WE HAVE seen in the Homes for Ukraine scheme that asylum-seekers and refugees can live within existing communities. Such communities should receive prompt and adequate government support.
It is clear that the UK cannot take everyone. But it can make its decisions through a system which balances effective, accurate, and clear control with compassion and dignity; a system which is based in our history and proper moral responsibilities. We used to talk of no recourse to public funds; a system of segregation risks creating a policy of no recourse to public compassion. We should take heart from the magnificent public response to refugees of recent years. There are still, in this country, profound reserves of kindness and good will to draw on.
So, what can we do in the short, medium, and long term? In the short term, combat smugglers and prevent small boats crossing the Channel. To minimise irregular arrivals, we need to provide safe ways and legal ways for people to get here and receive assessment, and, where appropriate, protection. Approaches include expanding family-reunification models, community sponsorship, and humanitarian visas and corridors from a far greater number of countries. We cannot continue with the tenfold increase in the number of people waiting more than a year for an initial decision — an increase between 2010 and 2020.
The average processing time for an asylum case is currently about 15 months: it should be a maximum of six. In Germany, in 2021, the average asylum procedure took 6.6 months, despite a far higher refugee and asylum-seeker population. Nearly one third of those who have been waiting more than six months are made up of nationals from ten countries that have a successful application rate of between 75 and 99 per cent. It is ridiculous and disgraceful that people fleeing Afghanistan and Syria are having to wait so long, when their applications will almost certainly be granted.
We need a triaging system which distinguishes quickly between people based on the likelihood that they will be granted asylum. It will speed up decision-making, and, for those who almost certainly would not be granted asylum, it would allow them to be removed almost immediately. That’s not so far from our current policy, but, in practice, it’s not happening. The Home Office could do that.
Removing people whose claims are unsuccessful can happen in a dignified way. There has been real success with voluntary removals in the past, when the Government collaborated with civil society. Returns have been on a downward trajectory, however, for a number of years. Removals will be swift, just, and fair only if the system is clear, accurate, and not overwhelmed.
In the mean time, we should also make one major change, which I propose, which is that asylum-seekers should not just be allowed to work, but expected to work, except in limited circumstances where it would clearly be inappropriate. This combines the right to fair and dignified protection, matched with a responsibility to contribute to their new society and the common good.
IN THE medium term, people-smuggling, like piracy, should become an international crime, and the UK should take the lead in the struggle against people-smuggling, forming an international body to track it down and attack it everywhere. It is what we did in the 17th century against piracy, and in the 19th century against slave-trading. Surely, this is as serious.
In the long term, finally, we need to update the 1951 Refugee Convention, which is hugely valuable in maintaining the importance of protection for all refugees, but must be made fit for the new challenges that we face.
A recent report by the Legatum Institute lays out some areas of ambiguity, including the part played by the Safe Third Country principle; the responsibility to report other countries who are hosting many refugees; guidance on return and readmission; and the eligibility of people fleeing new drivers of displacement, such as climate migrants. This problem is going to get worse.
Britain showed global leadership in 1951. We can do so again. We need more ambition in our policies. Time is not a luxury. Climate change and conflict risk driving migration for future generations at a rate that we cannot imagine today — perhaps tenfold more.
THE Church of England, together with many others, plays a leading part in dealing with the consequences of our present policy and its chronic dysfunction, and we’ve done so for quite a while. In a chapel in Canterbury Cathedral, there is an inscription, several centuries old, that bears witness to the protection given to French Huguenots who fled persecution in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The community needed a place to worship, and a chapel in the cathedral was offered to them by a simple exchange of one-page letters. They are still there. The French Protestant Church of Canterbury is there today, next to the plank which heralds: “The glorious asylum, which England has in all times given to foreigners, flying for refuge against oppression and tyranny.” This is our tradition; it is our history; it is our pride. Let us make it our future.
The Most Revd Justin Welby is the Archbishop of Canterbury.
This is an edited extract from a speech that he delivered in the House of Lords last Friday, introducing a debate on the UK’s asylum and refugee policy.