How cruelty cost the government defeat over £3 a week for asylum seekers

The government has again been defeated in court over its asylum policy. This time, home secretary Suella Braverman has been found to have acted unlawfully by withholding payments of £3 a week towards healthy food for pregnant women and toddlers kept in asylum hotels.

How did this end up in court?

A small number of asylum seekers being kept in hotels brought legal action, claiming they were entitled to small payments of £3 a week for healthy food – either for their young children or for themselves, if they were pregnant – which they had not received. Their claim has been upheld.

Do asylum seekers typically receive bonus payments for specific types of food?

All asylum seekers are barred from seeking employment for at least 12 months after their arrival in the UK, in many cases leaving them entirely dependent on the Home Office for support. Those put up in normal housing receive payments of £45 a week. Those in hotels receive £9.10 a week. In the cases that were brought to court, the hotel offering consisted solely of pasta, rice, chips, mashed potato, and dry sandwiches. In these circumstances, young children and pregnant women are indeed entitled to small extra payments towards healthy food, which had been withheld.

Why does the government keep losing court cases relating to its asylum policy?

There are several aspects of the Illegal Migration Bill, which has now passed into law, that lawyers, and indeed judges, have considered to be in contradiction to the UK’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights – specifically, the intention to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda without making any attempt to process their claims first. This latest defeat is different, and is especially embarrassing.

What happens now?

These payments will now have to be made to the thousands of pregnant women, and children under three years old, who are currently being kept in hotels.

The politics of the matter are less clear. Withholding small amounts of money from poorly nourished children is an act of extreme cruelty, but cruelty is a deliberate and significant part of the government’s asylum policy, which above all seeks to deter asylum seekers from seeking asylum in the UK in the first instance.

Solicitors representing the asylum seekers described the court’s decision as “a victory for basic dignity and fundamental rights for people in hotels”.

The Home Office has not yet indicated whether it intends to appeal the decision.