The Home Secretary plans to introduce a fast-track scheme which would aim to turn around asylum appeal decisions within just weeks.
Yvette Cooper revealed Labour is planning to carry out a “major overhaul” of the appeals process in hopes of making a dent in the asylum backlog.
“If we speed up the decision-making appeal system and also then keep increasing returns, we hope to be able to make quite a big reduction in the overall numbers in the asylum system, because that is the best way to actually restore order and control,” Cooper told The Sunday Times.
The scheme would aim to compress the process so decisions and returns could be “made within weeks”, a source told the newspaper.
The Government faces pressure to cut how many asylum seekers are housed in hotels while awaiting the outcome of a claim or appeal.
The Home Secretary has previously said she was eager to put a fast-track system for decisions and appeals in place so that people from countries considered safe would not sit in the asylum system for a long time.
“We should be able to take those decisions really fast, be able to take those decisions, make sure that they go through the appeals system really fast and then also make sure they are returned really quickly as well, she told the Home Affairs committee in June.
“That would mean a fast-track system alongside the main asylum system, I think that would be really important in terms of making sure that the system is fair.
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Yvette Cooper plans to introduce a fast-track scheme to tackle the asylum backlog
PA | More than 25,000 small boat migrants have crossed the Channel into Britain this year aloneMinisters are seeking to create a new offence under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill already going through Parliament in a bid to crackdown on criminal gangs promoting journeys like Channel crossings online.
The proposed measure will also make it a crime to post content online that encourages someone to break UK immigration law in exchange for financial incentives.
It would also outlaw the promise of illegal working being promoted online.
Tensions over asylum hotels have meanwhile flared up in recent weeks, with a protest and counter-protest taking place on Saturday, August 2, outside the Thistle City Barbican Hotel in north London, as well as in Newcastle.
A demonstration outside the Bell Hotel in Essex last month has so far led to 25 arrests.
Eight police officers were injured during the unrest.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of this Parliament.
Asylum seekers and their families are housed in temporary accommodation if they are waiting for the outcome of a claim or an appeal and have been assessed as not being able to support themselves independently.
They are housed in hotels if there is not enough space in accommodation provided by local authorities or other organisations.
