Exclusive: Labour claimed Britain’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights means the Home Office must consider every application for refuge.
Shabana Mahmood is under pressure to improve integration (Image: Getty)
Asylum seekers will not have to speak English to settle in the UK, ministers have revealed.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in November that migrants must be able to speak English to A-level standards to qualify for indefinite leave to remain.
But this will not apply to asylum seekers, the Daily Express can reveal.
Border Security Minister Alex Norris claimed Britain’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights means the Home Office must consider every application for refuge “irrespective of a person’s ability to speak English”.
This means legal migrants will face more restrictions than those who arrived illegally.
Sir James Cleverly MP, Shadow Communities Secretary, said: “The Government could make English a condition of settlement, yet they’ve chosen not to.
“Nearly a million people already cannot speak English well or at all, and Labour’s answer is to create another route where language requirements don’t exist. Without English, people are left isolated, vulnerable to exploitation, and cut off from the communities they live in.
“Labour are making integration harder by design, and it will make assimilation harder.”
Under Ms Mahmood’s settlement reforms announced in November, illegal migrants will be forced to wait up to 30 years before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain.
Currently, they can apply after five years. Foreign nationals applying for settlement rights must have no criminal record, speak English to A-level standards and have no debt, under Labour’s proposals.
The consultation also “proposes that benefits might not be available to those who have settled status, reserving them instead for those who have earned British citizenship”, she said.
But Border Security Minister Alex Norris admitted the English-language requirement will not apply to asylum seekers.
Mr Norris told former Home Secretary Mr Cleverly: “As a signatory to the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), we are legally obliged to consider all asylum claims admitted to the UK asylum system and to consider people’s human rights in all circumstances where a person would be removed from the UK.
“This is irrespective of a person’s ability to speak English, and it ensures that we do not remove anyone to their own or any other country where they would face persecution or serious harm.”
Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said: “Labour keep telling the country they care about integration, yet they have designed a system where asylum seekers are never asked to learn a word of English and never asked to integrate.
“Only the Conservatives have set out serious measures to restore fairness. We will double the time before settlement, end benefits for new arrivals, and ensure only genuine contributors can stay permanently.
“And through our BORDERS Plan we will leave the ECHR and ECAT, ban asylum and protection claims for illegal entrants, establish our removals force, and remove all illegal immigrants within a week of arrival.
“Labour do not have the backbone to do this. Only the Conservatives have a plan to fix the system.”
James Cleverly warned the move will hit integration (Image: Getty)
The Home Office revealed a staggering 110,051 migrants claimed asylum in the year to September 2025, up 13% in the previous 12 months. It is also 7% higher than the previous crisis, under Tony Blair in 2002.
This has been fuelled by a sharp rise in Channel migrant crossings and a surge in foreign nationals applying for refuge after arriving on a work, study or visitor visa.
Experts from Oxford University’s Migration Observatory said asylum made up 44% of net migration in the year to June.
Separate research – carried out by the Home Office – showed more than half of refugees are unemployed. The employment rate amongst refugees reaches 45% after two years and 48% after eight, increasing fears they will cost the taxpayer even more in benefits.
Of the 110,000 protection claims, 41% (45,183) arrived on a small boat.
Eritreans, Afghans, Iranians, Sudanese and Somalis accounted for almost three-fifths of all small boat arrivals.
Another 12,176 (11%) entered the country illegally, either by lorry, in a shipping container or with fake documents.
And 38% of all asylum claims (41,461) came from foreign nationals who entered the UK on a work, study or visitor visa.
Of the 41,461 claimants, 34% (14,243) held a study visa, 32% (13,427) arrived on a work visa, 20% (8,258) used a visitor visa and 13% held other forms of leave.
One in 10 asylum seekers was from Pakistan, with 11,618 in total. Most sought protection after arriving on a visa.
They were followed by Eritreans (9,037) and Iranians (7,890).
