‘Better safe and legal routes needed alongside enforcement against smugglers’

Improving safe and legal routes for refugees to come to the UK is work the Government should be undertaking alongside its efforts to tackle smuggling gangs, a report has said.

Strengthened family reunion and resettlement schemes and a pilot humanitarian visa scheme for people coming from Sudan and Eritrea are among the recommendations from the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Refugees.

The group also called on the UK Government to commit to resettling at least 5,000 refugees annually, saying a 2019 pledge under the previous Conservative government to help the most vulnerable had never been met.

‘Silver bullet’

APPG co-chairs Lord Alf Dubs and Labour MP Laura Kyrke Smith acknowledged that while safe and legal routes “are not a silver bullet”, these should be “combined with the current Government’s enforcement measures and efforts to increase our SAR (search and rescue) capabilities”.

They said: “The current processes are overly complex, restrictive, and slow, causing, among many other things, prolonged separation of families at a time when they most need to be together.”

As part of its call to improve refugee family reunion processes, the APPG said immigration rules should be amended to allow refugee children in the UK to sponsor their close family to join them.

The report highlighted a “stark difference” in the tens of thousands who came to the UK under the Ukraine schemes in the wake of the war compared with much smaller numbers under the Afghan schemes following the Taliban takeover and said there has been a “scattergun approach to safe and legal routes” by governments in recent years.

The APPG said: “Anyone facing persecution or war and wanting to seek asylum in the UK who is not from one of the countries with nationality-specific schemes has very limited ways to get here.”

Deal

The report comes less than a week after the Government introduced the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to Parliament, proposing a raft of new offences and counter-terror powers aimed at helping to stop the smuggling of migrants across the Channel.

Under the Bill, the Safety of Rwanda Act will be scrapped to formally ditch the multimillion-pound deal to send migrants to the east African state, while parts of the Illegal Migration Act will also be repealed.

Ministers will keep some measures from the law for operational reasons, including a cap on the number of people arriving under safe and legal routes, and time periods migrants can be detained.

Ms Kyrke Smith said: “The Government is rightly moving quickly to secure our borders and strengthen the asylum system, putting an end to ineffective and inhumane gimmicks like the Rwanda plan.

“This report proposes complementary measures to enable refugees fleeing conflict and persecution to enter the UK in a safe and legal way, while maintaining control of our borders.

“Building on international best practice, the report’s proposals include strengthened family reunion and resettlement schemes, which could further reduce dangerous crossings and protect those who deserve our compassion.”

Pathways

Lord Dubs, who fled to Britain as a child on the Kindertransport scheme during the Second World War, said: “Safe routes save lives.

“This report makes it clear that, alongside enforcement measures, the Government must prioritise creating pathways that give people a safe and legal way to reach the UK.”

Bishop of Chelmsford Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, a member of the APPG on Refugees and who was a teenager when her family fled to the UK in the wake of the Iranian revolution in 1980, said the report was “very significant in highlighting discrepancies and issues of concern in the current refugee system”.

She added: “I welcome this report and believe its recommendations provide an opportunity for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the current asylum processes and I very much look forward to its publication.”

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.