Foreign nationals convicted of a sexual offence will be blocked from seeking refugee status in Britain as part of government efforts to tighten rules ahead of local elections and counter the charge from opponents that it cannot protect its borders.

Immigration has long been a major issue in Britain, with voters questioning why successive governments were unable to control arrivals, particularly those coming in small boats across the Channel.

Since being elected last July, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government has sought to restrict access to the asylum system and speed up removal of those denied refugee status.

It is also reviewing how courts interpret a migrant’s right to a family life after the rule which guarantees it, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, was used in multiple asylum appeals, with the details regularly reported by British newspapers.

“We are reviewing that because we do believe that the way in which it’s being interpreted in the courts is an issue,” interior minister Yvette Cooper told Sky News on Tuesday.

Britain has experienced record migration in recent years, with net arrivals hitting 728,000 for the year ending June 2024 — the vast majority coming via legal routes for jobs or as students.

So far this year more than 10,000 asylum seekers have also arrived in small boats in record time, up about 40 per cent compared with the same period last year.

The issue has been seized on by Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK, and the new tightening of the rules was announced two days before local elections on Thursday, where Reform is expected to perform well.

AI for asylum caseworkers

The government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is passing through parliament, will be amended to deny refugee status to any foreign national with a criminal conviction that qualifies them for the sex offenders’ register.

“Sex offenders who pose a risk to the community should not be allowed to benefit from refugee protections in the UK,” Cooper said in a statement late on Monday.

The government also said it would introduce new targets to speed up parts of the asylum decision-making system, and begin using AI to help caseworkers.

Britain had 90,686 asylum cases awaiting an initial decision at the end of 2024.

The government said in January that it had met its target to deliver the highest rate of removals since 2018, having removed 16,400 people.

Western countries, from France and Germany to the United States, have been grappling with a surge in the number of people fleeing war, persecution and poverty, with the global refugee population having tripled in the last decade.