The Home Office's own guidance admits a torture-survivor protection removed in 2024 is now restored after a legal challenge. A judge found the department kept the policy running for a year after a different court had already ruled it unlawful.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. Version 16.0 of the Home Office's "Allocation of asylum accommodation policy", updated 29 July 2026, says it "restores the previous policy position" for torture and trafficking survivors, "pending further consideration following litigation concerning the policy development process" [1]. The judgment behind that sentence, handed down on 28 May 2026, found the department "acted unlawfully by failing to consult", "acted in breach of the PSED" and "acted in breach of the Tameside duty", concluding that "these failures amount to a serious breach of the Defendant's public law duties" [2]. The same judgment records that the Home Office republished the policy twice, in March 2024 and again in June 2025, after a separate court had already ruled part of it unlawful [2]. Three documented mistakes: four stars.
Caseworkers reading the current version of this guidance are told, in one paragraph, that a protection for some of the most vulnerable people the asylum system deals with has just come back. They are not told why it went away, what a court found about how it went away, or that the department had already been warned once before it went away for good.
What the guidance itself says
The policy sets out who is and is not suitable for accommodation at former Ministry of Defence sites such as Wethersfield and Crowborough, and for room-sharing with unrelated adults, when individuals are receiving asylum support [1]. Version 16.0's changelog reads: "This update restores the previous policy position set out in version 10 in relation to individuals being assessed or treated by Freedom from Torture (FfT) or the Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF), individuals who have been subjected to torture, rape or other serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence, and individuals with serious mental health issues where there is a high risk of suicide, serious self-harm or risk to others, pending further consideration following litigation concerning the policy development process" [1]. As a result, these cohorts are, once again, not suitable for ex-MoD sites, vessels or room-sharing [1].
Nowhere in the published guidance does a case name, a court, a date or a finding appear. "Litigation concerning the policy development process" is the entire public account.
What the litigation actually found
The case is Freedom from Torture and the Helen Bamber Foundation, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWHC 1278 (Admin), decided by Mr Justice Sweeting on 28 May 2026 [2]. The two charities, which provide clinical and welfare services to survivors of torture and trafficking, challenged the amendments made to the suitability criteria in version 11 of the policy, published 12 February 2024, and carried forward into version 12 (27 March 2024) and version 13 (4 June 2025) [2]. Those amendments removed the presumption that this cohort should not be placed at ex-MoD sites or made to share rooms with strangers.
The judgment's conclusions, on each of the three grounds argued, are direct. On the duty to consult: "The Defendant acted unlawfully by failing to consult and undertook no consultation or meaningful engagement before introducing fundamental policy changes" [2]. That failure, the judgment adds, "cannot be justified by reference to urgency or policy development at pace" [2]. On the Public Sector Equality Duty, which requires a public authority to "have due regard to the need to... eliminate discrimination" against people with a protected characteristic [3], the judgment finds the department "acted in breach of the PSED" [2]: "The EIAs were materially deficient and confined in scope, failed to assess or quantify the differential and adverse impact of the policy changes on this cohort, and did not engage with established evidence of clinical risk" [2]. On the duty of inquiry: "The Defendant acted in breach of the Tameside duty by making fundamental policy changes without inquiry, consultation or engagement with obvious expert sources" [2]. The judgment's own summary of the result: "the short answer to each of the agreed issues is in the affirmative" [2].
Freedom from Torture's own account of the ruling calls it "a vital victory for torture survivors, who for too long have suffered under this harmful policy" [4], and legal trade press reported it as a result on which "the claimant charities succeeded on every ground advanced in the claim" [5].
A court had already said so, a year before this one did
The judgment does not describe a single, unforeseen loss. Its own account of events records that "on 27 March 2024, the Home Office published Version 12 of the policy, retaining the changes introduced in Version 11 as did Version 13 in June 2025 notwithstanding judicial findings in R (TG & Ors) v SSHD [2025] EWHC 596, that elements of the suitability criteria were unlawful due to failures under the PSED" [2]. In other words: a separate High Court case had already found part of this same policy unlawful on equality grounds, and the department republished the same substantive position anyway more than a year later.
