Post-Brexit Failures Broke The Asylum System, Say MPs

The government broke Britain’s asylum system itself with postBrexit failures and creaking Home Offie systems, and cannot blame rising English Channel crossings, MPs have found.

- Lizzie Dearden

Parliament’s home affairs committee said ministers must stop trying to find “magical solutions” such as the Rwanda deal, and fix internal problems rather than seeking “eye-catching headlines”. Its report, released days after the home secretary Priti Patel dropped out of an evidence session, said that poor resourcing for staff and technology had been a “significant factor” in the collapse of the system, causing decision making to slow as asylum claims rose.

A record 110,000 asylum seekers are awaiting initial decisions on their claims, and the government has a legal duty to house those facing destitution during the average 14 months each one takes. An agreement allowing asylum seekers to be sent back to EU countries they travelled through was lost during Brexit and the government has “entirely failed” to replace it, the report said.

It said the necessary cooperation with France on Channel crossings had been made “very political post-Brexit”, and that the UK needed to cooperate with European countries rather than seeking a “magical single solution to dealing with irregular migration”.