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Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster): It is96 per cent.
Mr. Smith: The hon. Lady is wrong, because the figure varies from year to year.
We should also remember that, every year, 25 per cent. of asylum applicants are granted refugee status or exceptional leave to remain because it is found that they have a genuine and legitimate reason to remain in the United Kingdom. For example, a Bosnian Muslim, who does not fear his Government but is nonetheless genuinely afraid to remain in his own country, would be likely to be granted exceptional leave to remain in this country. I
believe that his legitimate reason to remain in this country is every bit as strong as that of someone who is granted refugee status.
I am sure that we will hear another great untruth from Conservative Members tonight.
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset):
The hon. Gentleman has given the example of a Bosnian Muslim who is in genuine fear of his life. Surely that person will not turn up at the port of entry and say that he is on holiday or that he is visiting relatives and does not plan to stay for an extended period. As he is in fear of his life, he will state his problem at the port of entry and he will receive social security benefits because he has made that declaration.
Mr. Smith:
I shall leave aside the obvious point that such a person might have been a student in this country or been here on holiday before circumstances in his country changed and forced him to apply for asylum. I shall turn to the issue of port of entry applications in a moment, because it is an important point. I accept that thehon. Gentleman may genuinely believe that people should make their applications at the port of entry, but I believe that he is wrong to do so. I will specifically address his point shortly, but I shall first address the other great untruth that the Government will doubtless tell us tonight--that the measure will somehow save the taxpayer some £200 million.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) allowed to use the word "untruth"? I thought that it was unparliamentary.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
I did not hear the word.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman:
He used it twice.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The word is not one that parliamentarians usually use. It is occasionally appropriate to a political party, but it is not usually acceptable in the Chamber.
Mr. Smith:
I make no imprecation against the honour of Conservative Members, but I do against the honour of their argument, and that is what I am talking about. The Government tell us that the measure will save the taxpayer £200 million. It will not.
In 1994, 33,000 people lodged asylum applications, and among those were nearly 5,000 dependent children. If families are left with no livelihood, they will have to depend on emergency support from social services or on the local authority taking their children into care. It costs £45,000 a year to keep a child in local authority care. If fewer than 5,000 children are taken into care, that would wipe out entirely the supposed savings that the Government claim from the measure.
Mr. Michael Stephen (Shoreham):
Is not thehon. Gentleman aware that, when the people he is talking about present themselves at the port of entry, they are questioned on their reasons for coming here? They have to satisfy the immigration authorities that they have means of support while they are in the country, either because
Mr. Smith:
The hon. Gentleman completely mistakes the whole process of paying income support to someone. People are not entitled to receive income support if they have other means of income and livelihood, and that is the point at issue.
The Government have said that they are discussing with local authorities the level of the burden that the measure would place on them. But the Government have not told us whether they are going to pay the local authorities in full for the cost of taking children into care and making emergency social services payments. If the Government cover the local authorities' costs in full, they will not make any savings. If, however, they do not pay the local authorities in full, they will simply transfer expenditure from the Department of Social Security to the local authorities. That is, perhaps, why Westminster and Wandsworth, those great bastions of socialism, are still pursuing their application for judicial review of the Government's intentions.
Mr. David Shaw (Dover):
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Social Security Select Committee took a lot of evidence on that issue of cost to local authorities? We heard many alarmist people who had all sorts of allegations about how little the measure would save and how children would be treated. But does thehon. Gentleman accept that no one suggested that local authorities were likely to take the children away from their parents and put the children into care at a cost of £45,000 a year each? Even the most alarmist local authorities--and they were going over the top--only suggested that they would keep the children with their parents and that any additional costs, at current prices, would be for housing the families.
Mr. Smith:
Clearly, the hon. Gentleman was not awake during the proceedings of the Social Security Select Committee. If he looks at page xvii of its report, he will read:
That association is a cross-party body, and it tackled the very point that the hon. Gentleman has raised. He speaks of alarmist organisations, but the list of bodies that gave a great deal of very good evidence to the Committee included: the Board of Deputies of British Jews, The British Medical Association, the chief adjudicator for immigration appeals, the Disability Alliance, the family service units, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, and the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. I am just saddened that the hon. Gentleman seems not to recognise the validity of what they said.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes (Harrow, West)
rose--
Mr. Smith:
The hon. Gentleman chaired the Committee and wrote the report, so I will give way to him--but this is the last time.
Mr. Hughes:
If everything is so ghastly, and if the Select Committee has it all wrong, why did an equal number of Labour and Conservative Members vote in favour of the report?
Mr. Smith:
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the vote in the Committee when it was proposed that it be
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman:
Where does the report say that?
There are, however, other arguments against these regulations. First, they fundamentally undermine the concept of appeal. There is a long and noble tradition in this country that an appeal gives a person the right to a further hearing. The first decision is not endorsed, and hence not fully valid, until the appeal has run its course. Yet the Secretary of State tells us in these regulations that an appeal effectively means nothing. Any case after the first determination will be assumed to be bogus. That, I believe, throws every judicial principle on its head and is deeply damaging to our notion of justice.
The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Peter Lilley):
Can the hon. Gentleman explain why successive Labour Governments have applied exactly the principle which he holds to be against natural justice to all British claimants who, on being refused a benefit, appeal against that rejection and are not given the benefit during the period of appeal?
Mr. Smith:
The right hon. Gentleman has used that argument before: it is bogus. He is not comparing like with like. It is a fallacy to claim that an appeal against an asylum refusal and an appeal against a benefit decision are precisely the same.
Secondly, there is an assumption--this answers the point made by the hon. Member for South Dorset(Mr. Bruce)--on the part of the Government that an application made at the port of entry is more likely to be valid than one made afterwards. Common sense should tell the Secretary of State that that is not true. People fleeing from injustice, repression and torture, often after the trauma of a long and difficult journey and fearful of authority in the countries from which they come, have as the last thing on their minds when they first arrive here the idea that they must fill out forms and make their applications for asylum. They will be fearful of figures in authority, and it is very likely that they will be in great difficulty in terms of knowing where to go or who to consult.
I shall give Conservative Members, who seem to think that we are not talking about human beings but about statistics, an example. It was given to me by myhon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford), who wrote to a Minister at the Home Office about a particular case just a few days ago. My hon. Friend wrote:
"The Association of London Government indicated a range of costs from £20,000 to £40,000 for looking after a child".
"The above is a Kurdish refugee, who applied for asylum on24th October 1995, three days after his arrival at Heathrow. He arrived at the weekend, and he speaks no English. He contacted the Kurdish Centre at the beginning of the next week, and they made an application for asylum on his behalf.
He has been imprisoned and tortured by the Iraqi regime. He is disabled, having suffered injuries as well as torture. He was arrested and tortured on two separate occasions, and fled because he was warned by his uncle that the Iraqi police were coming to arrest him again. He has had to leave his wife and children in Iraq. He is certain that if he is forced to go back he will be killed."
23 Jan 1996 : Column 235
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