The government has issued a u-turn on plans to immediately remove Albanian asylum seekers from the UK, according to a charity.

Former Home Secretary Priti Patel announced plans to 'fast track' asylum claims from Albanians who crossed the English Channel with the aim of immediately removing them.

The plans were described as addressing "spurious claims" when they were announced in August.

The Home Office described Albania as a “safe and prosperous country” with many nationals “travelling through multiple countries to make the journey to the UK” before making asylum claims.

However, asylum charity Care4Calais has reported that the plans will not be going ahead, after sending a legal letter requesting disclosure of the proposed scheme.

The charity reported that the government responded to the letter, sent through solicitors Duncan Lewis, saying that as virtually all Albanian refugees arriving will seek asylum, the proposed policy is insignificant.

A spokesperson for the charity hailed the move away from the "brutal" proposal.

|This announcement seemed like another hurried, impractical scheme"

"It was lacking in compassion and unfair. Worse, it was potentially illegal," they added.

"Recent figures show that 53 per cent of asylum claims made by Albanians in the UK are accepted, meaning they most definitely are genuine, and in any case asylum claims must be fairly heard not pre judged based on nationality.

"This announcement seemed like another hurried, impractical scheme announced to please those Government supporters who oppose all refugees and are interested in hard lines and tough stances no matter the consequences.

"A few weeks earlier some media outlets had sensationally reported that 60 per cent of refugees arriving in the UK were now Albanian; in fact, this figure was based on a narrow sample of just six weeks.

"This has been yet another bogus “policy” that the Government knew perfectly well might not in fact happen, and was designed only to appease a small number of its supporters. This poisonous stream of announcements must stop; it serves only to misrepresent the issue, spread panic and dehumanise the very people we should be listening to and helping.

"Yet again, we can only reflect that if Ministers would put as much energy into creating a sensible, modern and efficient asylum system, none of this bluster and deceit would be necessary in the first place."

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Albania fast-track process focuses on removing the growing number of individuals from Albania who have no right to be in the UK. This includes failed asylum seekers, foreign national offenders, and individuals overstaying in the UK or seeking to game the system by not claiming asylum.

“Those who claim asylum may have their claim considered through the detained asylum casework process, have their asylum claim treated as inadmissible, or be considered for return as quickly as possible.

“Since signing our returns agreement with Albania in 2021, we have removed more than 1,000 Albanians, including some who crossed the Channel illegally to come to the UK.

“Those who seek to abuse our system UK should be in no doubt of our determination to remove them, as the public rightly expects.”