The latest Immigration Bill is both punitive and unworkable. Nadine Finch dissects the proposed legislation.

Both the Blair Labour governments and the current one have introduced legislation, which seriously impacts on certain sections of the working class. Their strategy was, and continues to be, that they could encourage and maintain support from those in work, in the working and middle classes, only if they assured them that they were more valuable and deserved more support than migrants and asylum seekers and those with disabilities and on benefits.  This is no more than a divide and rule approach inherited from the ‘glory’ days of the British empire and reminiscent of Victorian ‘deserving poor policies.

Since this Labour Government came to power two years ago, it has published a paper on Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy and a White Paper entitled Restoring Order and Control over the immigration system. It has also used its executive powers to amend a significant number of Immigration Rules. The operative word is control and many of these changes have limited immigration essential to run the NHS and agricultural, construction and hospitality sectors, to name but a few. (This is confirmed in part by the Temporary Shortage List, published by its own Migration Advisory Board on 23rd July 2026.)

There is little or no positive dialogue between government departments or ministers. Research, that indicates that migrant communities contribute more to the national economy than they take from it, is ignored – as is the fact that young people, from these communities, value education and apprenticeships and are vital to the future economy of Britain. Professional and skilled workers from many parts of the world now feel unwelcome here and are taking their skills to the BRIC countries, to Canada and to Australia.

“Performative cruelty”

The Government’s attitude to migrants, whether they are asylum seekers, students or workers, is now “performative cruelty”, to quote Lord Dubs; himself a child refugee in the 1930s. It is designed to show that the government can repel children and adults from British shores, despite them being driven to board small boats to escape persecution and exploitation, and deny them the support that they are entitled to under international law. The new Immigration and Asylum Bill also seems to be designed to show that asylum seekers and migrants are a sub-class without entitlement to support and housing of even a minimum standard, access to a court where they can appeal an asylum or immigration decision or a right to equal treatment under the European Convention on Human Rights.  

This is likely to have both economic and social consequences for Britain.  The vote on the Second Reading of the current Immigration and Asylum Bill on 13th July 2026 is instructive. Of those MPs who voted, 264 voted for and 90 against. But the detail behind the votes exposes the growing divide in relation to the authoritarian agenda being followed by this government. Five Greens, five independents, 14 Labour, 49 Lib Dems, four Plaid Cymru, seven SNP and two Your Party MPs voted against the bill and 121 Labour, 20 Lib Dem, eight independents and two SDLP MPs abstained on it.  

Andy Burnham’s ‘new’ government needs to take into account that three of the four component nations of the ‘United Kingdom’ are now led by ‘nationalists’ who have their own histories of forced migration. He also needs to note that a significant number of both Labour and Lib Dem MPs were not prepared to support the Bill. A number of them represent voters, who are themselves first or second-generation migrants; as are many in his own lauded Manchester. Who does he ultimately stand with? Reform UK and the right or those who respect equality and diversity?

The Immigration and Asylum bill will now proceed to a Public Bill Committee, whose proceedings will conclude by 3rd November 2026.  It’s a very short period of time, once the summer and conference recesses have been taken into account.

Part One of the Bill will replace the First-tier Tribunal of the Immigration and Appeal Tribunal, which is made up of qualified and experienced judges. It will be replaced by a new so-called Independent Immigration Appeals Authority staffed by “members of the public”. They do not have to be legally trained and will be referred to as adjudicators. The Government is blaming the First-tier Tribunal for the very large backlog of appeals. This is despite the fact that much of this backlog can be traced back to the Immigration Service halting decision making, while it tried unsuccessfully to defend its policy of merely exporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.

The problem is not the judiciary

The Immigration Service also has a long history of dysfunction with employees being moved to tackle crisis after crisis, sometimes, addressing the settlement rights of EU citizens, at other points, considering asylum applications from nationals from Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq, which were ultimately bound to succeed. This has demoralised and deskilled staff to the point that in the year to March 2026, more than one third of Home Office decisions were withdrawn before they could be heard on appeal by the First-tier Tribunal. Overall, 64% of decisions were overturned on appeal to the Tribunal or after reconsideration by the Immigration Service itself.  The weak point in the end-to-end determination process is the Immigration Service, not the judiciary.

Calling the new authority independent is also far from accurate. Clause 1(5)(c) of the Bill states that it will “operate as a key part of the immigration and asylum system”. The Home Secretary will appoint its Chair, Professional Standards Officer, Chief Executive and its first Chief Appeals Officer. In turn, the Independent Immigration Appeals Authority (IIAA) adjudicators will be appointed by the Chief Executive.  The adjudicators will not be subject to independent regulation by a body outside the IIAA. Its categorisation of IIAA members, as executive or non-executive, is more characteristic of a company than a public service.

