Reacting to the Government’s response to the consultation on the New Plan for Immigration, Steve Valdez-Symonds, Refugee and Migrant Rights Director at Amnesty International UK, said:

“Today’s belated Home Office response to the consultation on its so-called New Plan for Immigration is shocking not only for its timing.

“It’s abundantly clear that thousands of people and organisations overwhelmingly reject the plan and yet the Home Secretary has rushed ahead regardless with her Nationality and Borders Bill to enact the proposals. 

“Clearly, ministers were only ever interested in a consultation if it might provide some support for their ill-considered, unevidenced and deeply damaging plans. They did not get that.

“The Government should now abandon measures to destroy our asylum system and put officials to work on developing constructive policies to improve the system and guarantee the rights of all people subject to Home Office powers.”