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The Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) welcomes the government’s decision to scrap the use of ‘scientific methods’ to assess the age of unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK. However, we are concerned about the government’s proposals to use artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition technologies to assess age, and the ongoing use of visual assessments at the border.

Helen Bamber Foundation Group (HBF Group) is pleased to announce Alison Pickup as their new Chief Executive Officer. Alison, who is currently the Executive Director of Asylum Aid, a charity part of the HBF Group, will take over from Kerry Smith, who has been the CEO of the HBF Group since May 2018 to June 2025

With the far right on the rise globally and the rise in discrimination and hate crimes, we urgently need this government to move away from the demonising language of the past and towards defending everyone's fundamental human rights, with immigration and asylum systems that are fair and humane.

Thousands of people seeking protection, including survivors of trafficking and torture, are placed in squalid hotels, remote large ex-military sites, and dispersal accommodation which is in disrepair. Living in unhygienic and crowded spaces, putting up with substandard food and hostile support staff, and living on an allowance of £8.86 per person per week is an everyday reality for many, as they are not allowed to work while waiting for a decision on their asylum claim. This is compounded by the sheer length of time they spend in these conditions.

The Helen Bamber Foundation welcomes the High Court’s judgment finding that the Home Secretary acted unlawfully in accommodating victims of trafficking, torture and other extreme human cruelty in RAF Wethersfield. The three claimants in the legal challenge all suffered a significant decline in their mental health as a result of living at Wethersfield. It is shocking that the site remains open given the wealth of evidence showing more widely the serious harm that has been caused to men forced to live there.

Parts of the new Border Security, Asylum & Immigration Bill build on the much-needed reforms to the asylum system that the government has made since taking office. It repeals the Safety of Rwanda Act and parts of Illegal Immigration Act (IMA). But many concerns remain.

Helen Bamber Foundation is extremely concerned that the UK government has decided to suspend decision making in Syrian asylum cases. The government is in no position to assume the safety of individuals in such a volatile and developing situation. Helen Bamber Foundation has supported survivors who were tortured by sectarian militias and who would have feared both Bashar al-Assad and sectarian militias, such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The reasons for Syrian nationals claiming asylum in the UK are multi-faceted, complex and in no way limited solely to the atrocities committed by the Assad regime.

We are horrified and extremely concerned about the far-right racist attacks on asylum hotels and violence against people seeking asylum, refugees, migrants, and minority communities, particularly Muslims. These disturbing images and threats of more organised attacks are taking a huge toll on the mental health of the people we work with – those who have survived some of the worst forms of human cruelty and have arrived in the UK in hope of finding protection.

As we head towards a General Election, we are proud to have added our name to the Fair Begins Here promise from the coalition campaign Together With Refugees.

We are dismayed at the passing of the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which declares Rwanda to be ‘safe’ despite the opposite finding by the Supreme Court, and in doing so allows the UK government to put people seeking asylum at great risk by sending them there.

Last week, the Home Office shamefully discredited the findings of our report, written jointly with Humans for Rights Network, which provided detailed evidence of the irreparable and profound harm caused to residents housed in the asylum camp at Wethersfield airfield.

As representatives of medical humanitarian and healthcare organisations, we call on the government to urgently abandon its plans to push through its ‘Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill’, which risks exposing men, women, including pregnant women, and children to irreparable harm.