Peers warn against EU asylum processing centres

Plans to establish off-shore centres to process asylum applications could create "formidable difficulties", a committee of peers has concluded.

As an alternative, the Lords EU committee called for action to improve and accelerate domestic asylum determination procedures.

Commenting on the report, Baroness Harris of Richmond said: "Handling heavy and fluctuating asylum caseloads presents a major challenge for most EU countries.

"But the British government's and UNHCR's proposals for extra-territorial processing of asylum claims are not the answer.

"Shuffling people around the EU for their applications to be considered would be undesirable for the people concerned and raise serious legal difficulties. It would also be a logistical nightmare."

Ministers have dropped plans to establish proposals for "transit processing centres", but the UNHCR has put forward a similar proposal for EU asylum processing centres.

The committee said the proposals would lead to uncertainty about which state would be responsible for the asylum decision and accountable for it.

It also warned there would be uncertainty about what legal procedures would apply – and concluded there will be practical difficulties of transferring people forcibly to the centres.

The peers also raised concerns that the centres might act as magnets – creating a new wave of Sangatte camps.

"The committee also sees no case for transferring responsibility for deciding asylum claims from the member states to a central EU authority," said the report.

The peers said that better quality decision-making in the member states will be the "key to an effective determination process".

Currently more than 20 per cent of initial refusals are overturned on appeal.

To address this problem, the committee said that more resources should be put in at this stage – and recommended the creation of an EU-managed independent documentation centre.

It added that ministers should develop ways to deliver the prompt removal or voluntary departure of failed asylum seekers.

The government should also consider ways to regularise the position of those who the Home Office is unable or unwilling to remove.

They should not be left "in limbo" without a legal status, said the committee.