Failed asylum seeker families to be paid up to £40k to leave UK within 7 days under radical trial
Families of failed asylum-seekers will be paid up to £40,000 to leave the UK voluntarily within seven days, LBC can reveal.
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The Home Office is launching a new pilot where up to £10,000 per person will be given for people who cooperate with the system.
Around 150 families - including children - are expected to take part in the trial, to see if it can help save money.
They hope that if rolled out more widely, it can save the Home Office up to £20million a year.
LBC spoke with the Home Secretary about the plans last week on a visit to Copenhagen, Denmark, where she took inspiration from the Danes for our migration system.
They pay families up to £30,000 in order to leave quickly.
She said she wanted to pay people more than the £3,000 they're currently getting in a bid to try and encourage more to leave, quicker.
A Home Office spokesperson stressed: "This is not a pull factor.
“Illegal migrants pay smugglers tens of thousands of pounds to get to Britain.
"If those families offered the time-limited payment refuse, we will forcibly remove them.”
Read more: What is Shabana Mahmood’s UK asylum and visa overhaul?
The Home Office says they are stuck paying hundreds of families with no right to be in Britain up to £158,000 a year to stay in hotels, and receive support.
LBC can reveal that Shabana Mahmood will today announce a new pilot, where specifically selected families will be able to apply.
They will get access to the extra cash if they accept the offer within seven days and return to a deemed safe country.
Denmark say they've managed to halve the number of people awaiting deportation partly as a result of this strategy.
Families who refuse to leave or obstruct their departure won't be eligible for the scheme and may lose support under the Home Secretary's radical new plans.
Ms Mahmood said: "Taxpayers should not be footing millions of pounds to accommodate families who have no right to be here, especially when others comply with the rules and leave the UK when required.
"That is why we are acting to remove them swiftly, cut hotel use and slash costs.
"I will do whatever it takes to remove the incentives that drive illegal migration and restore order and control to our borders, while ensuring the system is firm, fair and applied consistently to everyone”.
She will give a speech at the IPPR think tank later today where she'll reveal more of the reforms she wants to implement in a bid to "restore order" to our borders.
The government's also announced that asylum handouts and accommodation will be removed for migrants who are abusing the system.
Ministers will repeal parts of EU law to remove the right to asylum support and accommodation from those who can support themselves, break the law, or work illegally.
They hope that will be another step to remove the incentives which are drawing illegal migrants to Britain.
Insiders say that it will mean support is reserved only for those who genuinely need it and follow the law.
It will not mean that people who come here illegally via small boat will automatically face losing their support.
On Monday, new rules kicked in which will make refugee status temporary, rather than starting asylum-seekers on a pathway to staying in Britain within five years.
The Home Secretary will instead review asylum-seeker status every 30 months, and if a country is designated to be safe within that time, families will be expected to return home.
Last year the government spent £4billion on asylum support.
As of December, the Home Office says there were 107,003 individuals in receipt of asylum support with 30,657 in around 200 asylum hotels.
Sir Keir Starmer has promised to end the use of hotels by the end of this parliament.
Ministers say they've already cut the number by a fifth, and cut overall asylum support by 15 per cent in the last year.
The Home Secretary will also use her speech to say that her reforms are in keeping with "Labour values" - despite the loss of the byelection to the Green party last week.
She will insist that only Labour had a plan which is setting out a path between “Farage’s nightmare pulling up the drawbridge and shutting out the world” and “Polanski's fairy-tale of open borders”.
Outlining the Labour case to restoring order and control at our borders, Mahmood will say: “If we cannot deal with so visible a failure, what can the state achieve at all?
"It is our creed, as the Labour Party, that the state can and must be a force for good.
"Without the trust of citizens in the state, therefore, there is no space for Labour values – in any part of Government – to be realised.
"Restoring order and control at our border is not a betrayal of Labour values, it is an embodiment of them, and it is the necessary condition for a Labour Government to achieve anything it hopes to.”
ends