The question produced a No victory — 344 votes to Yes’s 234 — but the sharper story was anxiety about what the waiting period might incentivise. The winning side’s best-rated case warned that work permits could become “a massive pull factor”, while other voices pressed for detention, vetting and removal.
No voters argued that asylum is protection, not employment: “Asylum is not a fast-track work visa.” Even a more moderate objection said the existing permission after six months was sufficient, while several others reduced the answer to a demand that claims be decided “much more quickly”.
Yes voters made a practical, conditional case rather than an open-door one. The floor’s strongest Yes arguments proposed “controlled access to work with strict conditions”, with legal employment and tax payments replacing dependence, illegal work and marginalisation; one said it would let applicants “help pay their own way”. The clash was partly over whether identity checks and restrictions could manage the risk, and partly over whether legal routes already exist at all.
The debate sat inside the wider argument over immigration control and the cost of supporting people while decisions are delayed. Yet the room was not wholly of one mind: one No voter said they were “in favour of immigration” but still opposed work because it might weaken pressure for a faster system, while Yes voters likewise demanded that people be granted protection or returned without delay.
The result was a firm No, but the chamber’s most consistent demand was not simply exclusion: it was a quicker, more decisive asylum process.
34 Opinions
the existing system where people waiting 6 months for their claim to be processed can apply for permission to work is fine, but blanket permission for all asylum seekers to work risks being a pull factor
Imagine the workforce needed to monitor the numbers of different languages involved, with the 1000’s spread around the country … eh ? Imagine just 1 computer savvy illegal employed having access to information and the damage that could be done ?
The claims need to be progressed much more quickly
They need to be detained for the few days they are here before they are deported. How could they be expected to work? I guess they could pick oakum or work the treadmill.
Teaching and training could be provided, at larger accommodation facilities, to use waiting time productively. Paid work would be too strong an incentive to chance a bogus claim and delay a final decision.
It's what the majority of immigrants come here to do. As long as the authorities know where they are, and they check in once a week. Better than have them kicking their heels with boredom.
Controlled access to work with strict conditions is better than forcing people who are allowed to remain in the UK for years to depend entirely on the taxpayer.
Yes in so much as they should earn their keep. Not given a NI number and the work should be local to where they are. Maybe this will cut down the illegal work that they do.
Allowing them to work and pay taxes is a better solution than giving them free housing and subsidies. However the focus should be on rapidly speeding up the asylum process so that people who come here illegally are either granted asylum or deported ASAP.
There is no such a thing as asylum seeker. They are failed at home people - economic migrants, women and children of solders fought against the West or people infiltrating with long standing agenda like faith change etc… No one successful at home, capable and self sufficient will come as a refugee. There might be exceptions to that but they are less then 0.1% and statistically insignificant so can’t be relied upon in order to have this misleading concept of refugees.