Imagine a policy that could ease labour market pressures, improve the public finances and enhance the life chances for a vulnerable group, with little downside. That’s the prize on offer in allowing asylum seekers the right to work sooner. The law today bans those seeking refuge from finding a job for a year as they wait for claims to be processed, while limiting them after that to designated “shortage” occupations only. The result is a human catastrophe of inactivity and wasted potential.

Some 62,000 asylum seekers have waited longer than six months for their claims to be processed. Four-fifths of them are of working age. Tens of thousands of willing workers are therefore left twiddling their thumbs on inadequate government support, or working in the shadow economy, as their skills atrophy, their morale evaporates and businesses cry out for labour.

The need to rethink these rules is overdue and overwhelming, not just because of current conditions. The UK’s 12-month wait period is more draconian than Canada or Sweden (no time restriction), Germany and the Netherlands (three and six months respectively). It costs the Treasury hundreds of millions of pounds a year in spending and foregone revenues: costs eclipsed only by the legacy of refugee joblessness and crime that later results from prolonged inactivity.

Business leaders, unsurprisingly, support making work easier. A 2019 Survation poll found that more than two-thirds agreed with granting asylum seekers work rights after six months. Job vacancies since have jumped to a record 1.3 million, with companies struggling to fill roles from agricultural workers to security guards. The National Farmers’ Union and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation are lobbying the home secretary to change the law.

Asylum seekers themselves obviously suffer most from the status quo. Current inflation rates expose the precariousness of vulnerable families’ ability to afford life’s essentials, yet asylum seekers’ government support stands at just £40.85 a week. Aside from the inhumanity of restricting earned income through work bans, research from economists Francesco Fasani, Tommaso Frattini and Luigi Minale shows that they scar refugees’ future labour market participation and language proficiency, too. An inability to work when seeking asylum in a country reduces your longer-term employment probability by 15 per cent.

Why does the government oppose relaxing these rules? The Home Office worries about a “pull factor” — the idea that more people would come here if it became easier to get a job, with even economic migrants perhaps encouraged to pursue the asylum route. Whether attracting those keen to work is a major “problem” is debatable. But though we’d expect incentives to encourage this effect, it’s the magnitude that matters. How many additional people are we talking about?

Remarkably, the government has provided no data to indicate the problem’s scale, with its own Migration Advisory Committee challenging it to provide evidence. A University of Warwick review of existing studies found no “long-term correlation between labour market access and destination choice”. Instead, asylum seekers’ location decisions appear to be largely shaped by perceptions of how welcome they would be, and cultural or linguistic ties.

Unfortunately, economists’ favoured recommendation — remove work restrictions entirely — is a bridge too far in a post-Brexit environment. But with the labour market backdrop and sympathy for those fleeing Ukraine, might it be time for a modest rethink?

Dominic Raab has previously expressed open-mindedness on relaxing restrictions. Next week, the Commons will vote on Tory peer Baroness Stroud’s amendment to the national and borders bill, which would shorten the employment ban to six months and eliminate the shortage occupation list.

This compromise reflects political realities but would be a significant improvement that makes financial, economic and moral sense. Absent some explosive countervailing evidence, it’s a no-brainer.