More than 3,000 asylum seekers could be detained and deported from the UK every month to enforce Suella Braverman’s flagship asylum bill, the Guardian quoted leaked documents as showing.
As Rishi Sunak faced a backlash from Conservative MPs over record levels of net migration, briefing papers have revealed the government has drawn up plans to remove 3,163 asylum seekers every month from January.
The documents, which focus on the implementation of the illegal migration bill, also make clear ministers could face crippling legal action without a substantial increase in legal aid fees for lawyers who advise refugees.
It is the first detailed glimpse of the scale of the task facing Whitehall if it is to implement Braverman’s bill, which is currently before the Lords. The Home Office has until now refused to release the impact assessment of the bill.
The disclosure came as net migration and the backlog of asylum claims reached record highs. The prime minister was forced to concede that numbers should come down after figures from the Office for National Statistics showed overall migration into the UK for 2022 was 606,000, which represents a 24% increase on the previous high of 488,000 last year.
More than 100,000 people seeking asylum have waited longer than six months for an initial decision on their case, the latest figures showed, while more than three-quarters of all small boat asylum applications since 2018 are still awaiting a decision.
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The leaked documents, marked “urgent”, were prepared this week for Alex Chalk, the lord chancellor, the junior justice minister Lord Bellamy and the Ministry of Justice permanent secretary, Antonia Romeo.
The aim was ensure that there were enough lawyers on hand to provide advice at immigration detention centres if the bill passes into law.
Under the bill, those who arrive in the UK without permission will not be able to stay to claim asylum but will instead be detained and removed, either to their home nation or a third country such as Rwanda.
The documents, prepared using data from the Home Office, say the department should prepare for 1,600 people to be held under the bill in detention centres from September, rising to 3,163 every month from January.
