Hundreds of charities have said they will refuse to cooperate with \u201cimmoral\u201d government plans to force refugees to undertake mandatory volunteering as a condition of being allowed to settle in the UK.<\/p>\n
The charities said that compelling refugees and asylum seekers to volunteer would be exploitative, bureaucratic and un-British \u2013 and would undermine a fundamental principle that volunteers give their time and skills freely.<\/p>\n
The government is expected imminently to publish outline detailed proposals for mandatory volunteering as part of a formal consultation on a wider \u201ccontribution-based settlement model\u201d<\/a> aimed at reducing immigration.<\/p>\n The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said in a speech<\/a> to Labour party conference in September that in future people would have to prove they had made a social \u201ccontribution\u201d \u2013 such as volunteering for local causes \u2013 to qualify for leave to remain.<\/p>\n Volunteering was one of a number of proposed new settlement conditions flagged by Mahmood to emphasise the government\u2019s tough approach to immigration. Others included learning English \u201cto a high standard\u201d, having a \u201cspotless criminal record\u201d and not relying on social security benefits.<\/p>\n More than 320 voluntary organisations, including the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), the Charity Retail Association representing more than 8,000 charity shops, and local branches of Age UK and Citizens Advice, have signed a letter to the home secretary saying they cannot accept the \u201cunworkable\u201d proposal.<\/p>\n \u201cEffectively making volunteering compulsory undermines its many benefits, and would create a population of people forced to work for free, under threat of having their lives in this country ripped away from them,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n \u201cAs organisations that work with hundreds of thousands of volunteers every year, we tell you now: we will not work with coerced volunteers. We will not report to the Home Office<\/a> on the time people give freely, to us and to their communities. We will not allow our volunteers\u2019 valuable work to be used against other migrants and racialised people who are not able to volunteer.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the charities who signed the letter work directly with refugees and asylum seekers. They said they were \u201cproud\u201d that so many immigrants already volunteered to give back to their local community and warned this freely given contribution \u201cmust not be enforced with threats\u201d.<\/p>\n The letter adds: \u201cMaking volunteering a condition of belonging in this country is both immoral and impractical.\u201d<\/p>\n Voluntary organisations are concerned mandatory volunteering would impose a huge burden of costly, time-consuming reporting bureaucracy on already stretched charities. They also fear pressurising traumatised survivors of war or human trafficking into unpaid work could damage their recovery.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Louise Calvey, the director of Asylum Matters, which coordinated the letter, described the government\u2019s proposal as \u201cnonsensical\u201d: \u201cIt should be very clear to the home secretary that organisations across the voluntary sector, the people who would have to enforce this unworkable policy, will not accept it.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah Wilson, of PERN (Penrith and Eden Refugee Network), said: \u201cMany of our volunteers are asylum seekers and refugees. They volunteer because they are kind and care \u2026 Volunteering is at the heart of British values and should not be weaponised to prove \u2018contribution\u2019 to the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n Leigh Brimicombe, the director of voice and impact at NCVO, said: \u201cThe idea of mandating volunteering as a condition for those seeking indefinite leave to remain fundamentally undermines the idea of volunteering.\u201d<\/p>\n The Home Office was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of charities have said they will refuse to cooperate with \u201cimmoral\u201d government plans to force refugees to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-570349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115549404152287869","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}