The judgment also records that the Home Office's own disclosed internal emails, from October to December 2023, show staff had originally planned to consult Freedom from Torture and the Helen Bamber Foundation before making the changes, and "do not explain why that approach was reversed" [2]. By mid-April 2024, the charities were reporting that traumatised clients were already being moved without adequate notice and forced into shared rooms [2].
The amendments themselves were made under the previous government, before the change of administration on 4 July 2024 [2]; the decision to keep republishing them through version 13 in June 2025, and to defend them through to judgment in May 2026, was not.
Credit where due
Once the department did change course, it did not do so by halves. Version 16.0 restores the full version-10 wording for the affected cohort, not a narrowed or qualified version of it, and the guidance's own "Changes from last version" section is upfront that something has changed and why, in outline, rather than silently rewriting the suitability criteria with no note at all [1]. The gap identified here is what the public document omits about a court's findings, not that the department hid the fact of the change itself.
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "Restores the previous policy position... pending further consideration following litigation concerning the policy development process" [1] | The judgment found the department "acted unlawfully by failing to consult", "acted in breach of the PSED" and "acted in breach of the Tameside duty", on all three grounds argued [2] | "Litigation concerning the policy development process" is a department-neutral label for a comprehensive loss on every ground; the case, the court and the finding are not named |
| The policy frames the 2024-25 changes as a single, defensible position under review [1] | The judgment records that version 12 (March 2024) and version 13 (June 2025) retained the same changes "notwithstanding judicial findings" in a separate 2025 case that elements of the suitability criteria were already unlawful under the PSED [2] | The department was told once, by a different court, before this judgment, and kept the policy in place for roughly another year regardless |
| The guidance describes equality impact assessments as part of how suitability decisions are made [1] | The judgment found the EIAs behind the 2024 changes "materially deficient and confined in scope", failing to "assess or quantify the differential and adverse impact... on this cohort" or "engage with established evidence of clinical risk" [2] | The assessment process the guidance describes as routine was found, for this cohort, not to have functioned for roughly two years |
The star score counts three documented mistakes: the guidance's own changelog describing a comprehensive three-ground loss in the High Court as "litigation concerning the policy development process", without naming the case, the court or any finding; the guidance's framing of the 2024-25 changes as a single position under review, tested against the judgment's own record that the department republished the same changes in June 2025 after a separate court had already ruled part of them unlawful a year earlier; and the guidance's description of equality impact assessment as a working part of the suitability process, tested against the judgment's finding that the actual assessments behind these changes were materially deficient and did not engage with the clinical evidence. Three mistakes in the 1-to-3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding that any individual official acted in bad faith, that the current ex-MoD sites are unsuitable for all asylum seekers, or that the government in office since 4 July 2024 originated the 2024 changes; the amendments were made before that change of administration, and the finding here concerns what the published guidance does and does not disclose about the litigation and its own history. Checked directly against the gov.uk guidance page and the High Court judgment (both fetched 7 October 2026), section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 on legislation.gov.uk, and Freedom from Torture's and a legal trade press account of the ruling.
Sources
- Allocation of asylum accommodation policy (accessible), Home Office / UK Visas and Immigration, version 16.0, updated 29 July 2026
- Freedom from Torture & Anor, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWHC 1278 (Admin), High Court (Administrative Court), Mr Justice Sweeting, 28 May 2026
- Equality Act 2010, section 149, legislation.gov.uk
- High Court finds the government acted unlawfully in making policy changes affecting survivors of torture, Freedom from Torture, reporting the same finding as [[2]]
- Government acted unlawfully when changing policy on allocation of asylum accommodation: High Court, Local Government Lawyer, reporting the same finding as [[2]]