Legal Briefing From Shu Shin Luh, Garden Court Chambers

‘On Thursday 8th November Justice Mostyn, struck down the decision to cut subsistence payments to victims of trafficking awaiting conclusive grounds decisions who are in receipt of asylum support.

The rate went from £65 per week to the asylum support rate (£37.75 per week for s95 and £35.39 per week for s4(2)) from 1 March 2018.

Generic relief was granted to all those affected by this cut. This means any client whose monies were cut would be repaid the sum of the cut (£27.25 for s95 Potential Victims of Trafficking’ (PVoTs) and £28.05 for s4 PVoTs) from 1 March until either date of repayment (if they are still waiting for a CG decision) or to the date they exited the NRM if they got a CG decision. See attached judgment. Moving forward they should also be receiving £65 per week until such time as the SSHD makes any further (lawful) change.

The SSHD has agreed to make a public announcement about this but refused to give a timescale of when or when he will inform all the victims.

If you are representing a PVoT or know a PVoT awaiting CG decision, ask them whether they’ve been cut. If they have, they are entitled to repayment. The repayment amount to today’s date is £981 for a s95 claimant. This is a significant amount for them. They should ask their support providers for the back payments and if they have solicitors, they should ask their solicitors to write to the HO. Otherwise, the Government will drag their feet as this is going to cost them upwards of £1 million.