in immigration detention, including Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), will now be delivered face-to-face. However, the Government must address further potential barriers to accessing legal advice in Derwentside IRC. It must ensure that information in foreign languages about how to access legal advice is more readily available and displayed on posters throughout Derwentside IRC and the wider immigration removal estate. The Government must also take steps to improve mobile phone reception in Derwentside IRC and set out in response to this Report the steps it has taken to do so. (Paragraph 175) UK/Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership

We are deeply concerned that the Home Office’s case-by-case risk assessments prior to issuing notices of intent to remove potentially inadmissible asylum claimants to Rwanda appear to be inadequate. There is evidence that a significant number of vulnerable people, to whom the removal process would very likely be harmful, have received such notices. The Home Office should suspend all notices of intent and review its initial screening procedures. No new notices of intent should be issued until the legal challenges to the policy are complete. Should removals to Rwanda be operationalised, we believe thorough vulnerability assessments should be undertaken prior to issuing notices of intent, to avoid the risk of harm to individuals.

We believe the risks of harm to children arising from the removal process outweigh any risks of damaging the intended deterrent effect of the Rwanda policy. The Government should abandon any intention of forcibly removing children to Rwanda.

Should removals to Rwanda be operationalised after the legal challenges are complete, the Government must record and publish full equality data, disaggregated by Equality Act protected characteristics, of people issued with a notice of intent; people issued with a notice of removal; and those removed to Rwanda. It should also collect and publish equality data disaggregated by protected characteristics of those who challenge in the courts a decision to remove them, and the outcomes of those legal challenges. Equality and the UK asylum process 77 The Government should also set out how it intends to monitor and ensure that those removed to Rwanda do not suffer harm or experience discrimination in that country. (Paragraph 186) Best practice in resettlement and humanitarian visa pathways

The Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) provides a recent good practice example of an effective resettlement scheme, which was successfully scaled up in response to a migrant crisis. The scheme was adequately and predictably funded with a clear target for the number of refugees to be resettled, providing local authorities with the certainty they needed to plan and take part with confidence. The VPRS included a clear package of integration support, with improvements made to housing and employment support over time. The Government should replicate the VPRS approach in the UK Resettlement Scheme and in response to future migrant crises.

In contrast to the generally positive experiences of many Syrians who came to the UK via the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, many Afghan refugees’ experiences of resettlement have been fraught with difficulty. While some of the early issues were a consequence of the unplanned nature, and sheer scale, of the evacuation of Kabul, the Government has been too slow to respond to meet the needs of Afghan refugees, particularly those with vulnerabilities related to protected characteristics. It is deeply concerning that only 22 vulnerable refugees identified by the UNHCR in pathway 2 of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme had been resettled in the UK by the end of 2022, some 16 months after control of Afghanistan was ceded to the Taliban. Pathway 2 is currently the only viable route to safety in the UK for many women and girls and ethnic and religious minorities at extreme risk of persecution and violence. The Government must set out its plans for pathway 2 as a matter of urgency, including a clear and manageable target for the number of arrivals over the coming years. It should do so in response to this Report.

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.

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.

We heard worrying evidence of safeguarding risks to vulnerable adults and children where UK sponsors and Ukrainians in the Homes for Ukraine scheme have self- matched via the internet and social media. We welcome safeguarding guidance to local authorities published earlier this year, but it is regrettable that it was not published sooner. It is not clear the extent to which safeguarding concerns in relation to self-matching of UK sponsors and Ukrainians in the Homes for Ukraine scheme have arisen and what action, if any, has been taken to address them. The Government should set out in response to this Report the steps it has taken to monitor and mitigate safeguarding concerns within the Ukrainian schemes. It should carry out a review of safeguarding in the schemes within three months, to ensure that lessons are learnt and any failings not repeated. (Paragraph 221) Equality and the UK asylum process 79