Forced to pick between food or medicines, people seeking asylum receive woefully inadequate financial support
Imagine having to choose between eating a hot meal or taking the bus to a doctor’s appointment. Between buying basic clothes and laundry detergent or prescription medication. Between getting school uniforms for your children or not letting them sleep hungry. This is a common experience among people seeking asylum who arrive in the UK after having lost everything and leaving most of their possessions behind. They are not allowed to work in the UK while being forced to wait for months or even years for a decision to be made on their asylum claim, and in the meantime are given severely insufficient financial support. This hostile system deliberately pushes them towards destitution, poverty and ill-health.
Year after year, the Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) has provided detailed evidence to the Home Office explaining why the meagre financial support given to people seeking asylum denies them their basic needs. This has a terrible impact on their mental health and impedes their recovery from trauma, torture and abuse. But every year, the rates are barely revised. If at all, they are increased by an amount so insignificant that it hardly makes a dent in their experiences of poverty.
Arbitrary support rates
People seeking asylum in the UK can apply for financial support and accommodation under section 95 or section 4(2) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 if they meet the destitution criteria. Section 95 support, for those with an initial asylum claim or appeal, consists of a weekly payment of £49.18 per person loaded onto a pre-paid debit card (ASPEN card) and, if needed, accommodation which can be catered or non-catered. For those living in catered accommodation such as hotels, the weekly payment is dramatically reduced to just £8.86. Extra payments are available for families with children or pregnant people, although these are not automatically provided and must be applied for.
Asylum support rates have fallen significantly over the past three decades. Prior to 1999, asylum seekers accessed mainstream benefits and were paid 90% of the standard rate. The Home Office now sets the rate of asylum support according to its own assessment of what it deems is necessary to cover ‘essential living needs’. As a result, asylum support payments are substantially lower than mainstream benefit payments – for a single person aged over 25, they are just over half (54%) of the amount of Universal Credit they would receive. No justification is given for as to why those on asylum support have different ‘living needs’ to those on mainstream benefits. Arguably, people seeking protection have greater needs because they arrive with no possessions and have additional vulnerabilities, such as physical and mental health problems. Many are living in substandard accommodation with limited facilities that increase their need for essentials such as particular food and warm clothing, adding to their expenses.
As little as £8.86 a week
The financial support provided to those living in ‘catered’ accommodation, such as hotels, is even more shocking - just £8.86 a week. This is in part because they are given no money for food. But in our recent report, ‘Suffering and Squalor’, we highlighted that much of the food provided in hotels is wholly inadequate and lacks nutrition. We have seen reports from local doctors concerned about children losing weight or not growing as expected due to lack of nutrition and poor-quality hotel food. Specialist doctors are concerned about the damaging effects of unhealthy food served in hotels on their patients who are suffering from diseases. Umaid, for instance, has a rare form of cancer and is undertaking proton beam radiotherapy while staying at an asylum hotel. He was diagnosed with ‘disease related malnutrition’ and prescribed supplements. The oncology dietician noted that he ‘has no access to suitable foods to maintain stable weight during treatment as he lives in an asylum hotel. His current dietary intake is causing abdominal pain and gastrointestinal issues.’
Umaid is among the many who are condemned to living in abject conditions for months due to the abysmally low levels of asylum support in this country. They are robbed of dignity, basic human rights and are left in a desperate situation which often leads to them being exploited again. This is not just a policy failure but a moral one. Time and again, our clients have to borrow money from friends, or even strangers, in order to cover their basic costs.
The insufficient financial support means that people seeking asylum are often trapped in their accommodation, compounding their feelings of loneliness in a new country. In 2024, the Home Office allocated £4.96 a week to travel in its assessment of asylum support rates, designed only to cover one return bus journey a week. No explanation is given as to how it was decided that one return journey a week was sufficient. Several campaigns have called for free travel for people seeking asylum so that they can access healthcare, legal advice and education and to combat social isolation. But this is asking local governments to address a gap that should not exist – one deliberately created by the Home Office and the view that people seeking asylum do not have the same rights and the same needs as everyone else.
It is time for a change. With the Labour government’s promise to address the asylum backlog and close asylum hotels must also come a commitment to lifting all people out of poverty, including those seeking protection in the UK. They should receive the same levels of state support as any other individuals in need, and that support must be sufficient to allow them to live in dignity and uphold their basic human rights.