Immigration and Asylum (Provision of Accommodation to Failed Asylum-Seekers) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Home Office on its direction of travel, but I have a few points I think it needs to consider to get this right. It would be helpful if the Home Office were to publish more regularly the gender breakdown of asylum seekers so that we can be clear that it is a representative proportion of those to whom we may have an obligation.

It would also be rather helpful for the Home Office to do more in the international context. I recall going with the former Bishop of Durham to Burundi, where a third of the entire population had sought asylum in a neighbouring Commonwealth country, Tanzania. It is part of the Commonwealth and was previously part of the Empire. It seems to me that part of our obligation to those seeking asylum is to ensure that those large numbers who temporarily felt obliged to move to a safe haven in Tanzania were able to return—as they did, but with some difficulty—to one of the most impoverished countries in the world, Burundi.

Similarly, I visited the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, where more than 1 million have fled from Myanmar—again, a country with which we have a very long-standing relationship. These are all asylum seekers, but it would be rather absurd for us to have a policy that suggests that the way to address those problems would be to facilitate those people coming here via organised crime gangs.

It is interesting to observe how low, or non-existent, the number of rough sleepers is in certain parts of the country. That is not correlated to wealth and income in those areas; it is correlated to the amount of casual work available—work on farms, for example, or in vape shops. There is a new mania in this country for everyone not to wash their own car but to pay someone else to do it. The evidence I have seen would suggest that many of these businesses are impossible to trace, and yet the Home Office is meant to have a system to ensure that illegal working is clamped down on. What further will be done about the registration of businesses to ensure that a business on a set and identifiable premises, which someone could go in and ask for work from, is in fact a legitimate business operating within the law, rather than a cash business facilitating the work of organised crime gangs in trafficking people to this country? In the same way that we have an electoral roll that we are required to be on, would it not be worth considering requiring a local authority to hold a business roll of who is operating a business, so that we can start to cut through? We have done this with some of the manipulation of Companies House from abroad in illegal working in this country. It would give both the country and those seeking refuge a better deal, and the criminal gangs a worse deal and less profit motivation.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I was going to rise after the noble Baronesses, Lady Teather and Lady Lister, to say that they gave two absolutely magnificent speeches. I agree with them both and I will not aim to repeat them. It is quite telling that I am now speaking after we have heard strong support from the Conservative Benches for the Government’s policy, and I suspect we may hear the same from the Conservative Front Bench. As I said, I do not aim to repeat what has already been said— I agree with everything that both noble Baronesses said—but I want to make a couple of points. One is to pick up on some words from the Minister, who rightly said that most asylum seekers do not have the right to work in the UK.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, the Government are under pressure on these statutory instruments. On being challenged by our hard-working Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, the Home Office said:

“We are developing our policy”


in this space. I have a question for the Minister on something that could save a great deal of the need to house asylum seekers. Is that “developing our policy” considering allowing asylum seekers the right to work, as they have in many countries?

I note that I am going to applaud the Government here, because we have seen a very small advance in the past few weeks. We saw three weeks ago that doctors and other medical professionals who have been seeking asylum for 12 months will now be able to work in the NHS. Well, that is great, although I have to ask why they have to wait 12 months, given our great need for their services and skills, and the fact that they would inevitably benefit from being able to use their skills as soon as possible.

It is worth looking at the history of that, because it had been the case historically under the shortage occupation list, which the former Conservative Government replaced with the immigration salary list in April 2024. We have seen the BMA, REACHE—the Refugee and Asylum Seekers Centre for Healthcare Professionals Education—and others taking legal cases; it may have been that the legal pressure was enough to make the Government change their mind. But if the Government are doing that for doctors, even after 12 months, why not for engineers or scientific researchers? Why not for anyone who can contribute their skills, energy, time and talents to our country, which is, of course, everybody? Why not allow asylum seekers to work? The direct question that I put to the Minister is: in “developing our policy”, are the Government at least considering that?

I want to pick up on one other point from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, because it really deserves to be highlighted. It is the issue of support from friends and family, which picks up on the case study that the noble Baroness, Lady Teather, presented to us. Something that I have heard from visiting refugee support groups over many years is how often a situation where someone is offered free accommodation—possibly by quite distant family or friends, very loosely defined—can quickly turn into a situation that can only be equated with modern slavery. I am thinking of one case study that I heard of: a very small and frail older woman ended up sleeping on a mat in the kitchen and working 16 hours a day, seven days a week. It appears that the Government are trying to force people to create that kind of situation, from what is being suggested with the friends and family situation.

I have a final point to put to the Minister. Having looked at the impact assessments, I note that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said how inadequate they are. I also want to repeat the point that the idea that there is no significant impact on the voluntary and private sector is just a nonsense. I am afraid that is a nonsense statement in the impact assessment. If we are to understand the impact of these rules, my simple question to the Minister is: how many people are going to end up homeless as a result of these statutory instruments? I think that is a question we should have the answer to.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise that there will be some repetition of what certain noble friends, in the best sense of the word, have said. These SIs have not surprised me but I am rather depressed, in that there is an echo in them of last week’s debate. These are changes brought in ahead of our knowing what will replace current provisions, which in fact are going to continue for the time being—not that I anticipate what is coming with any great enthusiasm.

I understand that the duties reflected in the regulations are part of what it is hard not to still think of as retained EU law, now assimilated law, and that the power to amend expires in June—the Minister is nodding at that. I understand that the Government may want to avoid primary legislation, with the opportunity for greater scrutiny and amendment—I hoped that the Minister might nod at that, but he did not. Understanding this is not the same as supporting it. The Home Secretary keeps telling us that the proposals must be taken as a package, but the elements are being disaggregated.

I wrote that I hoped that one change this week would be that the Minister would not be suffering the same sore throat. Last week, some of us were not quite within distance to chuck throat pastilles across the Chamber at him.