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7.45 pm
The Secretary of State also told us that the proposal would cost £80 million. [Interruption.] It might pay Conservative Members to attend to the figures that the Under-Secretary of State issued to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), who asked about the proportion of asylum seekers last year and in the first six months of this year who had applied for asylum within the first three days after arrival. The Under-Secretary answered my hon. Friend today--5 per cent. of those seeking asylum in the first six months of this calendar year applied within the first three days. I have the answer here.
That 5 per cent. figure means that the Secretary of State's figure of £80 million as the extra cost of the Lords amendment is bogus. If one allows an average of a year and a half for the determination of each of those 5 per cent. of applications, the Secretary of State is assuming an average cost to the social security budget in each case of £30,000 a year. That figure is not credible. The Secretary of State ought to come clean to the House about how he arrived at his £80 million figure, because it does not hold water.
Mr. Lilley:
The figure is made up of the two factors involved in the Opposition amendment. One is extending the benefit entitlement to those who claim within three days of arrival and the other is extending the right to benefit of those who claim at the port and those who claim
Mr. Smith:
I took that into account in the figures that I just gave. If the Secretary of State had been listening, he would have understood that I had.
Mr. Alton:
The appeal process in itself is revealing. The Refugee Legal Centre--an organisation funded by the Home Office and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees--has recorded a 20 per cent. success rate in the past three months. The issue is one of representation. If refugees and asylum seekers are properly represented, the number of successful appeals increases--the inadequacy of representation was raised by Conservative Members in Committee. The argument that virtually everyone who comes in is bogus has been shown to be nonsense.
Mr. Smith:
The hon. Gentleman is right. The Government continually fail to point out that it is not only those who are granted full refugee status who are legitimately here at the end of the asylum-seeking process, but people who are granted exceptional leave to remain. The figures are far higher than the Government keep claiming.
Mr. Madden:
The Secretary of State's claims about savings are as bogus as his claims that the regulations alone have caused the reduction in asylum seekers. The Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle) robustly rejected my claim that there had been similar reductions in earlier years. Perhaps they will accept the briefing of the Refugee Legal Centre, which was sent to all hon. Members and states:
Mr. Smith:
My hon. Friend makes an effective point.
The Secretary of State argued that the Lords amendment is technically defective, in that it does more than the Lords intended when they passed it. All the speeches in the other place show that they intended it to apply to people who were claiming asylum within three days of the point of application through until the first determination.
There is a legal dispute about the legal definition of
Mr. Lilley:
Can we be clear about this? Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there was a mistake with the amendment and that it was not meant to restore benefits during the appeal process? Up to now, the Opposition have favoured restoring benefits and we assumed that the amendment was deliberate. Is he saying that they no longer favour restoring benefits during the appeal process? Have they made a giant U-turn and has he consulted the parliamentary Labour party about that?
Mr. Smith:
I expected better from the Secretary of State. There are two issues. I am dealing at the moment with what the House of Lords intended when it passed its amendment to the Bill. I shall come in a moment to the issue of appeal in general, because I think that the Government are wrong about that. I am pointing out that their argument about the technicality of the Lords amendment is not valid. They must not let a technicality stand in the way of a sensible proposal that would make the procedure a little more understanding and humane in respect of the circumstances of genuine asylum seekers who are fleeing for their lives.
I promised the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) that I would give way and I shall do so, but for the last time.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes:
That is a fascinating way in which to debate something. Nevertheless, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. His response to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is inadequate. We need to know what the hon. Gentleman's policy is. Does he agree with the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) that the amounts of money are small and that we should not worry about them, or does he want to stick to his policy so far, which would treat asylum seekers who may turn out to be bogus more generously than British people? What is his policy? He is getting muddled. At the moment, he is saying that he wants to treat asylum seekers--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse):
Order. That is a long intervention.
Ms Abbott:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) claimed that I had said that the amount of money involved was small. I did not make that excellent point; it was made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton).
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
That is not a point of order.
Mr. Smith:
It is not I who is muddled but the hon. Member for Harrow, West, who clearly cannot tell his Hackney, North from his Mossley Hill. The sooner he does, the better.
It is not only a question of the three-day provision that the House of Lords passed, which we support and will vote to defend. There is the more general issue of what the Government are trying to do with the removal of
benefits from many asylum seekers. There are several reasons why the Opposition oppose what they are doing in general.
First, and most importantly, we oppose the Government's action because it is inhumane. That point was made tellingly by Lord Justice Simon Brown in the Court of Appeal when he said:
Secondly, what the Government are doing hits the bogus and genuine claimant alike. The Government always like to refer to bogus claimants. Indeed, the Secretary of State's letter to all hon. Members of 9 July begins:
The third reason why we oppose what the Government are doing is that the cost savings that they claim are mythical. They may be saving a bit of money on the Department of Social Security budget, but the cost for local authorities will rise because they will be left to pick up the pieces. If an asylum seeker who has children is denied benefit--and remember 5,000 come in each year with children--and is left destitute, there is a responsibility on local authorities to take children into care at an average cost of £45,000 per child per year. The Government have recognised that, because they have produced a scheme to reimburse local authorities for the extra costs involved. They even have a scheme to reimburse the social services costs through the Department of Health to the tune of £25 million. They are saving money in one part of the public purse but spending it in another.
The fourth reason why we oppose the Government's action is that it fundamentally undermines the concept of appeal. The Secretary of State is fond of parading the argument that British citizens who appeal against a benefit decision do not receive benefit. He is fond of saying that all he is doing is putting asylum seekers in exactly the same position. That is an entirely fallacious argument, because he is not comparing like with like.
An asylum seeker in receipt of benefit who appealed against a decision to withdraw it would, in the same way as a British citizen, not be entitled to that benefit while the appeal was pending. This is a question not of people appealing against a benefit decision but of their appealing against the decision on whether to grant them asylum. The two are quite different decisions.
"between 1991 and 1992 there was a decrease in applications of some 45 per cent. There was no change in the legislation affecting asylum seekers in that period and yet this decrease is almost identical to the reduction presently being proclaimed as the result of changes made to benefit entitlement."
Perhaps the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle will have the good grace to apologise--if they believe the figures of a body that they fund.
"any person who has made a claim for asylum".
If that is to be interpreted in the same way as an asylum seeker is interpreted in Department of Social Security regulations, it applies only up to the point of first determination, and the definition in the Bill is unclear. However, if the Government--and some of their Back Benchers who might be minded to support the Lords on this--are worried about that, there is a simple answer. If the Government are defeated on amendment (a), it is open to them to table a simple manuscript amendment to ensure
that it is clear that the provision applies only up to first determination, or they could use the opportunity of next Monday's debate in another place to resolve the matter.
"this uncompromising draconian policy contemplates a life so destitute that to my mind no civilised nation can tolerate it".
The Court of Appeal was not concerned only about the illegality of trying to introduce the changes by regulation rather than by primary legislation but about the morality and humanity of what the Government were doing. It was right to be concerned. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster are also right to be concerned.
"I am writing to explain why we are limiting benefits for bogus asylum seekers".
Yes, they are limiting benefits for bogus asylum seekers, but they are also limiting them for genuine asylum seekers. The sooner that the Government admit that, the better.
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