Nationality and Borders Bill to cost £2.7 billion a year – a report from Together with Refugees

It’s a departure from our usual editorial policy, but we thought an update on a national issue would be welcome at this point. The first is an extract from an email by Refugee Council/Together with Refugees, and the second is link to a summary of where the Bill is up to by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants

“The taxpayer will pay an extra £2.7billion a year to fund schemes to block people fleeing war and persecution from finding refugee protection in the UK under the Government’s Nationality and Borders Bill, reveals a new report released today.

‘A Bill at What Price?’ is being published by the campaign coalition Together With Refugees, just ahead of the first vote in the House of Lords, where the Government is facing the growing threat of defeat.

With the Government also under mounting pressure from MPs to publish a long-promised Impact Assessment for the Bill – as is required for proposed new legislation – Together With Refugees has calculated the additional spending needed to pay for five major new components of the UK asylum and refugee system proposed in the Bill.  These are:

• £717.6 million a year to set up and run new large, out-of-town accommodation centres to house up to 8,000 people seeking refugee protection, instead of in the community.
• £1.44 billion a year to set up and run a completely new offshore processing system to send people seeking refugee protection to another country to be detained while they are assessed and wait for a decision on their claim.
• £432 million a year to imprison people seeking refugee protection who arrive via irregular routes – such as in a small boat across the Channel – a method of arrival criminalised in the Bill.
• £117.4 million a year to remove people seeking refugee protection from the UK to another country if the UK government says they should claim asylum there instead.
• £1.5 million a year for the cost of extra bureaucratic processing for people allocated Temporary Protection Status who have already passed a rigorous assessment recognising them as a refugee but to be required an additional assessment every two and half years.”

For another update on the passage of the Bill, this summary by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants is also helpful