The Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised the UK’s immigration system saying it is “grossly wasteful, staggeringly inefficient” and “cruel”.

The UK Government’s proposal to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda was a mistake and would be a failure, the Archbishop Justin Welby said.

And he criticised the language of “invasion”, used by the UK Home Secretary, Suella Braverman.

“Such terms denied the essential value and dignity of fellow human beings”, he said.

Archbishop Welby was speaking in the House of Lords recently, introducing a debate on the ethics behind the UK asylum and refugee policy.

He told the gathering that the Government should restore safe and legal ways for asylum-seekers to enter the UK and it should do more to combat people-smugglers transporting people across the Channel.

“A compassionate system does not mean open borders, but a disposition of generosity and a readiness to welcome those whose need is genuine,” Archbishop Welby said.

“It also means compassion and generosity to those communities that will receive refugees, which are often neglected and forgotten.

“A compassionate policy is one that has confidence to reject the shrill narratives that all who come to us for help should be treated as liars, scroungers, or less than fully human.

“Compassion is not weakness or naivety. It recognises the impact on receiving communities, which includes the need to limit numbers and maintain security and order.

“Compassion means ending the criminal activity of people-smugglers, perhaps one of the biggest industries in the world after drug smuggling. But it must distinguish between victims seeking help and criminals who exploit them,” the archbishop said.

His comments came as UK Prime Minister unveiled a five-point plan to crackdown on what he called “illegal migration”.

“It is not cruel or unkind to want to break the stranglehold of criminal gangs who trade in human misery and who exploit our system and laws. Enough is enough,” Mr Sunak said.

Under the plan, the UK government will establish a new, permanent operation to clamp down on immigration across the English Channel. National Crime Agency funding will be doubled, and it will get 700 more staff.

Immigration officers will increase raids targeting illegal working by 50 per cent and the government will house asylum seekers in disused holiday parks, former student halls, and surplus military sites as it aims to end spending £5.5 million a day using hotels.

It will also double the number of asylum caseworkers as it aims to process claims in days or weeks, not months or years.

Archbishop Welby said people-smuggling should be made an international crime and the UK should seek to form an international body to track it down and tackle it.

He said he acknowledged that there was pressure on housing, schools, and GP surgeries.

“But refugees have not caused our housing crisis. We are around 40 years behind in our investment in our housing stock: there would be a crisis anyway,” he said

He also pointed out that the number of asylum-seekers in the UK had dropped during the past two decades.

“In 2021, there were 48,540 asylum applications made in the UK; in 2002, that was 84,132, almost twice as much,” the archbishop said.

He said other countries had taken in many more refugees, pointing out that in the year ending September 2021, Germany received more than 127,000 asylum applications, and France more than 96,000.

“It is not a competition. But we do need to face the fact that the UK ranked only 18th in Europe for our intake of asylum applications per head of the population in that period,” Archbishop Welby said.

“And it cannot be repeated enough: four out of five refugees stay in their region of displacement, hosted by nations far poorer than themselves.

“When we fail to challenge the harmful rhetoric that refugees are the cause of this country’s ills, that they should be treated as problems not people, invaders to be tackled and deterred, we deny the essential value and dignity of fellow human beings.

“The right to seek asylum, and the duty of the global community together to protect refugees, has been politically degraded in this country when it shouldn’t be a positive source of pride.

“I’m not only addressing the Government front bench: this has been a decades-long downward slide over successive Labour, Conservative, and coalition governments,” he said,

Archbishop Welby said there was little evidence to back up the UK Government claims that its policy was deterring people arriving in illegal and dangerous ways.

He said a compassionate asylum policy, would recognise that the UK has share of global responsibility.

“Outsourcing our share creates more opportunities for people- smugglers to operate in and around Rwanda. It’s not a solution: it’s a mistake, and it will be a failure,” Archbishop Welby said.