The Illegal Migration Bill will do little to address asylum numbers or costs - Mikhail Korneev

Last month, Home Secretary Suella Braverman MP reiterated the Government's view that the "financial and social costs of uncontrolled and illegal migration are unsustainable". This is an understandable concern. The asylum system costs £3 billion a year and is getting ever more expensive. The housing of irregular migrants is a particularly pressing issue, with the Government spending nearly £6 million a day on hotel accommodation alone, according to the Home Office.
By Mikhail Korneev
Published 1st May 2023, 06:00 BST

The Home Office argues that this financial pressure is one of the reasons why the Government has put forward the Illegal Migration Bill. Under the Bill's provisions, those arriving in the UK irregularly, including on small boats, will not be able to apply for asylum in the UK. The Government's assumption is that these measures will remove the incentive to come into the country irregularly, easing the financial pressures of both the processing and housing of irregular asylum seekers.

There is, however, insufficient evidence to suggest that these steps will reduce the financial costs of the asylum system. This is mainly because, as radical as the Illegal Migration Bill's measures are, there is little proof that a ban of asylum applications from irregular migrants will deter new arrivals. A 2020 report on the drivers of asylum migration released by the Home Office concluded that many asylum seekers "have little to no understanding of current asylum policies". Numerous studies have come to the same conclusion.

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Therefore, even with the new ban on asylum claims in the UK, irregular arrivals are likely to remain high. The Home Office will still need to deal with tens of thousands of irregular asylum seekers every year. At the same time, the Government will have insufficient tools to deport irregular migrants, as the Home Office intends.

Suella Braverman. Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images.Suella Braverman. Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images.
Suella Braverman. Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images.

Most irregular asylum seekers cannot be returned to their countries of origin, as they would be at risk if they were sent home. In recent years, the majority of asylum seekers arriving on small boats came from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Albania and Syria. With the exception of Albania, none of these countries is recognised as 'safe' by the UK. The Home Office will therefore need to find a third safe country that will be ready to provide asylum. At the moment, there is just one such country – Rwanda.

However, according to the most optimistic forecasts, Rwanda will be able to accommodate only thousands of asylum seekers. In fact, in December 2022, the Home Office stated that Rwanda has an initial capacity for just 200 people. This is nowhere close to the 65,000 asylum seekers who are expected to arrive in the UK this year alone.

As a result, the new Illegal Migration Bill provisions will do little to address the problem of thousands of asylum seekers who can neither be removed nor integrated into the UK, as their asylum applications will be automatically deemed 'inadmissible'. In practice, this means that the majority of irregular migrants will remain in the UK indefinitely with no legal status at taxpayer expense. As such, there are significant risks that the Illegal Migration Bill will lead to a comparable, if not greater, increase in governmental costs than the current asylum system.

Mikhail Korneev is a researcher at Bright Blue, which describes itself as an independent think tank for liberal conservatism.

Related topics:Suella BravermanHome OfficeGovernmentRwanda