Refugees and People Seeking Asylum

What is the Mayor doing to support refugees and people seeking asylum?

The London Strategic Migration Partnership (LSMP), which is chaired by Debbie Weekes-Bernard, Deputy Mayor for Social Integration, Social Mobility and Community Engagement, seeks to ensure the success of refugee resettlement in London and provides strategic oversight and guidance for the operation of the Home Office’s accommodation and support contracts for people seeking asylum in London. Through the LSMP and its sub-groups, the GLA provides accountability to Home Office provision and works with partners to provide solutions to the challenges faced by people seeking asylum.

The Mayor of London is a champion of refugee resettlement. GLA officers work with London boroughs and Community Sponsorship Groups to support them to make offers to resettle refugees and ensure that they are supported well when they are in the UK.

The Mayor has also been advocating on behalf of people seeking asylum in London. For example, the Mayor has been calling for more rights for people seeking asylum who want to work, and for newly recognised refugees to be given longer to move on from Home Office accommodation.

The GLA convenes task groups to tackle problems refugees and people seeking asylum in London are facing. There is currently task groups set up to:

• Establish and review processes and protocols to enable a smooth transition to mainstream housing, welfare and support for newly recognised refugees
• Support commissioners, local healthcare providers, Home Office contractors and statutory and non-statutory services to enable the delivery of accessible, quality healthcare to asylum applicants housed in Initial Accommodation, with a focus on contingency hotel accommodation
• Support the welfare of people seeking asylum accommodated in contingency hotels, as well as the core Initial Accommodation (IA) estate in London

The Mayor's ESOL Plus programme funded innovative pilot projects in London to overcome barriers to ESOL provision for learners with particular needs.

Previous funding rounds include ESOL Plus Childcare, which focussed on meeting the needs of learners with childcare responsibilities, ESOL Plus Employers, which focussed on meeting the needs of learners in low-paid work or insecure employment, and ESOL Plus Arts, which brought together ESOL professionals and arts practitioners to test creative approaches to overcoming barriers to learning English.

The GLA also submitted a response to the consultation on the New Plan for Immigration.