Asylum: Sponsorship
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the press release entitled "Mahmood: My reforms will save the asylum system for a generation", published on 30 June 2026, whether local authorities will retain a role in consenting to sponsorship arrangements taking place in their area under the named community sponsorship model.
Answered by Home Office
The new safe and legal routes, announced in the Restoring Order and Control statement, will enable community groups, universities and employers to identify refugees they wish to sponsor, including individuals known to them. Any individual proposed for sponsorship would need to meet the eligibility requirements of the route and be subject to the relevant security and assurance checks before a decision is made.
The Home Secretary has stated that the routes will be capped. We anticipate that arrivals under the new safe and legal routes will start small and build over time. The number of arrivals will be carefully managed to align with the UK’s capacity to support refugees and the Home Office will retain overall control on numbers.
We are continuing to work with stakeholders to develop and design the new routes.
Further details, including eligibility requirements for refugees, the role of local authorities, and the funding, fundraising and status requirements for sponsors, will be set out in due course.
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