Amnesty International UK - Principles Behind Contemporary UK Asylum and Refugee Policy (Briefing)

This breifing is for the House of Lords Debate on 09 December 2022, titled 'Principles Behind Contemporary UK Asylum and Refugee Policy'

Amnesty International welcomes this important debate. It provides a vital opportunity to reflect upon the impact of Government asylum policy.

In this short briefing, we do not again attempt to unpick the various iterations of the Government’s baleful asylum policy – the various ways in which it violates international human rights and asylum law, and the specific harms it does to the UK’s legal system, the nation’s self-respect and bank balance, and the lives and wellbeing of the relatively few people who seek asylum in this country. There is too much and it is all too urgent to again focus on that detail when the political disaster of refusing to understand or respect evidence, fact and law is so pervasive and entrenched within this policy.

No good has come from this policy. No good can come from this policy.

And if those responsible for it do not urgently dismantle it and redirect the asylum system to meeting the UK’s international duties by fairly and efficiently determining the asylum claims of all regardless of how they may arrive, it will only get ever harder and more costly to repair the damage being done. We strongly encourage the creation of real and accessible safe routes by which people, especially people with family and other connection here, can seek asylum in the UK.

But more even than this, we demand respect for international human rights and asylum law in the case of every person who exercises their right to seek asylum in this country.