Home Office ‘considering fitting asylum seekers with electronic tags’

Asylum seekers arriving via unauthorised means into the UK could be fitted with electronic tags under plans being considered by the Home Office, it has been reported.

According to the Times, officials are mulling it as a way to prevent migrants who cannot be housed in limited detention sites, due to a shortage of accommodation, from absconding.

The Illegal Migration Act places a legal duty on the Government to detain and remove those arriving in the UK illegally, either to Rwanda or another “safe” third country.

However, as spaces in Home Office accommodation are in short supply, officials have been tasked with a “deep dive” into alternatives, the newspaper says.

However officials warned the measure would involve huge costs and there may not be enough tags.

While the preferred solution is to increase the number of detention places, electronic tagging has been suggested. Other measures being considered include cutting off financial allowances to someone who fails to report regularly to the Home Office, the Times cited a source from the department as saying.

The source continued: “Tagging has always been something that the Home Office has been keen on and is the preferred option to withdrawing financial support, which would be legally difficult as migrants would be at risk of being left destitute.”

Asked whether tagging is under consideration, a source close to Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “We already do it,” the PA news agency reported.

Home Office data this week showed Channel crossings topped 19,000 for the year so far, despite Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge that he will “stop the boats”.

The asylum backlog has soared to a record high, with more than 175,000 people waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application at the end of June, with the bill for the taxpayer almost doubling in a year to nearly £4 billion.