Refugees face new threat of benefit loss

Rules to stop asylum-seekers exploiting the benefits system were introduced yesterday in the face of opposition from refugee groups, the United Nations and MPs who said they were draconian.

People arriving in Britain will have to claim asylum immediately or lose state support. Beverley Hughes, a Home Office minister, said the rules were "fair and simple" and designed to stop "people using the system to get money or stay in this country when they have no right to be here". She said people whose visas had run out or students who had completed their degrees would no longer be able to claim asylum as a way of trying to stay in Britain.

But refugee groups said the measures could force asylum-seekers into crime and would condemn them to "hunger and homelessness". Sixty per cent of refugees do not apply for asylum immediately.