Remember that big announcement on reforming the asylum system that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood delivered in November last year?
On Tuesday, she introduced a bill to Parliament that would put a lot of that into effect.
Ah – so this is the law that’ll mean refugee status only lasts 30 months?
Well, no, those rules were changed on March 5 this year and applied to people claiming asylum from March 2.
I see. Is this the law that’ll mean the government can deny support to asylum seekers, then?
…No, that was done through a statutory instrument also on March 5 and took effect on June 2.
What’s the point of this new bill then?
The point of the Immigration and Asylum Bill is to make all the changes that couldn’t be made through rule tweaks or secondary legislation.
That includes the creation of a new Independent Immigration Appeals Authority (IIAA) to review appeals on asylum claims and changing how Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is interpreted.
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But there were also a few wildcard policies in the new bill that weren’t given an airing last time round.
Take, for example, the student loan-style system that will mean refugees who earn above a certain threshold after their claim is accepted need to pay the Home Office £10,000 towards their living costs.
Then there’s the fact the IIAA will hire members of the public to take on magistrate-like roles and help to decide asylum cases.
What could possibly go wrong, in a country so viciously polarised over asylum?
These won’t just be regular schmoes, the Home Office assures us – they’ll be professionally trained, and safeguards will be in place to ‘ensure high standards’.
The government says this will ‘result in a significant increase in capacity within the authority, leading to more decisions being made’.
What has Andy Burnham said about immigration?
You’d think we would have a decent idea about that – but alas no.
Andy Burnham didn’t mention immigration once in his big jazzy speech on Monday, even though it’s consistently ranked one of voters’ top issues.
All we’ve got from him on the record – I’m being 100% serious – is a single line to BBC News last month ahead of the Makerfield by-election.
Speaking of Mahmood, Burnham said: ‘We’ll have to work hard to get the balance right, but the broad thrust of what she’s doing is right.’
Which bits of the immigration overhaul fall within this ‘broad thrust’ and which bits do not is up for speculation (like much of the new Makerfield MP’s agenda).
This has allowed people like Labour peer Lord Alf Dubs, formerly a Kindertransport refugee himself, and Green Party leader Zack Polanski to urge Burnham to bin the asylum reforms.
Will he? A few more speeches from the soon-to-be leader are pencilled in ahead of his planned No 10 move-in day on July 20. Maybe if we’re good, we’ll find out then.
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