London Assembly urges Sadiq Khan to help asylum seekers with transport costs

Asylum seekers, waiting to perceive from the Home Office whether they volition beryllium granted exile presumption oregon beryllium sent backmost to the state they came from, unrecorded connected arsenic small arsenic £8.86 per week. They are usually incapable to enactment and are not allowed to assertion benefits either.

Labour assembly subordinate Elly Baker said connected Thursday that this made it “incredibly challenging” for asylum seekers to question to English connection classes, wellness appointments, oregon to entree ineligible advice.

In a ceremonial question debated by the Assembly, she called connected the politician to “work with a scope of partners, including London boroughs, voluntary assemblage organisations moving straight with asylum seekers, and the NHS, connected ways to enactment nationalist transport entree for asylum seekers, specified arsenic with question vouchers, to alteration entree to indispensable journeys”.

She added that it was “important that asylum seekers person opportunities to integrate into wider society, particularly fixed the bulk of asylum claims are granted” and that “the outgo of nationalist transport acts arsenic a obstruction to this process”.

In the UK, asylum seekers are fixed accommodation and £49.18 per week to wage for their food, toiletries, covering and immoderate different costs.

If their accommodation provides escaped meals however, they are lone fixed £8.86 per week to screen each of their non-food costs.

Ms Baker’s question received bulk enactment from the Assembly, arsenic it was backed by the Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat groups.

But City Hall Conservatives abstained connected the question without commenting connected it, and Reform UK subordinate Alex Wilson was the sole idiosyncratic to ballot against it, saying it was “important to recognise we person an amerciable migration emergency”.

Under Article 31 of the 1951 Refugee Convention, asylum seekers person the close not to beryllium penalised for being successful oregon entering a state without permission, wherever this is indispensable for them to question asylum.

The past Conservative Government argued that asylum seekers crossing the Channel were not eligible for extortion nether that right, arsenic they were coming via France, and truthful not “directly” from a state successful which they faced persecution.

But the UN Refugee Agency - the UNHCR - said this was a “misconstruction” of Article 31, arsenic it would different necessitate asylum seekers to settee successful the archetypal harmless state they scope and “would enforce an arbitrary and disproportionate load connected countries successful the contiguous region(s) of flight”.

Mr Wilson continued: “Even the Prime Minister present recognises radical smuggling arsenic a nationalist information threat. For each the speech of ‘smashing the gangs’, we’re not going to get a grip connected this contented until the propulsion factors are addressed.

“It was already retired of power nether the past Government, and it’s getting adjacent worse now. More than 31,000 crossed the Channel by November 2 [since the commencement of 2024] - much than the full of past year, and determination are inactive 2 months to go.

“We are, and ever person been, a welcoming state to those successful genuine need, but the immense bulk of those crossing are not women and children fleeing warfare and persecution; 3 quarters are males of warring age.”

According to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, “one crushed for the higher stock of men among asylum seekers, successful general, is the information associated with irregular migration journeys”, and “in galore cases, pistillate and insignificant household members articulation aboriginal done household reunification routes”.

Mr Wilson concluded: “British taxpayers volition scope a bounds erstwhile they consciousness they are being taken vantage of. We saw connected Tuesday, successful America, what happens erstwhile a radical person had capable of their generosity being taken for granted.

“I cognize I'm unsocial astatine contiguous successful this chamber, but I'm definite if we transportation connected similar this, successful 4 years’ clip [after the adjacent Assembly election], I won't be.”

Ms Baker retorted that erstwhile radical connote that asylum seekers volition “get into dinghies and transverse the Channel, risking their ain lives… conscionable truthful they tin get escaped question connected a bus, to spell to the hospital, oregon an ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages] class, we person mislaid our grip connected reality”.

Approached for remark connected the motion, a spokeswoman for Mr Khan said: “The politician is ever keen to research what tin beryllium done to assistance susceptible radical successful London, including those seeking asylum.

“Currently, radical seeking asylum tin apply, wherever eligible, for existing Transport for London (TfL) concessions, and those who request assistance completing their online applications tin besides interaction TfL’s lawsuit services to get further assistance.

“We volition proceed our enactment to guarantee we region immoderate barriers that forestall radical seeking asylum accessing immoderate concessions they are entitled to.”