Shabana Mahmood’s immigration and asylum bill to go before MPs next week

Shabana Mahmood’s controversial plans to increase the forced removal of people refused asylum, introduce stringent age checks for people claiming to be children and limit applications under human rights laws are scheduled to be placed before MPs within days. The immigration and asylum bill is expected to be put before parliament next Tuesday and will face opposition from some Labour , Lib Dem and independent MPs. Andy Burnham’s team, widely expected to be in No 10 within weeks, is understood to be aware of the bill and its contents. The legislation is expected to direct how article 8 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) is applied in immigration and deportation cases. Mahmood has previously claimed that the right to family life has in some cases been used to frustrate removals and undermine public confidence in the rule of law. The bill is also expected to set out plans to strengthen age assessments. A recent report by a coalition of refugee and children’s rights organisations said the government’s proposed use of AI to estimate the age of asylum seekers could create new risks for children. It will outline a new structure for asylum tribunals by dropping an independent court system and replacing it with a new appeals body that sits within the Home Office. It is also supposed to allow the “immediate forced removal of those who have exhausted all appeals”. …