Overview
- Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the plan late Friday and said applications for a university sponsorship route will open this autumn while an employer-sponsored route is due next year, with first arrivals expected in 2027.
- The forthcoming Immigration and Asylum Bill will tighten how family-life claims under the European Convention on Human Rights are used, limit some modern slavery protections and create a tougher legal test to make deporting foreign national offenders easier.
- The Home Office says the new sponsorship scheme will be capped and phased in from a low base and will operate at a higher capacity than the current resettlement scheme, but it has not published exact annual intake numbers or detailed eligibility rules.
- Refugees will be referred for the routes by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, with officials likely to prioritise nationals from high-arrival countries such as Sudan and Eritrea; sponsors will include community groups, trusted universities and later approved employers.
- The plan is modelled on Canada’s private sponsorship system and the UK’s Homes for Ukraine scheme and has divided opinion inside Labour and across charities, with critics warning the legal limits could harm vulnerable people while supporters argue legal routes will reduce dangerous Channel crossings.