Draft Immigration and Asylum (Provision of Accommodation to Failed Asylum-Seekers) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Parliament approved new rules on asylum support on 28 April 2026, in a committee vote of 304 ayes to 28 noes. Division 515 concerned the Draft Immigration and Asylum (Provision of Accommodation to Failed Asylum-Seekers) (Amendment) Regulations 2026, which give the Home Secretary the power to suspend or withdraw housing and financial assistance from failed asylum seekers found to be working illegally, and remove the existing blanket duty to provide support in all cases. The regulations tighten the conditions under which the state must house and financially support people whose asylum claims have failed. In practical terms, they allow the government to cut support where illegal working is detected, rather than being required to maintain it. Critics warned that removing the automatic duty to support, without simultaneously granting asylum seekers the right to work legally, risks pushing vulnerable people onto already stretched councils and charities. The government framed the change as part of a broader shift toward a system that directs limited public funds at those who are genuinely destitute and cannot support themselves. The vote passed with overwhelming Labour support: 266 Labour MPs and 33 Labour and Co-operative MPs voted aye, against 6 Labour noes. Opposition came mainly from the SNP (9 noes), the Greens (5 noes), Plaid Cymru (4 noes), and four Independents. The Conservatives broadly supported the regulations in principle, though the shadow minister argued the changes would not go far enough without wider reform. The Liberal Democrats had one recorded aye with no vote recorded for 71 of their MPs. The vote took place in a delegated legislation committee on the same day as a related division on the Draft Asylum Seekers (Reception Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026, which passed 308 to 81 on a wider vote of the full House.