Opinion-in-brief: The government can’t get a grip on migration
Yesterday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman had the chance to reiterate her commitment to protecting the country’s borders while reducing the asylum applications backlog in front of the Lords justice and home affairs committee.
She was grilled about the avenues available to Afghan refugees, particularly women. The questioning was all the more poignant given that on Tuesday the Taliban announced the closure of all universities for women in Afghanistan, tightening the authoritarian grip.
Braverman also insisted that her department was working hard to “triple the productivity of case workers” in charge of asylum claims. She described how “unnecessary bureaucratic steps” will be removed and how the asylum seekers’ interviews will be made shorter.
Braverman tried to convey an aura of pragmatism and professionality, but she wasn’t particularly persuasive. The government is still struggling to convince the electorate that it knows what is doing on migration.
The prime minister is not faring much better. After welcoming the High Court’s decision on the legality of the Rwanda deal, Rishi Sunak wasn’t even able to say how many individuals he intended to remove next year.