Are you an asylum seeker and are you considering buying an armoured car, a snowmobile or a timeshare using your Home Office pre-paid cash card? If so, think again, for these are just some of the luxuries on a list of banned items and activities drawn up by the government.
Quite how asylum seekers living in hotels who are banned from working but are provided with meals and receive £9.95 a week are expected to afford any luxuries is unclear. Similarly, those in self-catering accommodation who receive £49.18 a week may find it tricky to foot the bill for flowers (also on the list).
Officials have drawn up the extensive list of hundreds of banned items and activities in response to reports that some asylum seekers were using their weekly allowance to gamble. The money is pre-loaded on to cards called Aspen cards, which can be used at cashpoints, and some retailers including those who sell national lottery tickets and scratchcards.
Steve Smith, the CEO of the charity Care4Calais, said: “This list demonstrates how out of touch politicians are with the realities of life for people seeking sanctuary in this country. People seeking asylum are receiving as little as £10 per week in financial support. They aren’t buying the ‘luxury items’ the Home Office is suggesting.
“Every week, our volunteers are handing out essential items, like deodorant, socks and nail clippers. This is yet again about making life as difficult, and quite frankly as miserable as possible, for people seeking sanctuary in the UK and that is morally abhorrent from a Labour government.”
The document seen by the Guardian is referred to as the Merchant Category Codes blocked list. The codes are standard across UK banking, and use Americanised merchant codes because Visa and Mastercard mandate them.
While it is fanciful that asylum seekers have the means to spend on the most expensive items on the blocked list such as boat rentals, furs and antique reproductions, basics such as audio books, toys, cards and photocopying are also on the list, along with entries to fortune tellers, carnivals and aquariums.
Asylum seekers, and those supporting them, say that they live in acute poverty, with those in hotels particularly struggling to afford clothes and food for their children. Parents say their children can’t eat hotel food, which is often too spicy for them, and that they use their weekly allowance to buy more suitable food. It is not uncommon to see asylum seekers walking around in flip-flops and T-shirts in sub-zero temperatures because they have no access to more suitable clothing, according to Care4Calais.
The charity recently reported one asylum seeker trying unsuccessfully to pay a £1.70 library fine with an Aspen card, but the payment was blocked, while another was barred from paying for a haircut trying to use their Aspen card.
Care4Calais provides a range of basic items to people in hotels including baby clothes, shoes, underwear, nappies, potties and school uniforms.
The internal Home Office document states: “The department has recently taken the decision to block specific Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) as a targeted measure to ensure that public funds should be used for the purpose for which they are provided: to support essential living needs. These restrictions are designed to uphold the integrity of public assistance programmes by preventing expenditure on goods and services that fall outside the scope of essential living needs – such as entertainment, luxury items and non-essential personal services.”
According to the document, the new blocks came into effect on 11 August 2025. If a service user attempts to buy banned goods or services the transaction will be declined at the point of sale.
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Acknowledging that the new clampdown might prevent asylum seekers from buying some essential items, the document adds that an investigation is under way to assess the feasibility of blocking individual ‘merchants’ rather than entire MCC codes to preserve access to essential services.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Ministers recently ordered a review of the Aspen card system to investigate and address reports of misuse.
“As part of this review, the list of permitted spending categories was immediately revised to ensure that financial support provided to asylum seekers is used strictly for essential living needs.
“We will announce any further changes to the current system in due course once the ongoing review is complete.”
