More charities have backed the Standard’s campaign to lobby the Government to reverse a 20-year-old policy and afford asylum seekers the right to work after six months in line with other European countries.
It follows our victory last week in getting the Government to double the “move-on” period for refugees having to leave Home Office accommodation on receipt of their Decision Outcome Letter – from 28 days to 56 days for a trial period of at least six months – and which was hailed as a “major win” for reducing homelessness among refugees.
Refugee Action said that denying asylum seekers the right to work for 12 months and then restricting them only to those jobs on the Shortage Occupation List (recently renamed the Immigration Salary List) was “incredibly damaging” and called on ministers to urgently “lift the ban now”. A second refugee charity, HIAS+JCORE, called for new policies that would give refugees their dignity by letting …