Home Office stops units making asylum decisions to prepare for small boats bill despite huge backlog

Home Office workers are being forced to stop deciding asylum claims and retrain to implement measures in the government’s controversial small boats bill, despite it not yet being legal and amid record backlogs.

The Illegal Migration Bill is still being considered by parliament and faces a slew of amendments in the House of Lords, while the UN Refugee Agency has declared it unlawful.

But The Independent has learned that the Home Office is pressing ahead with implementation on the assumption that new laws will come into effect in September, with a massive internal restructure underway.

It abolished the National Asylum Intake Unit last week, instead creating an “Illegal Migration Intake Unit”, while staff are being told to officially describe refugees arriving on small boats as “illegal entrants” rather than “asylum seekers”.

Asylum decision-makers in Glasgow and Belfast are being forcibly transferred into a new Illegal Migration Relocation and Returns Service, where they will enforce the bill’s new legal duty to detain and deport all small boat migrants regardless of the merit of their claims. Other units are still operating.

The Independent understands that staff have been told they cannot opt out of the new role, and can only escape it by quitting or transferring to other government jobs.

Retraining will start next month, causing a substantial reduction in the number of caseworkers despite the prime minister’s pledge to abolish a pre-June 2022 backlog of asylum claims by the end of the year.

Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said: “For ministers to cut asylum decision-making even further at a time when the backlog has already soared is totally chaotic and will only lead to even more delays and more costly hotel use.

“This Conservative government has already broken the asylum system but it beggars belief that they are now determined to make the chaos even worse. Rishi Sunak promised to clear the backlog – instead he is doing the opposite.”

A National Audit Office report published earlier this month said the promise was already on course to fail, despite government attempts to speed up cases with written questionnaires.

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has insisted the backlog is falling, but official figures show that the overall number has rocketed to 137,600 cases without an initial decision, as more than 8,400 migrants have already crossed the Channel this year.

The Home Office has been struggling to retain asylum decision-makers, and The Independent understands that some new staff being recruited will be immediately moved into the new Illegal Migration Operations Command.

There will still be insufficient staff to implement the bill, and civil servants are to be pulled in from the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs to help.

People who have unsuccessfully applied for Home Office jobs in the past may also be pulled from “reserve lists” to fill any gaps.

An officer from the ISU union, which represents borders and immigration staff, said civil servants had been told the government expected the bill to pass within a month.

Lucy Moreton added: “Ultimately this is a reorganisation to meet the requirements for a bill that does not yet have royal assent. It involves significant investment and disruption for staff being moved in their roles.”

Ms Moreton said that changing official terminology to call asylum seekers “illegal entrants” would “have a subconscious impact on how people are thought about, both in the public and for staff”.

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A civil service source said the moves were premature, given that the bill has not yet been passed and could face legal challenges or be suspended or repealed by a future Labour government.

“The Home Office is working on the basis that it’s lawful but the courts may determine it’s not,” he added. “Has anyone really got the confidence that this government is going to be in power in a year?”

The source said that with the Rwanda court battle ongoing, there were still no working agreements to deport asylum seekers, adding: “It’s operationalising things that are impossible to do.”

The preparations risk breaching government rules on spending public funds, which state that “significant work associated with preparing for or implementing the new task enabled by a bill” should not happen before laws are in place.

A former senior civil servant told The Independent that extensive internal changes should only be made if an incoming law is “something that’s not contentious and is very likely to be passed”.

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But several recent Home Office job adverts make explicit mention of the Illegal Migration Bill.

The department is advertising for managers to organise escorts for the expected deportations to Rwanda and other countries, saying: “This is an exciting opportunity to work in a fast-paced operational delivery role to assist in the delivery of the Illegal Migration Bill.”

The Home Office is also recruiting a “projects and change lead” for the new Illegal Migration Operations Command, policy advisers to support the passage and implementation of the new law, and other related roles.

A spokesperson for the department said: “Our Illegal Migration Bill is designed to stop the boats by changing the law so that people who come to the UK illegally can be detained and then swiftly returned to their home country or a safe third country, such as Rwanda.

“We are absolutely committed to making this work, including by ensuring all our staff are well prepared. We continue to bring in more resources and streamline our processes to reduce the backlog and we remain on track to eliminate the legacy asylum backlog by the end of 2023.”