Actually no - my understanding now is that being granted refugee status, even if you came to UK irregularly, would bring you on to a 20 year route

Yes that's right - HO press release clear on this

Best way for govt to grip this issue is:

- Expand one-in, one-out deal with France
- Speed up asylum processing and appeals
- Get people out of hotels and into appropriate accommodation

And crucially, encourage and support refugees who are granted status to integrate into their communities.

Ultimately, it seems unlikely these measures will have much effect on Channel crossings.

There have been a succession of similar policies in recent years with little noticeable impact.

Eg Nationality and Borders Act, Illegal Migration Act, refugee citizenship restrictions

Revoking duty to support unlikely to have much impact in practice, as most asylum seekers who are destitute cannot work and so will continue to need help.

But I wonder if it may affect strength of HO argument when defending use of asylum accommodation from LA legal challenges...

Also not clear how temporary status will work in practice. Many refugees will have children in 20-year period and will accrue rights to stay through family/private life.

When Denmark introduced this policy, it proved extremely difficult to return Syrians whose status was revoked.

Govt will incentivise integration through a new Protection 'Work and Study’ route, which refugees can switch to if they are in work/education.

This will have a shorter route to ILR than 20 years, but longer than 10-year route for resettled refugees. So incentive still quite weak.

But there are parts to yesterday's announcement which could backfire.

A 20 year route to settlement creates a long period of limbo which makes integration difficult.

It also creates a lot of new work for Home Office, who will have to review temporary status every 2.5 years.

New safe and legal routes are welcome and help to provide an alternative to dangerous crossings.

Positive to see expansion of community sponsorship, which has seen some real successes in the UK.

But these schemes will be v modest at first - only in the low hundreds.

Some of the reforms hold promise.

A new independent appeals body - combined with early legal advice and accelerating certain cases - could help to bring down backlog and end hotel use.

But devil in detail - who will staff new body? How will capacity be expanded in practice?

Worth saying that there is a *lot* in the statement yesterday and much of it is very high-level. A huge amount of detail will need to be worked through.

Though that middle figure looks wrong to me. 34% of workers aren't on UC - instead, 34% of people on UC are in work

…picking back up with some news from this week 👇

The Home Affairs Select Committee has just published its report on asylum accommodation – and I’m pleased to see many of IPPR’s recommendations reflected in it.

The report reflects a number of @ippr.org recommendations:

- Proposes setting performance measures for safeguarding in the contracts.

- Argues for more consistent approach to applying financial penalties on providers.

- Notes benefits of a more localised approach to managing asylum accommodation.

It finds:

- In previous parliament, Home Office neglected day to day management of contracts and allowed costs to spiral.

- Major safeguarding failings in asylum accommodation.

- Private providers incentivised to use hotels.

- Accommodation still often concentrated in areas of high deprivation.

I also interpreted it this way. He seemed to suggest that the policy on barring people with ILR from benefits would make retrospective removal of ILR unnecessary. But not very clear as seemed to want to acknowledge policy was ‘updated’ while also simultaneously signalling toughness