UK wants to seize asylum seekers' possessions to pay for support. It's an old British tradition

The UK’s government has recently caused much media excitement and concern among asylum seekers and refugees. It has announced a raft of polices that are described as aiming to ‘restore order and control’ to the UK’s borders.

One element of the announcements particularly captured the press’ attention – that those with “assets will be forced to contribute to their bed-and-board”. The Sun newspaper, for example, ran the headline: ‘BLING STING: Small boat migrants to have jewellery and assets seized to pay for accommodation as part of Home Sec’s arrivals crackdown’.

The government noted the new policy was drawing upon developments in Denmark. There have been powers there since 2016 that enable the seizure of possessions to help defray the costs of asylum support. These powers were introduced by a centre-right government but with Social Democrats voting in support of the measures, the BBC reports. The linking of the developments in the UK to the Danish experience was likely to have been a political strategy to try to minimise backbench Labour MP critique.

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When introduced in Denmark the policy was controversial, with comparisons being drawn to Jewish people having possessions confiscated during World War II. Perhaps the Refugee Council’s view that the UK’s proposal has “deeply troubling echoes of some of the worst treatment of refugees in history” was reference to this.

The idea, however, that people who need state support during periods of hardship should use their own resources – savings, possessions and so forth – have a long history in the UK. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham, writing in the 1790s, was a vocal supporter. Bentham’s focus was how it might be possible to relieve destitution in ways that made destitute people pay for the support they received – to make, in other words, the relief of destitution pay for itself.

In addition to reducing the costs of poor relief, Bentham believed the character of paupers would be improved by making them responsible for the support that they received. If a pauper could not be held in what he described as an ‘Industry House’ (Bentham’s version of a workhouse) and do work to pay off the value of their support, he argued that they should provide possessions to the value of their poor relief instead.

Bentham also argued that there may be people who were so destitute that they had no material possessions to pledge to cover the costs of their poor relief. In such instances, he argued, they should be loaned their support to be repaid once they entered or re-entered paid work or when their assets became realisable. As loans do more generally, this would mean a pledge of their character – a trust that they would repay the loan.

In both instances, the idea was that by making paupers responsible for their own poor relief, only the destitute with no other option would claim such relief. All others would be deterred from doing so. They would do whatever they could to avoid placing their few possessions in the hands of the Industry House or becoming indebted to it.

It was common for poor people to sell or pawn their possession to avoid having to submit to poor relief. Poor relief authorities taking the possessions of paupers to guarantee their relief was repaid is not something that there is much evidence of happening.

Such ideas, however, live on in policies like the capital limits for means-tested benefits, which means that only those people with less than a modicum of savings and assets can claim them. And people who are successful awarded refugee status can apply for a refugee integration loan to help with such costs as a rent deposit, household items and education and training for work. It must be repaid from future earnings or benefit payments.

In UK policy, there is also a deeply held view that those people needing support are responsible for their poverty and destitution – that they need to be deterred from claiming collectively provided support, and that any support given should improve the recipients character.

We can see such concerns in the proposal to use the assets of asylum seekers and refugees to contribute towards the relief of their needs. In Denmark the power to confiscate assets is rarely used (17 times in the first six years). Nevertheless, in the UK the sees the policy as an important part of a package aimed at deterring people from seeking asylum. Ministers claim they want to ensure that only ‘genuine’ asylum seekers are supported, and assure voters that costs are being kept to a minimum by forcing a contribution from people seeking asylum.

Despite claims about the influence of Danish policies, the recent asylum seeking-related announcements from the UK government are consistent with deeply held beliefs and concerns here too. These relate to minimising the costs of socially provided support, deterring people from using services, and incentivising destitute people to be self-supporting. These are ideas that have been central to approaches to and debates about the relief of poverty and destitution in the UK for many years.

Chris Grover is a professor in social policy and deputy head of the school of social sciences at Lancaster University.

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