What is Shabana Mahmood’s plan to tackle asylum claims?

Shabana Mahmood will announce what she calls the “most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration in modern times” on Monday.

Under changes believed to be modelled on the Danish system, Mahmood is expected to lay out reforms aimed at making the UK less attractive for illegal immigrants, and at making it easier to deport them.

In a video on X announcing the reforms, the home secretary said: “Across Europe, asylum claims are falling, but in Britain, they are rising. In the last four years, 400,000 people claimed asylum here, over 100,000 are housed and supported at taxpayers’ expense, putting huge pressure on local communities.”

The changes were trailed some days ago by the BBC, whose reporter visited Denmark, which is being held up by Mahmood as a model for a tough but compassionate asylum policy implemented by a social democratic government.

And Mahmood herself will be on the Sunday politics TV shows this weekend.

The main measures are changes to the rules to make it harder to claim asylum, and changes to how the courts should interpret the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which is incorporated in British law through the Human Rights Act.

The ECHR and the Modern Slavery Act are often used by migrants to try to avoid deportation if they have been refused asylum.

She is likely to explain why Labour thinks that leaving the ECHR, which is advocated by Reform and the Conservatives, would be a bad idea. Mike Tapp, the supporter of Mahmood who is Labour MP for Dover and a junior immigration minister, said in an interview on LBC on Thursday: “We can’t leave it because we’ve got trade deals, peace deals, and also returns deals that are underpinned by that.”

But the government can legislate to instruct the courts as to how they are required to interpret the Convention, and especially article 8, the right to family life, which has been the basis of many of the most controversial appeals against deportation.

Denmark is significant because it has a social democratic government and has also been able to deport 95 per cent of failed asylum seekers without falling foul of the European Court of Human Rights.

The policy is not directly aimed at stopping the boats, but is designed to reduce the so-called pull factor of the UK’s asylum regime, and to make it easier to deport those who are not accepted as refugees.

Ramping up deportations is an essential element of the pilot scheme to return small-boat migrants to France, and Mahmood was claiming this week that the numbers on the scheme in the eight weeks so far are evidence that it can be expanded to the point that it becomes a meaningful deterrent.

She posted the Metro front page headline, “84 in … 113 out”, on X, saying: “We’re just getting started.” In other words, 113 have been returned to France, in exchange for 84 recognised refugees coming to the UK. The scheme has established the principle of returning small-boat migrants to France, but the numbers have to be increased several-fold to act as a deterrent to the 1,000 people, on average, who are arriving each week.

Home Office civil servants have been told to stop using the term “irregular” migration and instead call it “illegal” migration, according to Politico. This government, and the Conservative government before it, has used both terms. Refugee charities say that the term “illegal migrant” is dehumanising, which is true because it implies that the person is somehow against the law, but the phrase “illegal migration” seems to be a factual description of the legal position.

Mahmood seems to choose her ground carefully as she presents herself as tough on immigration – earning approving comments from The Sun – but also as compassionate. The French returns scheme is an example, balancing a hard line on deportations with the creation of a small safe route for approved refugees and their families to come the other way.