Churches fear for asylum seekers

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The bishops of Winchester, Durham, Guildford and Worcester, the general secretary of the United Reform Church and the leader of the Ashram Community warned the proposed scheme to split the Home Office would increase the risk of bad decisions over refugee applications.

In a letter to The Times, they said: "As church leaders, we are profoundly concerned about the increasing risk to our nation's public and political life of the inhumane and imperfectly processed decisions that are likely to result from the rushed reorganisation of the Home Office.

"We fear that yet more upheaval in the Home Office may result in greater casualties among those suffering from the brutalities of the Government's increasingly draconian immigration policy."

The Home Office is due to be split into two departments for justice and immigration.

The church leaders drew attention to the case of a woman, who attempted suicide after being subject to violence and was detained with a view to deportation to Iran despite evidence sending her back would be unsafe.

They said, after celebrating the Act to abolish the slave trade and pledging to act in the cause of justice and humanity, "can we ignore the horrifying infringements of these that are happening on our doorstep?".

The letter was signed by Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester; Thomas Wright, Bishop of Durham; Christopher Hill, Bishop of Guildford; Peter Selby, Bishop of Worcester and Bishop to HM Prisons; the Rev John Vincent, leader of the Ashram Community and ex-president of the Methodist Conference; and the Rev David Cornick, general secretary of the United Reform Church.