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Mr. Lilley: The case that the hon. Gentleman just mentioned--if the circumstances are as he says--evokes natural sympathy throughout the House. If someone in those circumstances arrives at a British port and is asked the purpose of his visit, what answer would he give? Surely it would be, "I've come here to seek refuge from persecution." It would not be to invent a story that he was here to visit someone, to substantiate that to the immigration officer and then demonstrate that he had the means to sustain himself while here.
Mr. Smith: But the Secretary of State completely misunderstands the sense of fear and desperation that is often felt by those who come here fleeing from repression. The last thing that they are likely to do, seeing a figure in authority, is immediately to reveal their entire life history. Very often they want to seek help and advice from others in their community. That is precisely what happened in this case. It is clearly a case where there is genuine need and where there is genuine fear of repression, but because of difficulties, which inevitably occur when someone arrives at a port of entry in this country, he made his application three days later. The Secretary of State should take that into account.
If common sense and plain ordinary decency do not move the Secretary of State, perhaps the figures will, because he told us a week or two ago that the approval rate for asylum applications from people who applied at the port of entry was greater than that for people who applied subsequently. The figures show that that is not the case.
Dame Jill Knight (Birmingham, Edgbaston)
rose--
Mr. Smith:
I shall not give way, because I have given way many times and time is pressing on.
For the first 10 months of 1995, 4.8 per cent. of in-country applicants were approved for asylum. The figure for port applicants approved for asylum was3.5 per cent. The pattern is exactly the same for each of the previous three years. The percentage who applied after they arrived at the port of entry but were approved for asylum--accepted by the Government as being genuine refugees--was higher than that for people who applied at the port of entry.
So when the Government tell us, as the regulations seek to do, that an application at the port of entry is somehow more genuine than one that is received after someone has arrived at the port of entry, they are wrong, and the figures show that they are wrong.
The Government also need to understand that the Social Security Advisory Committee, the body that they have established to advise them formally on social security matters, gave an unprecedented report rejecting wholesale the Government's proposed regulations. The Committee makes one further and telling point. It says:
That point I do not think anyone would dispute. But the Committee goes on to say:
The Secretary of State is effectively making the social security system do the Home Office's job for it. If the Secretary of State really wants to reduce his expenditure, if he wants the taxpayer to spend less money supporting non-genuine claimants, he should not bring in regulations which harm the genuine claimants; he should speed up the assessment procedures. That is what we have been arguing for many months now. In fact, the Home Office is doing precisely the reverse at the moment. It is getting worse at it, rather than better.
The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Peter Lilley):
The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) began by saying that this was a ridiculously short debate. I am not aware of any representations from the Opposition for a longer debate or one earlier in the day--for the obvious reason that we all know that they are anxious to prove their credentials with readers of The Guardian and show that they are against these changes, but they do not want people in the country to know that they are against them. That is why they have let the debate go through late at night.
I, by contrast, am happy to have a debate at any time, and chose to make a public statement before the House rather than by written answer as would be normal. The Opposition are strong on hypocrisy today, and we are strong on the causes of hypocrisy, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said.
As I said in my statement in the House, the regulations, together with the changes that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is bringing in the Asylum and Immigration Bill, have three aims. The first is to ensure that the United Kingdom remains a safe haven for those genuinely fleeing persecution. The reason genuine refugees come to the United Kingdom is to share our freedoms, not to obtain our benefits. Their rights to asylum will not be altered in any way, and anyone arriving as a refugee and claiming asylum at the port of entry will continue to have access to benefits while the Home Office determines the claim.
The second objective is to deal more speedily with genuine claimants so that they can get on with their lives. The Home Office has already increased the number of caseworkers sevenfold since 1988, and an extra £37 million is being transferred from my budget to the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department to expand their asylum work further over three years.
Mr. Keith Bradley (Manchester, Withington):
The situation has got worse.
Mr. Lilley:
Of course it has got worse, because the number of claimants has continued to rise inexorably.
The only other way of acting on the number of claimants is through taking measures to adjust the benefit arrangements and discourage the growing number of unfounded benefit and asylum claims which clog up the system to the disadvantage of genuine claimants. That is our third objective. The benefit reform contained in the regulations is essential to achieve that end.
Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West):
There can be no doubt that the regulations will ensure that, in February rather than January, large number of asylum seekers will be left destitute and homeless. Leaving that aside, however, may I ask what justification there is, when benefit is being denied, for continuing to prohibit asylum seekers from seeking or obtaining employment for at least six months after they have submitted their asylum claims? If the main purpose of the regulations is to reduce public expenditure, surely it would be best to enable asylum seekers to seek employment immediately after the submission of the claims.
Mr. Lilley:
Under all Governments, the practice has been not to let asylum seekers work during the first six months. One of the reasons why people come to this country pretending to be asylum seekers when they are, in fact, economic migrants is that they want to work here. Most countries do not allow asylum seekers to work at all; we give them that right after six months.
The rising tide of asylum seekers represents a major problem that no responsible Government could possibly ignore. Last year, the total number of people claiming asylum in the United Kingdom, including dependants, exceeded 57,000. In the previous year, the figure was 42,000. That, in turn, was a tenfold increase over the past 10 years. Yet, in the same period, the increase in the number of asylum seekers on the continent was less than threefold. Britain's share of all the asylum seekers coming to Europe has trebled over the last decade. Moreover, since 1994 the number of claims has fallen by a third on the continent, whereas in 1994 it rose by 45 per cent., and there was a further 35 per cent. increase last year.
Amnesty International agrees with us, saying:
France and Belgium, for example, offer no benefits to any asylum seeker after 12 months. Italy offers no benefits to any asylum seeker at all, and as a result only 1,800 people have bothered to claim asylum there. Germany and Holland accommodate asylum seekers in camps, giving benefits mainly in kind rather than cash.
"We fully understand the Secretary of State's view that it is unreasonable to expect the UK taxpayer to support people whose reasons for coming to this country are purely economic."
23 Jan 1996 : Column 236
"However, it is clear to us from the evidence we have received that fair and expeditious immigration and asylum procedures are the best means of providing comprehensive and long-term arrangements to deal with these matters."
"The truth of the matter is that, since 1992, immigration controls and asylum procedures--particularly those applied at the border--have been tightened far more in some European countries than in the UK . . . This . . . no doubt works to make the UK a more attractive destination to would-be asylum-seekers than some other European countries."
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