A group of actors, artists and other notable public figures including Jodie Whittaker, Jude Law, Anna Friel and Antony Gormley have made a joint appeal to the government to relax the strict laws that bar people seeking asylum in the UK from paid work.
The letter published in The Guardian newspaper was signed by 39 people and represented the first such appeal to the government which the group felt was urgent, plainly unjust, and easy to reconcile.
Under current rules, asylum seekers can only work after 12 months while their claim is being processed. After that time they may only hold positions set out in the government’s shortage occupation list, which includes mainly experienced or highly specific roles such as ballet dancers, orchestral musicians and oil and gas engineers.
“We are denying this country the immense skills, aptitude and talents of the people who reach our shores. We are preventing people seeking asylum from integrating with and contributing to our communities. Britain has a proud history of embracing people from different backgrounds, but that history is being undermined by our government’s policy on asylum.”
While the Home Office aims to process asylum applications within six months, about can half take longer. In the interim, people have to either rely on assistance or subsist on the government’s allowance of £5.39 a day. As a result most asylum seekers are forced into poverty, destitution and homelessness. Those advocating on the asylum seekers’ behalf claim their skills are wasted, their individual life ambitions stunted, and their days confined to their accommodation or, in some instances, the streets.
The letter calls for the rules to be changed so asylum seekers can take any job after six months, a position advocated by a campaign called Lift the Ban and the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott.
The immigration minister Caroline Nokes acknowledged said there was merit to the idea of changing the current system, but cautioned that ministers need to consider any changes very carefully.
