Test challenge over ‘move-on’ period to see large numbers of refugees avoid street homelessness, says claimant legal team

That comment has come from a team of barristers at Doughty Street Chambers representing claimants who challenged the Home Office over the period in which newly recognised refugees who formerly claimed asylum continue to receive asylum support. 

The Home Secretary accepted that her decisions refusing to extend asylum support in the five cases before the court were unlawful. 

The team at Doughty Street Chambers said in a statement local authorities and homelessness charities have long argued that the ‘move-on’ period of 28 days was too short to enable refugees to access alternative accommodation and employment or alternative support.

This led to widespread street homelessness, including among lone women and persons recognised as potential victims of trafficking.   

Commenting on the case, the team at Doughty Street Chambers said the litigation disclosed around 1,100 new recipients of leave were being evicted weekly, but there was no monitoring by the Home Office of outcomes for them or local authorities.

It said the case also showed the Home Office and its contractor, Migrant Help, were operating contradictory policies, at least one of those being unpublished, in response to requests for extensions of asylum support. 

The claim had four targets. These were: the Home Secretary’s decision to pause at very short notice a pilot project that had temporarily extended the move-on period to 56 days; the failure of Home Office caseworkers and its contractor to lawfully exercise their discretion to extend asylum support generally; the Home Secretary’s failure to notify new recipients of her discretion to extend asylum support; unlawful refusals of extensions in the cases of the individual claimants. 

An order was issued by Mr Justice Chamberlain under which the Home Secretary agreed to require her caseworkers to grant extensions of asylum support for up to 56 days where satisfied that an individual otherwise faces imminent street homelessness. 

The Home Secretary also accepted that she has a wide discretion under the common law to extend asylum support beyond the period prescribed in secondary legislation, which she must exercise compatibly with Article 3 ECHR.

There was also agreement that the Home Secretary would clarify that she will exercise the discretion on a case-by-case basis and would modify her asylum support discontinuation letters to inform new recipients of her discretion to extend support and how it can be invoked. 

Mark Smulian