Conservative conference: Priti Patel sparks alarm with promise to overhaul ‘broken’ asylum system

Home secretary promises ‘immediate’ return of people arriving illegally in UK

Priti Patel is to brand the UK’s asylum system “broken” and promise the biggest overhaul in decades in a speech to Conservative conference, sparking alarm among refugee charities and immigration lawyers.

Speaking to the online conference on Sunday, Ms Patel will promise to take “every necessary step to fix this broken system” and deliver a “firm and fair” alternative.

Although details of her plans are sketchy, the home secretary is expected to promise to put a halt to illegal migrants making “endless” claims to remain in the UK.

And she will pledge to make more immediate returns of people who arrive in the UK with no valid claim for protection and to use the “full force” of intelligence and crime agencies to hunt down smuggling gangs such as those assisting Channel crossings in small boats.

Immigration barrister Alasdair Mackenzie of Doughty Street Chambers said Ms Patel’s comments were “worrying”, telling The Independent: “If you rush to make decisions about people, inevitably you are going to get things wrong. That’s what Windrush showed.”

Ms Patel’s speech comes after a week of controversy over plans floated within government to deter migrants by housing them in camps on disused oil rigs, ferries, on islands off the coast of Scotland or far-flung locations like Ascension Island, Papua New Guinea or Morocco.

Illegal migration has been thrust to the top of the agenda at this weekend’s Tory conference by the record 7,000-plus people believed to have attempted the Channel crossing in small boats this year, driven in part by the increasing difficulty of smuggling themselves on board lorries.

But UN High Commission on Refugees representative Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor last week told MPs that numbers were far lower than in other countries, and the issue was “far from being a crisis” for the UK.

Drawing on the history of the admission granted to Ugandan Asians like her parents in the 1970s, refugees of the Syrian War and democracy campaigners from Hong Kong, Ms Patel will say that Britain “has and always will provide sanctuary when the lights are being switched off on people's liberties”.

“A fair asylum system should provide safe haven to those fleeing persecution, oppression or tyranny,” she will say. “But ours doesn’t. Because our asylum system is fundamentally broken. And we have a responsibility to act. 

“Right now, the most vulnerable are stuck in this broken system, with over 40,000 other people. Almost half of these claims take a year or more to reach a decision, costing UK taxpayers over £1bn each year - the highest amount in almost two decades.”

Ms Patel will say that her new system will be “fair and compassionate towards those who need our help” and welcoming to those arriving by safe and legal routes.

But it will also be “firm, because we will stop those who come here illegally making endless legal claims to remain, and firm, because we will expedite the removal of those who have no claim for protection”, she will say.

Accusing successive governments of “decades of inaction” on the issue, Ms Patel will promise legislation to “address the moral, legal, practical problems with this broken system”.

And she will promise to accelerate enforcement action against illegal migration by using the National Crime Agency and intelligence agencies to go after smuggling gangs, and by stepping up the use of immediate return for those coming to the UK illegally. 

Mr Mackenzie said it was true that the asylum system was “broken”, because it caused delays and injustices which cause further trauma to people who arrive in the UK already traumatised by their experiences.

“Lawyers and NGOs have been pressing for years for reform to the system which would mean making sure people got access to proper advice and a fair decision as early as possible,” he said.

“But I wouldn’t accept that it is broken in the way Priti Patel suggests. A majority of people who apply for asylum get it, which suggests that it is not being abused.

“The reason that endless claims happen is because the Home Office don’t get it right first time.”

Labour’s shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds branded Ms Patel “shameless” in her comments about the shortcomings of the asylum system.

“The British people will see through the home secretary’s shameless comments about a ‘broken system’, when the system has been overseen by the Tories for a decade,” he said.

"This is yet more evidence of how lacking in compassion and competence the Tories are."

Stephen Hale, chief executive of charity Refugee Action, said: “After years of hostile and uncompassionate policymaking, it’s a positive step forward that the home secretary has realised what we’ve been trying to tell her: the asylum system is not fair or effective.

“If she wants to make it fair and effective, an immediate priority is to honour her words and commit long term to creating safe and legal routes for refugees to reach the UK. This includes restarting and extending resettlement programmes, which have not helped a single refugee since March.

“And the home secretary is right, the logjam that means some decisions are taking years is having an appalling effect on people and costing the taxpayer a fortune. She could fix these by giving people seeking the asylum the right to work along with quicker decisions and better support for people navigating this complex system.”