In HA & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWHC 1876 (Admin), handed down last week, Mr Justice Swift found the time the Home Office took to consider applications for support, and then to provide support to those deemed eligible, was unlawful. Swift J held that the Home Office’s failure to provide emergency interim financial support was unlawful. He also held that the home secretary must provide additional support to pregnant women and children under three years in cash payments rather than in kind.
Asylum seekers rely on s 95, Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 support in the form of accommodation and support from the Home Office, as they cannot work for the first year after arriving and afterwards only in a few limited professions, and do not qualify for universal credit.
One claimant, however, despite being granted s 95 support in May 2021 after a delay of 11 weeks, did not receive accommodation for a further seven months and financial support after a year, during which he relied on spoiled food from local shops to feed his children.
Another claimant, an 82-year-old woman, did not have enough money to eat and was about to be made street homeless. The Home Office conceded it unlawfully failed to provide support and agreed to pay compensation, 15 months after her first application.
John Crowley, associate solicitor at Leigh Day, representing three of the claimants, said: ‘The court has found in no uncertain terms that the Home Office’s current system for supporting asylum seekers is unlawful.
‘It is unacceptable that my clients, and so many others like them, had to go months and months without any form of support, forcing them into desperate and horrifying situations.’
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