Immigration and asylum law itself consists of a significant number of pieces of legislation, extremely complex legal and procedural rules, international and public law and a raft of pieces of national and international case law. The ability of a lay person to apply this complex law to the varied evidential situations of refugees is highly doubtful. Many lawyers believe that the IIAA will be a very expensive failure which will only serve to lengthen the delay in deciding claims and will lead to people being sent back to torture, exploitation and even death.

The government compares the IIAA to the Danish system. But, in Denmark, appeals go to the Danish Refugee Appeals Board, which is made up of a judge drawn from its civil courts, a lawyer nominated by the Danish Bar Association or Law Society and a civil servant from the Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs. The latter is likely to be legally trained with knowledge of foreign laws. Some years ago, Denmark experimented with having a small number of lay appeal members on its Boards but found that they did not have the necessary expertise or the ability to set aside their conscious and unconscious bias.

New financial charges

If an asylum seeker is able to successfully navigate the new system and obtain asylum, the Bill also will provide the Home Office with a new power to charge refugees for the cost of accommodation and support provided to them, as asylum seekers. These charges have been compared to student loans. It’s probably not a useful comparison given the ever-increasing debts faced by former students. But this comparison is not appropriate in a world where refugees can expect to have to remain here for up to 20 years before they obtain indefinite leave to remain. During that time, they will have to pay an NHS surcharge of £1,035 every year and an application fee of £1,000, or more, every 30 months, when they renew their temporary refugee status. In addition, they may need to pay for legal advice to navigate the ever-increasing complexity of Home Office systems. At the same time, if they claim benefits, fail to pay tax or fail to re-apply for their refugee status, obtaining indefinite leave to remain will become a distant dream.

Prior to 1999, asylum seekers were supported through the welfare benefit and social services systems within local communities. Since then, a privatised system to accommodate and support them has grown and its bureaucracy has expanded expeditiously and with it the cost of these services to the government. Private firms have made millions from housing asylum seekers in hard to let properties, hotels, barges and disused military facilities. Over the years the standard of accommodation has deteriorated and the outcry by the right at providing any accommodation has increased.  This outcry is not connected to the quality of the accommodation but to the fact that the properties now used are not within communities but are clearly visible in the form of large hotels and barracks. This policy has failed economically, socially and politically.

Immigration is now a numbers game played ever more ruthlessly by the Government. For example, if the numbers arriving by one route are too high, the route is closed. In the last two years, numbers have decreased for global reasons but have also been reduced by denying the right of asylum seekers and many migrants to bring their families with them. The right to family life has always been seen by the Immigration Service as a Trojan Horse employed by migrants to evade immigration controls. But up until now, the judiciary hearing asylum and migration appeals have been under a duty to apply the right to family and private life contained in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Undermining the ECHR

In the last two years, the UK has worked with some other states in the Council of Europe to provide advice to members of the judiciary applying the ECHR without actually amending it. They justified this as a rational response to the wave of anti-migrant sentiments across constituent countries. This culminated in a political declaration by the foreign ministers of its component states on 15th May 2026. This is entitled the Chisinau Declaration. It clarifies the context in with the ECHR should be applied and in which judges should operate. This was based on its view that many states in the Council of Europe face a significant and complex migration-related challenge, which has weakened public confidence in its governments. It confirmed that in wider international law, states have a sovereign right to control the entry and residence of foreign nationals in its territory. It also stressed that states had an obvious and necessary right to protect their borders.

It is in this context, that Part 2 of the Bill introduces a significant number of reductions in entitlements to rely on Article 8 in immigration and asylum applications and appeals. The very concept of a family life is reduced to that within a core cohabiting family of parents, partners and minor children. Furthermore, public interest considerations will include whether the family will be able to accommodate and support itself without being reliant on public services now or in the long term. It will also become very difficult to oppose deportation on family life grounds in all but cases where the outcome would be disproportionate. The new considerations will apply even if a person has been resident here for most of their life, is socially and culturally integrated and there would be very significant obstacles to their integration abroad. The language used in these new tests is lifted from cases where the judiciary has previously allowed appeals against deportation on Article 8 grounds.

It is also noteworthy that the Impact Assessment published by the Home Office in relation to the Bill states that for four of the five major areas addressed by it, the outcome of the proposed measures is at best uncertain. There has been no research into the outcomes and no attempt to run any pilot projects.

The Bill also contains measures that will further degrade protection that can be provided to victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. This will be the subject of a further article.

Nadine Finch is a former Upper Tribunal Immigration Judge.

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