'Automatic handouts for asylum seekers will end'

ASYLUM seekers will no longer have an automatic right to housing and weekly handouts under a radical shakeup aimed at stopping illegal migrants coming to the UK.

- BY DAVID WILLIAMSON

The legal duty to provide such support will be revoked under measures to be unveiled by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood tomorrow in what is billed as the “largest overhaul of asylum policy in modern times”.

The changes are based on policies pioneered in Denmark and are intended to ensure “Britain will no longer be a magnet for illegal migrants seeking to benefit from a generous system”. The government said it will seek to remove asylum support from people who have a “right to work and who can support themselves but choose not to, or those who break UK law”.