Our President, Lord Roger Roberts writes :
The Home Office announced that the cripplingly low level of support paid to people seeking asylum in the UK will remain unchanged. This decision follows a landmark legal battle by Refugee Action which resulted in the High Court ordering the Home Office to review the level of support.
Refugee Action is warning that this disappointing decision will continue to push some of the most vulnerable individuals and families in our society further into poverty. Thousands of people who are banned by the government from working are being forced to live on as little as £5.23 a day.
In its legal case earlier this year, the charity challenged the Home Secretary’s decision to freeze levels of asylum support for the third year in a row. The High Court ruled in favour of Refugee Action stating that the Home Secretary was ‘irrational’ in her decision making and ‘misunderstood information’ when freezing the low level of financial support.
In its review, the Home Office suggests that asylum seekers need, for example, no more than £1.08 per week to spend on toiletries, £2.51 per week on clothes and footwear and £3.00 on bus and train fares. It also suggests that £23.88 is sufficient to cover weekly food costs for an adult.
In some cases, the review halves the typical spending habits of the poorest 10 per cent of the British population as a benchmark for the amount required by a person seeking asylum.