The Home Office is consulting on concerning new plans which could leave children, families, adults and care leavers destitute and homeless.
It’s vital that as many people as possible share their knowledge and expertise on the problems that will be created by these plans, which propose to reform support for people once they are appeal rights exhausted. It’s a complex and detailed consultation, so we’ve worked with our partners at the Asylum Support Appeals Project to create a question by question guide to part one of the consultation, which focuses on support. We’ve also included brief suggestions for responses to part two, which concerns how and when force can be used on children in enforced family returns.
In this consultation, the Government proposes to:
- Remove support from refused families after 90 days once they are appeals rights exhausted.
- Repeal Section 4 support
- Introduce a new type of support called Section 95A, which people can receive if they can prove a genuine obstacle to them being removed from the UK, but this can only be applied for in the 90 days (post refusal for families), and for individuals, it’s in the 21 days after refusal. There is no right of appeal on this.
- The proposals also change the way local authorities (in England) should assess the need for social services support in an attempt to reduce the safeguards of Section 17 of the Children Act. The Home Office will guide who can be supported, while local authorities will be the body providing support.
- It will remove additional support to refused care leavers as outlined in the Children Act if they do not fulfil strict criteria dictated by the Home Office.
- The second part of the consultation discusses how and when they will be allowed to use force on children to ensure enforced family deportations go ahead. This includes hand-cuffing children
While we all continue to explore the current powers of the Home Office to implement their proposals under the Immigration Act 2016 we’ve drafted this response based solely on the operational implications of the proposal as tabled by Government.
You can read the full consultation document here
The online form for responding to the consultation is here.
You can find our detailed question-by-question guide, as well as links to helpful explainers and guides from a range of other organisations, here: Family Returns Consultation Guide .
However you choose to respond, we urge as many people as possible to submit a response to these deeply worrying proposals.
