Minister insists government committed to asylum reforms amid Labour criticism

Communities Secretary Steve Reed has said the government is “absolutely committed” to pushing through major asylum reforms, despite a backlash from some Labour MPs.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced a series of changes, including forcing refugees to wait 20 years for permanent residency and deporting more families who have been rejected for asylum.

Deporting children is controversial for a number of Labour figures, including MP Stella Creasy, who said it is “not the British way”, and peer Lord Dubs, who criticised “using children as a weapon”.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the proposals did not go far enough but suggested her party could offer support to get them through Parliament.

Over the past year, the government has been forced to backtrack on some of its policies – including cuts to welfare and the winter fuel payment – after objections from its own MPs.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Reed said the government was aiming to create a “fair, tolerant and compassionate” asylum system.

Asked about disquiet within his own party, the communities secretary responded: “We are absolutely committed to [the plans]… We can’t go on like this, it is tearing the country apart in many respects.”

Reed highlighted the “perverse incentives” in the current system, which he said were encouraging families to cross the Channel in small boats.

“We know that we have to end this vile trade in human lives,” he said.

“Over the last year, 14 children who were put on those dangerous dinghies and pushed out into the English Channel lost their lives when those boats capsized…

“The current system creates perverse incentives for people to put children on a boat where their life is in danger and we cannot tolerate that.”

On Monday Mahmood told MPs her plans would “restore order and control” to the asylum system.

Under her reforms, refugee status will be temporary and reviewed every 30 months, with refugees returned if their home country becomes safe.

Refugees will need to be resident in the UK for 20 years before they can apply for permanent residence – up from the current five years.

New safe and legal routes will also be set up, with an annual cap on numbers and the right to settle permanently considered after 10 years for those arriving in this way.

The government is also working up plans to remove support from families who have had their asylum claims rejected but have not left the country to encourage them to leave, and is considering forced deportations if they refuse.

Around 20 Labour MPs have publicly criticised the proposals, with more raising concerns in private.

Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, said she agreed the asylum system needed reform but she had concerns about the measures, particularly deporting asylum seekers’ children who “think of this as home”.

“I think the British public want to see people being able to contribute, they recognise that if you have been here 5-10 years and your children think of this as home, forcibly detaining you and deporting you is not the British way forward,” she told the BBC’s World Tonight programme.

Labour peer Alf Dubs, who fled to the UK on the Kindertransport to escape the Nazi pogroms, said he was “depressed” by the government adopting such a “hardline” approach, which he said would not “deter people from coming here”.

“To use children as a weapon as the home secretary is doing is a shabby thing,” he told the Today programme. “We are a better country than that.”

In the Commons, Mahmood said it an “uncomfortable truth” that the UK’s generous asylum offer compared to other European countries was drawing people to UK shores, and that for British taxpayers the system “feels out of control and unfair”.

Speaking to the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason, Mahmood insisted she was “not motivated by what other political parties are saying or doing” but because “it’s a moral mission for me”.

“If we don’t win this argument… we will lose public support for having an asylum system at all and therefore we’ll lose something brilliant about this country,” she said.

“I’m not willing to stand by and let this broken system create more division in our country, and I’m not willing to cede this territory of secure borders to parties of the far right, the hard right, or anybody else.”

She acknowledged that some Labour MPs had concerns but insisted “the vast majority of my colleagues agree with me”.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson said he was “moderately welcoming” of some of the changes, such as reforming rather than ripping up the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

However, he was concerned about the “workability” of the Home Office reviewing refugee statuses every two-and-a-half years.

Badenoch said the measures did not go far enough, adding that leaving the ECHR was necessary to address the problem.

The Cosnervative leader said: “The fact is, we have looked at this issue from every possible direction, and the reality is that any plan that doesn’t include leaving the ECHR as a necessary step is wasting time we don’t have.”