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Ms Abbott: Does my hon. Friend agree that Ministers do not seem to realise that not just Labour local authorities, but Conservative local authorities such as Westminster will bear a serious burden if the legislation goes through?
Mr. Gerrard: That is absolutely right. It will cut across the political control of local authorities, particularly in London.
The Secretary of State for Social Security, when he introduced the regulations, said that no one who was receiving benefits now would lose benefits, unless there was a negative decision on that case, but there have been cases where a man has claimed, his wife has been attached to his claim and, after that couple has split up, the wife's claim has been treated as a new claim and she has been refused benefits, so women have been left without a penny simply because they and their husbands have split up.
Secondly, much has been made of the question of telling the truth at the port of entry. Members have said, "It is quite simple. You just turn up at the port of entry and say that you are an asylum seeker. There is no reason why any genuine asylum seeker should not do that." The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross (Ms Cunningham) and others have pointed out the difficulties for people who are torture victims. Even if people are not torture victims and are fleeing for other reasons, think of what they have to do to get here in the first place.
Earlier this evening, in an attempt to mollify some of the Conservative Members who were pressing the amendment on involuntary abortion, the Minister of State, Home Office, suggested that it would somehow be possible for people to turn up at a British embassy or high commission, to tell their story, and to say that they were asking for asylum, and that their case would be considered in the light of the evidence and their connections with the UK. I cannot think of a single refugee whom I have come across who has been given a visa by an embassy or high commission in those circumstances. I shall be interested to see the answer to the written question about the number of such people that I have submitted since that first debate.
The Government have introduced a visa regime in every country from which the number of asylum applications has increased. They also introduced the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1987, as a result of which, airlines will not take people without papers. That means that people have to persuade a high commission or an embassy to grant a visa for some other reason, such as a visit or a tour. If I came to an airport with such a visa,
I would not be keen to say to the first person whom I met, "By the way, I got my visa in the high commission in Sri Lanka and I lied to get it." I would not feel safe until I was out of the airport. The next day, or the day after, I might think of claiming asylum, when I felt that I was actually in the country.
Ministers shook their heads when my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) suggested that genuine asylum seekers would be hit as well as the bogus ones. I do not want to make too much of the speech by the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), but he accepted that some genuine asylum seekers would make applications and said that the only difference was that they would not get benefit. Therefore, genuine asylum seekers will lose.
Mr. Corbyn:
We have had a long debate and I should like to put on record the fact that the speech by the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) discredited him and every hon. Member. It was an abominable speech in which he sought to plead to the lowest common denominator, and it showed an absolute failure to understand the legal technicalities surrounding asylum seeking. That is surprising for someone who spends so much of his life in courts--perhaps he should be spending more time here. Secondly, he made a naked appeal to racist attitudes throughout the country. It was an absolute disgrace.
In his excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) drew attention to the problems of poverty that are faced by many asylum seekers. In the borough that he and I have the honour to represent, many people are living in absolute destitution. Often, the only way that they have been able to survive is by getting support from asylum refugee communities that have been here for some time, most of whose members are unemployed and relying on benefits. That means that they are sharing misery rather than wealth.
Alternatively, people beg on the streets or are kept by generous people who belong to some of the churches in the borough and who collect money at Sunday services to buy food parcels for asylum-seeking families to make sure that they do not starve. The Secretary of State says that there is no evidence of increased destitution. He could walk not far from his house and talk to people in some of the churches in his borough to find out exactly what the situation is like.
Many families are in a desperate position. We are in danger of having asylum seekers begging on the streets and people living in benders or broken-down cars, or sleeping under railway arches because they have been denied benefit as a result of the Government's obdurate attitude towards asylum seekers. Local authorities will have huge bills trying to ensure that children are maintained under the Children Act 1989.
The Secretary of State spoke about the appeals system and made free use of the term "bogus asylum seekers" because he does not believe that people have a genuine fear of persecution if they return to their own country. The Government should look at some of the evidence on which they are acting. I have had extensive correspondence with the Home Office about people whom I believe to be in danger if they are returned to Nigeria. One case that stands out is that of the Onibiyo family. To the credit of the Government of Guyana, they were prepared to take Ademole Onibiyo. To the disgrace of this Government, he was thrown out of the country and placed in enormous danger. Likewise, people have been forcibly returned to Zaire, to the Ivory Coast and to some other countries in which there is a veneer of electoral democracy, underneath which all the old evil forces of the police and the army and the oppression of individuals are still at work.
Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill):
I think that Guyana has really shown up the Government in the case mentioned by my hon. Friend. It is one of the poorest countries in the world and cannot afford to look after its own people adequately, yet it held up its hand in that case and our Government did not.
Mr. Corbyn:
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. I shall return shortly to the issue of how the British and European Governments are turning their backs on asylum seekers while others recognise the problems of those people. It is a great credit to President Jagan and the people of Guyana that they were prepared to help out the Onibiyo family.
The hon. and learned Member for Burton demonstrated his ignorance of the procedures--as have the Minister and many other hon. Members--for entering the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) then put his finger absolutely on the point. I remember a debate in this very Chamber about the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1987 just before the 1987 general election. It was another flawed piece of legislation rushed through on the basis of a speech from the previous year's Tory party conference. If the Secretary of State troubled to read it or to check the Hansard report of its Committee stage or the debate on its Second Reading, however, he would discover a recognition that it was legitimate for people genuinely fleeing from persecution to use bogus names and false documents to deceive their way out of a country and to deceive their way into a country of safety.
People write books about the genuine heroism of people who fled from Nazi Germany, from pogroms against Jewish people in Russia at the turn of the century, from Chile at the height of the oppression, from El Salvador and from so many other places around the world, Iraq and Iran included. In 50 years, will people write books about how they must deceive their way into Britain to gain a place of safety because of the Government's attitude towards asylum seekers? The history lesson that the Government need to be taught is that they are acting in a grossly inhumane manner at a time when the world is desperately crying out for humanity in the way that people are treated.
The Government's attitude towards the provision of social security payments has been very well dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and
Finsbury and by many other hon. Members. The issue of the three-day rule to make an application has also been dealt with very well. I do not believe that the Secretary of State has ever bothered to go to any port of entry to see what it is like when someone is fleeing from somewhere and attempting to seek asylum. If he can, I ask him to put himself in the mind of a Kurdish person coming out of Turkey, Iran or Iraq, where Kurds face the most appalling persecution in their villages, which have been bombed and burnt out by the army. They get themselves away from that community, to Ankara or to Istanbul, to try to get a plane out.
Those people have to get a visa and an airline to take them. So they go along to a normal, reputable airline, such as British Airways, but people there tell them, "Sorry; we can't take you because the Home Office might not admit you, and we'll be fined £2,000 if subsequently you're not admitted, and we'll have to bring you back." So they go to the back streets and they pay out a great deal of money to a corrupt travel agent who buys them a plane ticket and is prepared to bear the danger of paying the fine. It is another example of exploitation of people in fear.
It is quite possible that those people have been brought up in a community in which anyone wearing a uniform is just not trusted. When they arrive at a port of entry and are confronted by people in uniform, they might not be so trusting of them as those of us who have grown up in a slightly different atmosphere with different attitudes. So they get themselves into the country by whatever means they can, and then they do something about the situation.
We are talking about a minimal and modest amendment--one that will merely allow three days for an application to be made. Some hon. Members said that information should be given to potential asylum seekers, and they were jeered at by the hon. and learned Member for Burton. I hope that that will be understood by the public.
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