By Eniola Amadu
A Home Office minister has revealed that asylum seekers’ jewellery could be seized to pay for processing costs.
Home minister Alex Norris stated while speaking to broadcasters before the formal announcement that the decision to use jewellery will not include seizing wedding rings, but jewellery without sentimental value could be taken.
This initiative is a move borrowed from the tough approach to asylum from Denmark by the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood. This is to reduce the population of refugees coming to the UK.
The minister defended the move while speaking to Sky News saying: “At the moment, the British public pay billions of pounds a year so that those seeking asylum, or those who can be supported in their accommodation and their living.
“It is right if those people have money in the bank, people have assets like cars, like e-bikes, they should be contributing. No, we’re not going to be taking people’s heirlooms off them at the border. But … people have cars. People have e-bikes. Those are assets they should contribute to the cost of benefits.”
When questioned on his take on jewellery without sentimental value he responded saying, “In the instance you’re talking about, no, of course not. If someone comes over with a bag full of gold rings, well, that’s different to what I said about the heirloom.”
When questioned further on the use of wedding rings, he said: “In the instance you’re talking about, no, of course not. If someone comes over with a bag full of gold rings, well, that’s different to what I said about the heirloom.”
Norris also said countries that decline to readmit their asylum-seeker nationals could face diplomatic penalties, including visa restrictions mentioning that Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have been identified among the possible targets during a press briefing.
“There are significant numbers of people who’ve been through the system – they’ve come to this country, have an asylum claim rejected, they’ve appealed it, that’s been rejected and now they’re in accommodation paid for by the taxpayer, going nowhere fast. Terrible for those people, terrible for us collectively.
“But the country of origin, which is a safe country, which often we have a returns agreement with, aren’t doing their bit in helping us remove their citizens back to home.”
