Andy Burnham – who is expected to issue a leadership challenge to Sir Keir Starmer if he is re-elected to Parliament next week – has said the Government needs to “go further” when it comes to tackling the Channel crisis.
The Mayor of Greater Manchester, who could return to the Commons next week if he wins the Makerfield by-election, has pledged to expand the use of detention centres, end asylum hotels and reform how migrants are housed across the country.
Immigration has become one of the defining vulnerabilities for Labour, with Reform UK making significant inroads among voters who feel the party has failed to get a grip on the issue.
If Burnham succeeds in reaching Downing Street, here is what his government could mean for migration policy.
Expand detention and speed up returns
Burnham told BBC Radio Manchester on Monday that small-boat crossings spoke to a sense that “the country isn’t functioning properly” and that the Government needed to “go further”.
He called for “greater use of detention so that people who have no basis for a claim are not actually admitted into the country”, with faster returns for failed claimants.
He added: “It is something that has to be gripped and gripped properly. Because it is about trust in politics, and it is one of those things that is fraying that trust to a degree.”
Keir Starmer’s Government has moved in a similar direction, but on a more targeted scale.
Its flagship returns policy is a “one in, one out” scheme with France, under which anyone crossing the Channel on a small boat can be detained immediately on arrival and returned to France, with an equal number of migrants able to come to the UK through a new legal route in exchange, subject to security and eligibility checks.
As of April, only 605 migrants had been returned to France under the scheme since August.
Overall the Government returned more than 35,000 people with no right to be in the UK in its first year — a 28 per cent increase in returns of failed asylum seekers compared with the previous year.
It also signed a further £662m agreement with France in April to fund new policing units and a removal centre targeting nationals from the ten countries most represented among Channel crossings.
End asylum hotels – and hand the bill to councils
Allies of Burnham have told The Times he wants to trigger break clauses in 10-year Home Office accommodation contracts due to expire in 2029, ending the use of hotels and shifting responsibility for housing migrants to local authorities.
This would likely involve placing asylum seekers in bedsits and houses in multiple occupation rather than hotels.
Around 30,000 asylum seekers are currently housed in approximately 185 hotels, down from a peak of 56,000 across 400 hotels in 2023 under the Conservatives. The expected cost of those contracts has more than tripled, from £4.5bn to £15.3bn.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has committed to closing all asylum hotels by 2029 when the contracts expire, and The i Paper understands she is “laser focused” on moving asylum seekers into military sites in the interim. She is not believed to be planning any move to trigger break clauses early.
Burnham’s allies want to go faster. His spokeswoman confirmed he wants to end the use of private companies in sourcing asylum accommodation, while acknowledging there are no “easy solutions”.
However, experts and former Home Office officials have warned that the Burnham plan to hand responsibility to councils may be difficult to deliver and that breaking contracts and making local authorities responsible for asylum accommodation would cause “massive rows with councils”.
They also say little if any progress has been made in a pilot scheme to allow local authorities to build new council homes to house asylum seekers,
Jacqueline Broadhead, director of the Global Exchange on Migration at the University of Oxford, told The i Paper earlier this month: “There has been little public information about these pilots since the beginning of the year, and it remains unclear whether they will proceed. As a result, an immediate move away from the current system may be difficult to implement.”
One former Home Office insider told The i Paper that councils are already “drowning in statutory duties”.
“Frankly, none of them want to take asylum seekers because they are so expensive,” the insider said.
Keep migrants off benefits for longer
Burnham has moved away from his previous support for scrapping the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) policy, which bars migrants on work, study or family visas from claiming benefits — including universal credit and housing support — until they obtain indefinite leave to remain.
He signed a letter in 2023 calling on the then-Conservative government to “end NRPF in order to end rough sleeping”. His team has since told The Times he no longer stands by that position.
NRPF has been UK policy since 1999 and remains in place under the current Government, which has shown no appetite for scrapping it. Mahmood has instead focused on tightening the qualifying conditions for settlement, including a plan to double the period migrants must wait before applying for indefinite leave to remain.
Burnham had previously criticised that plan, saying it would leave people “in a sense of limbo and unable to integrate”. He has since dropped that objection and expressed support for the policy.
Analysis by the Centre for Migration Control has predicted that scrapping NRPF would make 3.3 million migrants eligible for UK welfare, including two million who arrived in the past three years.
Reform how asylum seekers are housed across the country
Burnham has criticised the Home Office’s asylum dispersal policy, arguing that deprived areas bear a disproportionate share of the burden.
He told BBC Radio Manchester: “I have long argued it is not right that the Home Office just goes to the areas where housing is lower cost and overly uses those areas when it comes to asylum dispersal. I have argued strongly repeatedly that all areas of the country should play a role.”
He added that local authorities were “often just not consulted at all” by the Home Office, and called for reform of accommodation contracts and greater consultation with councils before decisions are made.
The Local Government Association said earlier this month that it wanted to work with ministers on a better plan but urged the Home Office to “engage with and obtain the consent of councils well in advance of any decisions”.
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