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Foreign nationals convicted of sex offences will be banned from claiming asylum in the UK, Yvette Cooper has said, as Labour attempts to fight off the threat from the Reform party before Thursday’s local elections.
For the first time, anyone from overseas who qualifies for the sex offender register will be excluded from refugee protections.
The development was questioned by human rights organisations concerned that “irresponsible” changes to immigration law are being rushed through to challenge a surge in the polls from Nigel Farage’s party.
Keir Starmer has accused Reform and the Tories of attempting to “con” the British public because they are refusing to admit that they are preparing a coalition deal.
The new measure will be introduced in an amendment to the border security, asylum and immigration bill being considered by parliament, the Home Office said.
Under the refugee convention, countries can refuse asylum to those who have committed a “particularly serious crime”. In the UK, a criminal handed a prison sentence of one year or more can be defined as having committed a “serious crime”.
Officials said the planned changes will mean that anyone convicted of a crime and placed on the sex offender register will be categorised as having convicted a “particularly serious crime”, regardless of the length of sentence they receive.
Home Office sources have not said how many more foreign national offenders may be removed from the UK as a result of the change. The department has conducted an impact assessment on the new policy which is yet to be released.
According to official statistics, there were 451 foreign nationals serving sentences of less than 12 months in England and Wales at the end of March. There is no breakdown showing how many of those are sex offenders.
Offenders who face removal could still attempt to claim a right to remain in the UK under the European convention on human rights, sources indicated. The new rule will also apply to foreign offenders who were convicted of sex offences abroad.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, the programme director for refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International UK, said the development was “an irresponsible approach to lawmaking that has long plagued immigration policy”.
He added: “Rushing through late-stage amendments to major legislation means laws are made without the full scrutiny and care they demand. It risks creating injustice and dysfunction.
“Excluding individuals from refugee protections without a proper, individualised assessment undermines fairness, hinders integration, and condemns people to live in limbo, unable to move forward with their lives.”
The Home Office will also direct courts to reduce the time they take to consider appeals from asylum seekers in accommodation.
The amendment will also set a 24-week target for first-tier immigration tribunals to decide on the appeals of those living in asylum seeker supported accommodation, or who are foreign national offenders, in a bid to cut the asylum backlog.
Artificial intelligence will be used to support those processing asylum claims, the Home Office said, such as by summarising interview transcripts and accessing country advice. Using the technology could save case workers up to an hour per case, according to the department.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, welcomed efforts to speed up the appeals process, but said that extra funding would be required to make it work.
He said: “A faster appeals process cannot be magicked up out of thin air and must not come at the cost of people’s access to justice. Previous efforts to speed up this process have often led to a bigger court backlog due to poor quality initial decisions.
“The use of AI therefore must be carefully considered before potentially life or death decisions become a testing ground for the technology,” he said.
Reform is on course to take hundreds of council seats and is ahead in the race for two metro mayoralties – Lincolnshire and Hull – as well as the Runcorn byelection, a constituency which Starmer has not yet visited.
While much of the focus has been on the Tory response to the Farage threat, with Kemi Badenoch’s party expected to suffer a devastating night on Thursday, Labour insiders are also anxious about how they will perform against Reform in their post-industrial heartlands.
There is some alarm on the backbenches over the government’s response to date, with MPs fearing the party’s position on issues is reached as a result of electoral considerations – such as migration, Europe and social issues.
“We need to be careful about lurching to the right in response to Reform,” one MP said. “We can do better than that. We should be arguing for Labour values especially on immigration. If we want economic growth, legal migration has to play a part in that.”
The number of migrants who have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel this year has edged closer to 10,000, at the start of what is forecast to be the warmest week of 2025 so far.
It emerged last year that a man who had carried out a chemical attack in Clapham, south London, had been granted asylum despite being a convicted sex offender and on the sex offender register.
Abdul Ezedi, who doused his former girlfriend in alkaline before taking his own life, was granted asylum in 2020 by a judge who accepted that he was a Christian convert.
He had been given a suspended sentence at Newcastle crown court on 9 January 2018 after pleading guilty to sexual assault and exposure and had been placed on the sex offender register for 10 years.
