The government’s asylum policy doesn’t make sense

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

It is hard to avoid a conclusion that the government’s handling of such claims has been woefully inefficient (PA)

Despite being a (retired) lawyer, I have difficulty understanding how the UK has built up such a backlog of asylum claimants.

The key criterion in deciding whether to grant an application is (according to the government’s own website) whether applicants are at risk of persecution if they return to their own country. The aim should surely be to establish within a week of arrival here what the basis is for that claim. In what I suspect is a minority of cases, there may be a need for our embassy in the applicant’s own country to investigate such a claim.

Despite the numbers arriving, it is not unreasonable to expect all decisions as to whether to grant asylum to be made within three months. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the government’s handling of such claims has been woefully inefficient.

A problem more difficult to resolve than taking the original decision on whether to grant asylum is how to deal with those whose applications have been unsuccessful. Our withdrawal from the EU effectively removed the option of returning those reaching us from France to that country.

Compounding the delay is the government’s policy on what to do with asylum seekers in the period before a decision is taken. The present policy is to hold them in some government-provided accommodation and to forbid them from undertaking any employment while they are in that situation.

Two obvious alternatives would be to allow them to stay with any family or friend already lawfully in the UK and to allow them to work if they can find employment. I have not heard any credible explanation from the government as to why this cannot be done.

David Laverick

York

Compassionate approach

The prime minister has unveiled proposals to target unwanted immigration to the UK which among others require that the modern slavery threshold is based on objective evidence rather than mere suspicion.

Will Rishi Sunak’s plans to raise the slavery threshold be as effective as Theresa May’s go-home vans, Priti Patel’s one-way Rwanda flights and Suella Braverman’s overcrowded migrant processing centres?  Or would a compassionate approach to those seeking refuge achieve much more than any of those?

Bambos Charalambous

Manchester

Strikes aren’t the problem

The number of operations axed as a result of the strikes is nothing.

Compare it to those cancelled as a result of 12 years of Tory underfunding, lack of social care, no workforce planning and throwing money to their party donor friends.

David Felton

Wistaston

Parental responsibility

Kartar Uppal in Letters yesterday suggested that government and schools should be responsible for teaching children to treat water bodies with caution and understand the risks.

Parents have this responsibility. It is not necessary for the state systems to do this and it simply generates the idea that if the state has not told you to do or not to do something, you need not concern yourself with it. The same applies to comments that there should be notices warning of the dangers of ice or similar.

We rightly expect parents to educate their children about life’s risks and what constitutes good behaviour, especially those things that they encounter in everyday life. Yes, there is a place for road safety campaigns and teaching children how to safely ride a bike (or a scooter, etc). But simple things, like do not enter water and do not play on ice unless adults are supervising and have checked it is safe, are common sense.

We all encounter hazards each day and learning how to negotiate them is part of growing up – parents must take the lead on this, and educating ourselves that this is the case is another part of being a responsible citizen.

The Solihull incident is a tragedy – but we do not need to make laws or rules every time a tragedy occurs, especially when we already know enough; it’s about application. And spending public funds where it has the most effect and benefit.

Michael Mann

Shrewsbury