Rishi Sunak’s flagship asylum legislation risks breaching international obligations to protect human rights and could expose vulnerable people to serious harm, the UK’s equality watchdog has said.
In an unusual intervention before the Commons report stage of the legislation on Tuesday, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said the illegal migration bill would remove protections for victims of trafficking and restrict rights to asylum.
It would also allow for the detention of pregnant women and children and fail to consider the impact on torture survivors and disabled people, the EHRC said.
The government has laid down nine new clauses and 136 amendments to the bill to be discussed by MPs on Tuesday, a move that has been called undemocratic, before the last day of scrutiny in the Commons.
The EHRC said: “Provisions providing for the detention of children and pregnant women, and removing protections for victims of trafficking and modern slavery, are particularly worrying.
“Effective, rights-compliant action is needed to ensure more lives are not lost on dangerous Channel crossings.”
In a further blow, a Council of Europe migration committee has accused Sunak’s government of a “wilful distortion of core UN and European conventions which the UK itself contributed to designing”.
“Its provisions would jeopardise the right to an effective remedy, breach the non-refoulement principle, endanger victims of forced labour and modern slavery, and strip international protection seekers of their right to seek asylum, with no regard for the best interest of the child,” said the council, which includes representatives from 46 member countries.
The bill, which would change the law to make it clear that people arriving in the UK by irregular means will not be able to remain in the country, has prompted criticism from opponents, who have dismissed it as an unworkable gimmick.
Hard-right Tory MPs have said the legislation does not go far enough, with some calling for ministers to take the UK out of the European convention on human rights to enable tighter border controls.
Others on the liberal wing of the party want the government to commit to establishing safe routes through which asylum seekers can come to Britain.
Some Conservative MPs are expected to abstain or vote against a government-backed amendment that would allow the government to ignore rulings from the European court of human rights.
One MP told the Guardian: “There will be some who cannot vote to breach international law. Discussions are still ongoing.”
Home Office figures released on Monday show that the backlog of asylum cases across the UK is now 138,052, driven by a “legacy backlog” of more than 80,000. This means the Home Office will have to process 7,000 cases a month to meet Rishi Sunak’s commitment to clear the legacy backlog by the end of this year.
The figures also show the government is continuing to struggle to hold on to full-time asylum decision makers. There were 1,281 full-time decision makers working to clear the backlog by the end of March, down from 1,333 on 1 January but an increase from 777 a year earlier.
Afghans are the biggest national cohort crossing the Channel in small boats this year, with 909 arriving in the UK between January and March, the statistics show. There were 700 Indians (18% of the total) and 29 Albanians. More than half of those crossing came from Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Sudan or Syria, all of which had initial grant rates for asylum of at least 80% last year.
Meanwhile, an appeal hearing into whether two high court judges were right to dismiss legal challenges against ministers’ plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda began on Monday. A group of individuals from countries including Iran, Iraq and Syria are aiming to overturn rulings made in December.
Downing Street rejected criticisms and insisted that the government continues to act “within our international obligations”.
“We cannot allow a system to continue which incentivises people to risk their lives and pay people smugglers to come here illegally,” a spokesperson said.
• This article was amended on 25 April 2023. The Council of Europe has 46 member states, not 47 as stated in an earlier version.
