Test challenge to policies and practices concerning the move-on period succeeds | Large numbers of newly recognised refugees will avoid street homelessness as a consequence
This was an important test challenge to the move-on period, the period given by the Home Office to newly recognised refugees (and other recipients of leave to remain) who formerly claimed asylum, to move on from asylum support.
Authoritative organisations including homelessness charities, migrant rights charities, UNHCR and local authorities have for many years warned that the move-on period (set in secondary legislation at 28 days) is too short to enable refugees (most of them until the grant of leave to remain prohibited from working, accessing mainstream benefits or accessing local authority housing) to access alternative accommodation and employment or alternative support. That results in widespread street homelessness among refugees (including lone women and persons recognised to be potential victims of trafficking).
In the course of this litigation, it was disclosed that around 1100 new recipients of leave were being evicted weekly, but there was no monitoring by the Home Office of outcomes for those evicted or for local authorities. It also transpired that the Home Office and its contractor, Migrant Help, were operating contradictory policies, at least one of those being unpublished, to requests for extensions of asylum support.
The claim had four targets (1) the Home Secretary’s decision of 1 September 2025, to pause at very short notice and for most cohorts of newly recognised refugees, a pilot project (“the Pilot”) by which she had temporarily extended the move-on period to 56 days; (2) the failure of the Home Secretary’s caseworkers and contractor lawfully to exercise their discretion to extend asylum support generally; (3) the failure of the Home Secretary to notify new recipients of leave of her discretion to extend asylum support or how it could be invoked; and (4) unlawful refusals of extensions in the cases of the individual claimants.
The Claimants were, by agreement, successful as to each of the four targets:
- The Home Secretary has agreed to issue a direction requiring her caseworkers to grant extensions of asylum support for up to 56 days (subject to her wider discretion to extend for longer) where satisfied that an individual otherwise faces imminent street homelessness. This agreement will last until the end of the Pilot, or until the pause to the Pilot is lifted, whichever occurs earlier.
(a) The Home Secretary has accepted that she has a wide discretion under the common law to extend asylum support beyond period prescribed in secondary legislation, which she must exercise compatibly with Article 3 ECHR.
(b) The Home Secretary has agreed to amend her Ceasing Section 95 Instruction to clarify that her that her current policy concerning the exercise of the discretion outside the Pilot is that (a) she will exercise the discretion on a case-by-case basis; (b) the discretion may be exercised on the basis that the individual would otherwise face the prospect of imminent street homelessness; (c) where asylum support is extended or reinstated on the basis of imminent street homelessness, the decisive factor will in many cases be whether or not the individual has made reasonable efforts to secure accommodation and/or support from other sources.
- The Home Secretary agreed to modify her Asylum Support Discontinuation Letters to inform new recipients of leave of her discretion to extend support and how it can be invoked; and supply a link to the policy that will be applied;
- The Home Secretary accepted that her decisions refusing to extend asylum support in the five cases before the Court were unlawful.
At a hearing before Chamberlain J, the lead judge of the Administrative Court, the Home Secretary was found to have breached her duty of candour in these proceedings and was ordered to pay the Claimants’ full costs including, for part of the litigation, costs on an indemnity basis.
The Order can be found here.
Laura Dubinsky KC led Daniel Clarke of Doughty Street Chambers and Siân McGibbon of Landmark Chambers for the lead claimants, instructed by Deighton Pierce Glynn (“DPG”). The DPG team was headed by Ahmed Aydeed, Partner and also comprised Megan Smith, Ralitsa Peykova, Natalie Hawes and Megan Hovvels.
A larger team of Doughty Street barristers, instructed by Ahmed Aydeed at DPG, assisted a wider group of individual claimants: Hannah Smith, Michael Spencer, Joshua Jackson, Finnian Clarke, Cian Murphy, again all led by Laura Dubinsky KC.
The Doughty Street clerks, Rachel Finch and Emily Norman organised a vital, urgent rota of counsel to obtain urgent relief where required for individual claimants.
Front-line organisations working with the homeless and with refugees provided key evidence: NACCOM, Care4Calais, Glass Door, CARAS, RAMFEL.
