The Government’s pilot to offer families up to £40,000 if they leave within seven days raises concerns amongst organisations working with families in the asylum system.
For families seeking asylum there can be a number of barriers preventing return such as governments refusing to issue travel documents or nationality being disputed. Serious medical needs, risks to children’s welfare or ongoing conflict and instability in the country of origin can also make removal unsafe or unworkable.
Access to justice in the current legal aid crisis is not failsafe. In some instances, families may not have had adequate legal representation in their claim or been able to exercise their appeal right. In others, where time has passed, families may not have had a chance to put forward new evidence about risk on return or children’s rights under UK law to stay, including for children born in the UK. Families will be given just a week to make a potentially life-changing decision about return without time to access legal advice.
Cutting support for these families if they do not feel able to leave will simply result in more children being left homeless and destitute – with implications for the local authorities in which they live and the government’s homelessness strategy. Time and again, forced destitution has been shown to be a failed policy. A similar approach has already been piloted under the previous Labour Government and was evaluated by the Home Office as ineffective in making families return.
Labour in opposition opposed expanded child detention powers in the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the government removed these powers from the statute book in 2025. It has restated its commitment to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet it is now introducing changes that involve the forcible removal of families, potentially causing significant harm to children. The government’s paper ‘Restoring Order and Control’ promised to ‘launch a consultation on the process for enforcing the removal of families, including children.’ As yet, there has been no consultation.
Anita Hurrell, Head of Policy at Coram Children’s Legal Centre, said:
Families need access to quality legal representation so that they get a fair hearing of their protection claims and any claims to stay in the UK, including for children born or growing up here. We oppose any system of forced family removal that involves the administrative detention of children. The government proudly removed extended child detention powers only last year; we would be disappointed to see the government now seeking to detain babies and children for immigration purposes.
Kamena Dorling, Director of Policy at Helen Bamber Foundation Group, said:
Medical research has consistently shown that immigration detention, even for short periods, is traumatising for children, with serious impact on both their mental and physical health. Reintroducing child detention and imposing forced destitution to coerce families to leave the UK has already been proven ineffective and will cause significant harm.
Imran Hussain, Executive Director of Communications and External Affairs at the Refugee Council, said:
The British public wants to see a fair and controlled asylum system that treats people with dignity. But giving families just seven days to decide whether to uproot their children’s lives, often without access to proper legal advice, risks creating chaos rather than control. Many families simply do not feel safe to return to their countries of origin. And nobody wants to see distressed children detained and forced onto deportation flights.
Families are far more likely to engage if given proper time, support and legal advice – making it more effective, and better value for the taxpayer.
Dr Ilona Pinter, researcher on children and families in the asylum system at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE), London School of Economics, said:
Forced removals are expensive for the Home Office so it would prefer families to leave without the need for detention and enforcement action. But ultimately, if families do not feel safe returning to their country of origin, they will not take this scheme.
The government then proposes to remove them by force, yet we know how damaging detention and forced removals are for children and parents. Also, these financial incentives could create further animosity and stoke resentment against families seeking safety. Instead, we need to make sure children and families have had a fair hearing of their protection claim and that they are supported to make choices in a dignified and humane way that protects children’s welfare as a priority.
