Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is expected to confirm plans to reopen a resettlement scheme for refugees at the Labour conference on Tuesday, September 29. The scheme is intended to provide "safe and legal" routes to the UK and help deter small boat crossings, and will initially operate on a tightly limited basis, prioritising vulnerable Afghan women and girls and Palestinians.
Public concerns raised
Former police and crime commissioner Festus Akinbusoye has raised concerns from the public following the announcement, urging the government to listen to members of the public. He argued that people have "legitimate" concerns about the issue.
"It's really important that politicians listen to the public. Whether, rightly or wrongly, you have views about immigration and the numbers, the bottom line is that the public are very concerned about this," he told GB News presenters Alex Armstrong and Ellie Costello.
Pressures on public services
Akinbusoye continued: "It is an issue, there are the pressures on public services and who's contributing what and where by how much, and after what duration should you be able to get an entitlement. Those are very legitimate concerns. The problem that Andy Burnham is going to have is that on any of these issues, which he knows are big issues, his backbenchers will not let him get this through."
Armstrong argued that Mahmood is having to take this approach because of the "Boriswave", a term used to describe the surge in immigration to the UK following Brexit during Boris Johnson's premiership.
Scheme details
Festus added: "He will say that this was necessary at the time and it was because they were going to come and work for the NHS because of Covid and people not being available to work. The mistake that they've made is that there were not enough controls on the dependents able to come with those workers."
Around one in four people arriving through the scheme are expected to be Afghan women and girls or Palestinian refugees, according to plans reported by The Guardian. Applicants will undergo security and criminality checks before being accepted, while refugees will be identified by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and the International Refugee Assistance Project. Those accepted through the resettlement scheme will have a route to indefinite leave to remain, with settlement available after five years.
