Asylum seekers banned from taking taxis for medical trips
Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood announced that asylum seekers are banned from using taxis for most medical journeys.
Under the new rules, taxi use for medical travel will be limited to exceptional, evidence-based circumstances, including physical disability, pregnancy or serious illness.
Such journeys will now require direct approval from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
This policy change follows a recent BBC investigation which revealed the “widespread” use of taxis by asylum seekers and led to the Home Office reviewing transport regulations.
All providers are required to stop using taxis for these medical trips starting in February.
Ms Mahmood said the Government was working with service providers to offer alternatives such as public transport to save taxpayers money.
“This Government inherited Conservative contracts that waste billions of taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” he said.
“I am ending asylum seekers’ unlimited use of taxis to hospital appointments and only allowing them in very exceptional cases.
“I will continue to root out waste while closing all asylum hotels.”
Earlier this month, Ms Mahmood set out a series of measures to overhaul the asylum system aimed at deterring illegal immigration to the UK and making it easier to deport people.
Proposed changes include making refugee status temporary, subject to review every 30 months, and sending refugees home if their home country is deemed safe.
The sweeping reforms sparked criticism from Labor supporters.
Ms Mahmood told MPs it was an “inconvenient truth” that the UK’s generous asylum offer compared to other European countries was drawing people to UK shores and that for British taxpayers the system “feels out of control and unfair”.
The Home Secretary told the BBC’s Political Thought podcast that he had directed officials to “pilot a small programme” of increasing payments “just to see how it changes behaviour”.
The UK is currently offering payments of up to £3,000 to some people who do not have the right to remain in the country and agree to return home.
