The Gateway Protection Programme was a refugee resettlement scheme operated by the Government of the United Kingdom in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and co-funded by the European Union (EU), offering a legal route for a quota of UNHCR-identified refugees to be resettled in the UK. Following a proposal by the British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, in October 2001, the legal basis was established by the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and the programme itself launched in March 2004. The programme enjoyed broad support from the UK's main political parties.
The Gateway Protection Programme initially had a quota of 500 refugees per year, which was later increased to 750, but the actual number of refugees resettled in most years was fewer than the quota permitted. Afghan, Liberian, Congolese, Sudanese, Burmese, Ethiopian, Mauritanian, Iraqi, Bhutanese, Eritrean, Palestinian and Somali refugees were amongst those who were resettled under the programme. Refugees were resettled to locations in England and Scotland. Of the 18 local authorities participating as resettlement locations by 2012, eight were in the North West region of England and three in Yorkshire and the Humber. Evaluations of the programme have praised it as having a positive impact on the reception of refugees by local communities, but have also noted the difficulties these refugees have faced in securing employment.
In 2019, the British government announced plans to merge the Gateway Protection Programme with two of the UK's other resettlement schemes to create a new, single resettlement scheme. This was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the Gateway Protection Programme closed after resettling 9,939 refugees since it began in 2004. The new, replacement UK Resettlement Scheme started in February 2021.
Details The programme was the UK's "quota refugee" resettlement scheme. Refugees designated as particularly vulnerable by the UNHCR were assessed by the Home Office for eligibility under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. If they met the eligibility criteria, they were brought to the UK and granted indefinite leave to remain. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) assisted the process by facilitating pre-departure medical screening, counselling, dossier preparation, transport and immediate arrival assistance. Once in the UK, refugees were entered into a 12-month support programme intended to aid their integration. The programme involved local authorities and NGOs including the British Red Cross, the International Rescue Committee, Migrant Helpline, Refugee Action, the Refugee Arrivals Project, the Refugee Council, Scottish Refugee Council and Refugee Support. These organisations formed the Resettlement Inter-Agency Partnership at the planning stage of the programme, in order to pool their resources and form a partnership for the delivery of services to the resettled refugees.
The programme was distinct from, and in addition to, ordinary provisions for claiming asylum in the United Kingdom. The Gateway Protection Programme was co-funded by the European Union, first through the European Refugee Fund and then through its successor, the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF). Over the period 2009–14, the Home Office provided £29.97 million in funding and the EU £18.67 million. Anna Musgrave of the Refugee Council argued in 2014 that the programme "is rarely talked about and the Home Office, in the main, stay fairly quiet about it."
History
The Gateway Protection Programme was not the first British refugee resettlement programme. Other, informal resettlement programmes have included the Mandate Refugee Scheme, and the UK has also participated in the Ten or More Plan. The former is for so-called "mandate" refugees who have been granted refugee status by UNHCR in third countries. To qualify for the scheme, refugees must have close ties to the UK and it must also be demonstrated that the UK is the most appropriate country for their resettlement. The Ten or More Plan, established by UNHCR in 1973 and administered in the UK by the British Red Cross, is for refugees requiring medical attention not available in their current location. During the 1990s, 2,620 refugees were settled in the UK through these two programmes. In 2003, the UK's Ten or More Plan had a resettlement goal of 10 people and the Mandate Refugee Scheme 300. Refugees have also been resettled through specific programmes following emergencies, including 42,000 Ugandan Asians expelled from Uganda during 1972–74, 22,500 Vietnamese during 1979–92, over 2,500 Bosnians in the 1990s, and over 4,000 Kosovars in 1999.
A new resettlement programme was proposed by the British Home Secretary, David Blunkett in October 2001, having been hinted at by the previous Home Secretary, Jack Straw, in a speech to the European Conference on Asylum in Lisbon in June 2000. The legal basis for the programme's funding was established by Section 59 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. This act was passed by the House of Commons by 362 votes to 74 in June 2002 and by the House of Lords – at the ninth attempt, following concern about the introduction of measures allowing for the detention of asylum seekers in rural areas – in November 2002.
