The Home Office has been blasted by a human rights lawyer for offering civil servants a financial incentive to process asylum claims, declaring the scheme is a "terrible idea".
Speaking to GB News, David Haigh hit out at the bonus scheme and claimed it is a "short term gain for a long term pain".
The Home Office are paying civil servants an extra £75 for every asylum case processed that's above their 12 claims a month target, The i Paper has revealed.
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David Haigh hit out at the Home Office for their 'terrible' financial bonus incentive for asylum claims
|GB NEWS / PA
The bonus scheme means that civil servants can earn up to £350 extra a month for rushing through the approval or rejection of cases.
Criticising the incentive on GB News, Mr Haigh stated: "Simply, it's a terrible idea. They're essentially getting a short term gain for long term pain.
"And the worrying thing here, which is why I think it's very dangerous, is that Keir Starmer, he's a human rights lawyer. He will know what speeding up and putting pressure to do things like asylum claims quickly means, because he's been there."
Warning of the impact the incentive will have on claims, Mr Haigh cautioned: "It will mean bad decisions. Bad decisions will mean there'll be more appeals, more appeals will be more people stuck in the system, more money for the taxpayer and injustices as well.
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Civil servants can earn an extra £350 a month by processing asylum claims above their monthly target
| PA"There'll be asylum seekers that do and should need our support that will not get it."
As host Patrick Christys suggested that more claims will be pushed through in order to gain the bonus, Mr Haigh explained that even if claims are rejected, the backlog will still build in the system.
Mr Haigh said: "Obviously the majority of people are probably going through anyway, so I think either way, whether there's more people going through and being approved or more people going through and being put on an asylum appeals list, it's not good either way if those are not genuine cases.
"It's a common sense approach. Speeding things up, which are detailed processes, these really are not things that should be speed up and shouldn't be on the basis of per case."
Mr Haigh told GB News that solving the asylum backlog with financial incentives is 'not the way'
|GB NEWS
In further criticism of the incentive, Mr Haigh concluded that offering financial bonuses is "not the way" to solve the asylum backlog issue.
He stated: "I'm all for overtime and I'm all for training more asylum processors, getting better quality people in to do that. That's another thing that could be done, actually training them better and more quality people, putting the resources there.
"But not saying we'll give you an extra £75 if you push each case through, that's not the way to get this problem solved. It's a terrible idea."
In a statement, a spokesman for the Home Office told GB News: "Rewards or bonuses for our staff are based on the consistent delivery of high quality work and professional behaviour, whether in asylum processing or any other area of Home Office work.
"They added all asylum decisions are subject to the stringent quality cheques, with individual performance targets agreed with managers and reviewed regularly to ensure the high standards expected are consistently met."