Asylum Reforms: Protected Characteristics

Debate between Carla Lockhart and Kirsty Blackman

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman]

There should be some methodology, but the Government are going the wrong way on this. They are looking to tighten up the modern slavery and trafficking regulations and make it more difficult for women to claim that they have been trafficked—even when they have. We know that there are women that have been held in Yarl’s Wood or detention centres after being trafficked because they do not have the correct paperwork. Of course they do not have the correct paperwork; they have been trafficked, used in sex work and forced into these horrific situations, and the Government are putting them in a detention centre and then saying that they will not get a visa because they did not have the right documentation.

We have a responsibility to protect people. It says in “Restoring Order and Control” that there are some rules in relation to the European convention on human rights and the Refugee convention around which there are not discretionary powers. For some—for example, in relation to family life—the public interest can be balanced against that requirement. However, when it comes to trafficking, the Government do not have that discretion. If they refuse to believe trafficked people, and it is later agreed that those people have been trafficked, the UK Government are putting them through more trauma. They are putting people who have experienced worse things than most of us could ever imagine through more trauma because they refuse to believe them. Then, because they may disclose this late, as they do not want to talk about the sex work that they have been forced into and the rapes they have suffered—because it is very difficult to talk about those things—the UK Government say to them, “Well, you didn’t disclose this in time, so you can’t be a true asylum seeker. You can’t be a true refugee because you didn’t come forward and talk about the most horrific moments in your life to a man that you don’t know.” That is in relation to legal aid support.

There are major issues with the continuing lack of stability. The changes away from hotel accommodation to some of the accommodation at barracks can mean that people are more isolated and less able to access support. In Aberdeen, we have little in the way of lawyers who can cover asylum cases—and immigration lawyers in general, actually—and people are having to travel significant lengths in order to get that, on their £7 or £9 a week. Someone cannot get from Aberdeen to Glasgow on seven quid a week—it cannot be done for less than about 30 quid, unless it is on a Megabus, and even that can be quite dear.

Accommodation does not take into account the fact that provision is not there. If people are going to be put in Cameron barracks in Inverness, for example, it is even more difficult for them to get to Glasgow or Edinburgh in order to speak to the right lawyer who will be able to help and be willing to take on their immigration case. Creating that extra level of isolation for people who are already struggling—putting people in an isolated community in the Cameron barracks, rather than in a community setting where they can integrate—means that people who are isolated will become even more so, and people who are at risk will become even more at risk.

We know that even in hotels, people suffer as a result of their protected characteristics, and who are at risk of harm as a result of unsafe situations. That is multiplied when people are moved out of hotels into places such as barracks.

I have a few more things to cover. In relation to the assessment of safe countries for removal, the blanket designation of a country as safe is inherently incredibly risky. It may be safe for some people to be in Syria right now, but it is not safe for everyone. It is not safe for a Syrian woman who came here as a result of gender-based violence to go back to her family in Syria—or to go back to Syria at all—because of the likelihood that her family would take action against her. It is not safe for a gay person who fled because they were correctively raped to go back to Syria.

The decision about blanket designations is really difficult, considering the Government are saying that they are looking at vulnerable groups and talking about individuals. Creating a blanket safe designation that can be changed at any point in that 20-year period means they can suddenly say to someone, “You are going to have to go back to this country where you were correctively raped, because the UK Government have now decided—with very little in the way of parliamentary scrutiny—that this country is safe.” The problem is that we have not got that information. The Minister may feel that there will be special categories in place, but we have not been told that. We have not been given the impact assessment for how that will look. We have not been told what those provisions will be. Somebody who is living here, who is terrified about being sent back, has no comfort right now, because they do not know whether their case will be considered separately or whether their country will just be deemed safe and they will be sent back.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The hon. Member speaks very passionately about this issue. Does she agree that the same can be said of those who have been engaged in rape and criminal activity in Northern Ireland and the UK as a whole, but that they should be sent back? It is a real bugbear for people that there seems to be some protection for people who engage in those types of activity, so that they are not sent back to where they came from.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The UK Government have said that they are looking at increasing the number of countries they have returns agreements with, so that people who have committed crimes can be sent back.

Let me talk once more about the LGBT issue. If a trans or gay refugee is here, and it is illegal for them to be trans in their country—they are likely to be beaten up or correctively raped as a result of being, for instance, a lesbian in their country—the UK Government expect them to live openly here, in the sexuality that they are, but with the threat of their country becoming a safe country and their being sent back. People will now know that they are gay, because they have had to live openly here, and that threat of return will now continue for a significantly longer period of time. Gay and trans people are now in a horrific Catch-22: they are forced to live openly here to have their refugee status agreed, but if their country is designated as a safe country, they may be sent back.

Pakistan is apparently safe for trans people because, according to the UK Government, people face only discrimination, not persecution, for being trans in Pakistan, despite the fact that somebody can come here as a trans refugee having been persecuted in Pakistan. The UK Government say, “It is okay, because it’s a discrimination thing, not persecution thing; don’t worry—you’ll be fine.” The Government expect them to live as an out trans person here—knowing that their cousin might see them on Facebook, or that somebody might hear about them living their real life and being themselves here—but, as a result of the UK Government’s policies, they will be forced to go back to somewhere where they are at an even higher risk of persecution.

On the Equality Act 2010, the public sector equality duty says that public sector organisations must have due regard to protected characteristics and try to ensure that people are not discriminated against because of those characteristics, despite the fact that the Government’s policies will more negatively impact people with protected characteristics. I have asked questions about the special consideration of vulnerable groups, because we need significantly more information about that. I do not expect the Minister to provide all that today, but I would like a commitment that that information will be forthcoming; otherwise, people will be terrified because they will have, hanging over them, the possibility that the Government will not take into account whether someone is trans or has suffered from gender-based violence in other places.

On the length of time before disclosure, I just do not believe that we can set a time limit when it comes to violence against women and girls or gender-based violence. We cannot tell people that they have to disclose things within a certain period of time or they will not be granted refugee status. That is not something we can force on victims. Changes need to be made in that regard.

There has been no impact assessment. I asked written parliamentary questions about equalities impact assessments, and we were told that they would come in due course. When? When will we get the equality impact assessments? I would love the Home Office to act in a trauma-informed way, but it seems that we are not going to do so. For some reason, the public interest—which is, apparently, in deporting as many people as possible—cannot be balanced with the need to look after people who, through no fault of their own, have gone through unimaginable horrors. That will have a detrimental impact on all those who are seeking asylum.

On the legal aid crisis, I would love reassurance from the Minister that the Government are going to make changes to legal aid. I do not understand how they are possibly going to manage a 30-month time period when they cannot manage the current time period.

I finish with a statement from Layla, who spoke to Women for Refugee Women about why she came to the UK and what her experiences were here. The UK Government talk about removing the pull factors, but the pull factors are not the economy or the fact that people can get jobs. Layla puts it better than I ever could. She said:

“I didn’t see the UK as a cruel type of country. The idea is that the UK is a Great Britain: we will save you, especially women’s rights, human rights. We initiate all the law, international law, you name it. The UK is a very outstanding country. But when I came here, I feel like it’s a fake, because why do you need to show that you are so good in the eyes of the world, but you are treating asylum seekers like this? It’s hypocrisy.”