Experts warn Mahmood’s temporary asylum plan could trigger huge costs and crippling bureaucracy
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is facing warnings that her plans to make asylum protection temporary could create an unmanageable system and cost taxpayers more than £1.1billion over the next decade. The concerns follow her recent announcement that refugees will no longer secure an automatic right to remain in the UK. Instead, they will receive temporary status subject to review every 30 months, with removal possible if their home country is judged safe.
Migration experts and the Refugee Council have argued that the scale of the proposed reviews would place a significant administrative burden on the Home Office. They say tens of thousands of decisions would need to be revisited repeatedly, potentially overwhelming an already stretched department and triggering extensive appeal processes.
The Refugee Council estimates that the Home Office would have to conduct between 1.66 million and 1.9 million status reviews in the first 10 years of the system operating at full capacity. Based on its calculations, the organisation says this would cost between £1.1billion and £1.27billion, depending on how many individuals lose their protection at each review.
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Under the proposals, the number of people requiring reassessment would grow each year, particularly as the route to permanent residence becomes significantly longer. Refugees who arrive illegally could wait up to 20 years before becoming eligible for settlement, compared with the current five-year pathway. Those who enter the country legally would face a baseline wait of 10 years, with shorter periods available only to individuals with high incomes or those working in frontline public services. People reliant on benefits would wait longer.
The Refugee Council’s modelling assumes that 5% to 10% of reviewed cases could lead to loss of refugee status. On this basis, between 97,000 and 103,000 reviews would be needed in 2029, increasing to between 181,000 and 212,000 by 2035. Each review is estimated to cost £523 to process, with annual rises linked to inflation.
Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University and a member of the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee, said the administrative requirements of the policy could be “huge”. She also questioned whether returns to certain post-conflict countries would be viable, noting that fragile governments may not prioritise cooperation with the UK.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the Home Office has historically struggled to issue timely and accurate initial decisions. He warned that significantly expanding its workload risked creating further delays and uncertainty for refugees seeking to rebuild their lives in the UK.
The Refugee Council added that its estimates may understate the eventual cost, as they do not account for refugees who win protection on appeal and would therefore also be subject to repeated reviews.
Government sources dismissed the calculations as “simplistic” and “hypothetical”. A Home Office spokesperson said the reforms aim to restore control of the immigration system and emphasised that settlement “is not a right, but a privilege”.