Year Quota Refugees resettled 2004 500 150 2005 500 71 2006 500 353 2007 500 463 2008 750 642 2009 750 857 2010 750 666 2011 750 432 2012 750 995 2013 750 937 2014 750 630 2015 750 652 2016 750 804 2017 750 813 2018 750 693 2019 750 704 2020 750 77 Total 9,939
The Gateway Protection Programme was subsequently established in March 2004, with the first refugees arriving in the UK on 19 March. Initially, the programme quota was set at 500 per year. The British government had faced criticism from academics and practitioners over the small number of refugees it has resettled in comparison with other developed states. For example, in 2001 the countries with the largest quota schemes were the United States (80,000 refugees), Canada (11,000) and Australia (10,000). Initially, David Blunkett had intended to raise the quota to 1,000 in the second year of the programme's operation, but local councils' reluctance to participate in the scheme meant that it was slow to take off. It has been argued that their reluctance showed that hostile attitudes towards asylum seekers had carried over to affect the most genuinely needy refugees. The quota remained at 500 per year until the 2008/09 financial year, when it was increased to 750 refugees per year. The number of refugees resettled under the scheme was small in comparison to the number of asylum seekers offered protection in the UK. For example, in 2013, 17,647 initial decisions on asylum claims were made by the Home Office, of which 5,734 (32.5 per cent) determined the applicant to be a refugee and granted them asylum, 53 (0.3 per cent) granted humanitarian protection and 540 (3.1 per cent) granted discretionary leave. 11,105 applications (62.9 per cent) were refused. Worldwide, there were 51.2 million forcibly displaced people at the end of 2013, 16.7 million of whom were refugees.
The programme was supported by the main British political parties at the national level since its inception, and there was also support from councillors from each of the main parties at the local authority level. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the scheme in 2014, refugee groups and others praised it as a successful programme and called for it to be expanded, particularly in light of the Syrian refugee crisis. In early 2014, Amnesty International and the Refugee Council campaigned for the government to offer resettlement or humanitarian protection to Syrian refugees above and beyond the Gateway quota of 750 per year, "to ensure that resettlement opportunities continue to be available to refugees from the rest of the world". The anniversary of the programme was also the occasion of further criticism of the 750 quota, with some commentators arguing that this was mean-spirited and continued to compare unfavourably with the refugee resettlement programmes of states including the United States, Canada and Australia. Others, such as academic Jonathan Darling, were more skeptical about expanding the scheme, for fear that any such a move would be accompanied by greater restrictions on the ability of people to claim asylum in the UK. He argues that "we must be critical of any attempts to expand such a quota-based scheme at the expense of a more progressive asylum system". Furthermore, he argues that the "hospitality" of the scheme was highly conditional and can be viewed as a form of "compassionate repression", with the UNHCR, the Home Office and local authorities all involved in "sorting, decision, and consideration over which individuals are the 'exceptional cases'", to the exclusion of others.
In September 2015, in the context of the European migrant crisis, Labour Party leadership candidate Yvette Cooper called for an increase in the number of refugees resettled in the UK to 10,000. The prime minister, David Cameron, subsequently announced that the UK would resettle 20,000 refugees from camps in countries bordering Syria over the period to 2020 under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, which was established in early 2014 and was distinct from, but modelled on, the Gateway Protection Programme.
On 17 June 2019, the British Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, announced that a new resettlement scheme would be introduced from 2020, bringing the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, the Vulnerable Children's Resettlement Scheme and the Gateway Protection Programme into a single programme with an initial quota of 5,000 people. The government stated that "the new programme will be simpler to operate and provide greater consistency in the way that the UK government resettles refugees". The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the launch of the new resettlement scheme, with the individual schemes it was intended to replace being placed on hold in March 2020 and limited resettlement under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme only resuming in late 2020. A January 2021 parliamentary briefing explained that since the pandemic, "there has been uncertainty over the Government's plans to launch the [UK Resettlement Scheme], and it is unclear whether the previous ambition to resettle 5,000 refugees in the first year of operation still stands". Government ministers confirmed that they still intended to launch a new programme, however. The new UK Resettlement Scheme started in February 2021.
Refugees resettled Refugees resettled Nationality 2004–2012 2013–2017 2018–2020 Afghan 7 187 Bhutanese 257 101 Burmese 460 Burundian 6 3 Cameroonian 1 Congolese (DRC) 1,038 1,043 325 Djiboutian 1 Eritrean 8 67 124 Ethiopian 897 440 43 Iraqi 1,116 524 81 Liberian 118 Mauritanian 53 Pakistani 48 Palestinian 81 158 Rwandan 2 1 Sierra Leonean 4 4 Somali 418 1,095 343 South Sudanese 64 12 Sudanese 172 472 100 Syrian 1 Ugandan 2 20 Yemeni 6 Other/unknown/stateless/refugee 3 24 Total 4,622 3,834 1,474