| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Nick Raynsford (Greenwich): I am pleased to follow that fine speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson).
I shall not detain the House long, but it is right that it should be aware of the history that I shall briefly outline, involving someone currently living in my constituency who is a refugee, before we come to vote on this crucial amendment.
The case history involves a 31-year-old Kurdish refugee from Iraq. The case is familiar to the Secretary of State, as I mentioned it during the debate on 23 January, and to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, with whom I have corresponded about it. The person would, under the Government's rules, be described as a bogus refugee, but the House should be aware of the circumstances of his claim.
The man came to this country after 10 years of appalling terror at the hands of the Iraqi regime. In 1986, he was injured when shot from the air by a helicopter, after having fled to avoid being conscripted into the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq war. In 1988, he was arrested, blindfolded and subjected to repeated electric shocks to his legs and genitals. He was frequently suspended from the ceiling by one leg, abused and whipped, and this torture continued for two weeks. He was made to witness the torture of others, including watching one man having his fingernails pulled out and his feet set on fire. This other man was subsequently executed. The person who is now my constituent was released after five months' solitary confinement.
Three years later, when the Kurdish uprising took place after the Gulf war, my constituent joined the freedom fighters in their doomed rebellion. His brother, who was also involved in the rebellion, was one of 5,000 Kurds buried alive by the Iraqi forces after the rebellion had been put down. The person who is now my constituent was subsequently arrested, and was again taken to be tortured. He was again hoisted from the ceiling, and subjected to repeated electric shocks. He was kicked, beaten and forced to undergo water torture. He remained in prison for a year until March 1993, when he was once again released.
Last year, the security police visited my constituent's home while he was away, and his uncle warned him that, if he returned, his life would be in danger. At this point, he finally realised that he had to get out of Iraq to save his life. Leaving his wife and his four young children behind, he fled across the border into Turkey, from where he was assisted on to a flight to Britain. He arrived at
Heathrow late on a Friday evening, exhausted, frightened, confused and speaking no English. He was met by friends, who took him to stay with them over the weekend and, on the Monday, helped him to make an application for political asylum.
I do not believe that any hon. Member with a sense of humanity and decency could believe that that person was doing anything other than making a proper application for political asylum. The very fact that, under the Government's rules, he is to be classified as a bogus applicant because he delayed the application from the Friday evening to the Monday morning is an indication of just how profoundly wrong those rules are.
In my constituents's case, because he arrived in this country before 5 February, he is entitled to benefits. To that extent, he is lucky. If he had been denied benefits, who knows whether by now he would have been forced by destitution and starvation to give up, and possibly to return to the country where he suffered such appalling torture?
I believe that the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) spoke for the whole House when he said that, although we would not want to allow bogus applicants to benefit, it would be far worse if individual genuine asylum seekers were penalised unfairly as a result of the rules being brought in. The case that I have described undoubtedly reveals that truth. Had my constituent been denied benefits and forced to leave this country and return to a country where he had been tortured and where his life had been put at risk, he would have suffered an acute injustice, for which everyone in the House would have felt deeply ashamed. We owe it to him, to this country's sense of decency and to our common sense of humanity, to support the Lords amendment, which would ensure that that individual was treated as a genuine refugee.
Mr. Lilley:
First, I must set right two concerns expressed by Opposition Members. The hon. Members for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), for Perth and Kinross (Ms Cunningham) and for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) suggested that someone arriving in this country seeking asylum is required to give details at the port of the suffering that they have undergone or their reasons for seeking asylum. All we ask is that, when such people are asked why they have come to this country, they should say that it is to seek asylum, not something totally different. There is no question of their being required to give details then and there. Of course it is right to be considerate to them if they have suffered in the ways that some hon. Members have rightly expressed concern about.
Secondly, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) mentioned the problems faced by people whose spouse or head of household had made a claim before the regulations came in, but who were subsequently divorced or widowed. We have tabled amendments to the Bill to cope with that difficulty, so that problem is being set right.
On the substance of the debate, the Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen made a weak attack on the Government's position--I suspect that it was deliberately weak--and defence of their amendments. It was deliberately weak, because the Opposition are two-faced on this issue. The politically correct face, directed towards their The Guardian reader clientele, has to express a degree of opposition to the changes that we have made, but as they recognise the concerns of ordinary voters, they want to keep quiet the cost implications of the changes that they would force.
That is why the speech of the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), offered no answers to key questions. There was no explanation of why in-country claims have fallen by two thirds since the benefit rules were changed. There was no explanation of why it is wrong to exclude from benefit 100 per cent. of those who say that they are not going to rely on benefits when they come to this country because they are here for some purpose other than to claim asylum, but right to exclude 90 per cent., because only 10 per cent. would be covered by the three-day rule.
That seems an arbitrary point at which to put the divide, and it would probably lead to far more people claiming within those few days to get the advantages of immigration status, as my right hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke) explained.
We heard no explanation from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman of why it is right to set a boundary anywhere other than at the point at which people are asked whether they are asylum seekers. There were no suggestions as to how the Opposition would speed up the process, given that they are opposed to all the changes that we are introducing in the Bill, which will speed up the processing of applications. Above all, there was no explanation of where the Opposition would find an extra £270 million to extend benefits indiscriminately to all those who claim in country and on appeal. I therefore have little respect for the Opposition's position, which was marked more by sanctimonious humbug than by serious argument.
I respect the arguments of my hon. Friends the Members for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) and for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley). My hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire was right to emphasise the importance of Britain remaining a sanctuary and a place of liberty. Like him, I warm to the points made by Dr. Perutz in his letter to The Times. However, as my hon. Friend pointed out, many of the people Dr. Perutz was talking about, and most of the people about whom we are concerned, come to Britain not primarily to receive benefits, but because they know that it is a sanctuary and a place of liberty. Conservative Members are determined that we should remain that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham recognised that there were reasons why people are, and have been, advised to claim in country rather than at the port. He suggested changing the rules to remove those reasons. He wanted immigration law changed, so that people got no extra rights to appeal against deportation, and social security law changed so that applicants would bear the burden of proof.
That would require immense changes to the amendments which I doubt could be done in the time available, even if the changes were feasible. I doubt, too, whether it could done in line with the Geneva convention and not still leave considerable loopholes for people to abuse the system. I will consider closely what my hon. Friend said, but I cannot pretend that it is likely to prove possible to do what he suggested.
I was grateful for the powerful support of my right hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South for the measure. At an early stage, he rightly expressed concern about the impact of concentrations of asylum seekers in his constituency, and we endeavoured to respond to that concern in respect of local authorities. Of course I shall keep his points under review, but he is right to recognise that the Government have tried to achieve our desire to allow this country to be a place of refuge for those who genuinely come to seek asylum, without indiscriminately making benefits available in a costly way.
I hope that the House will join us in rejecting Labour's amendment and supporting the changes that the Government have introduced, to make this a sensible and targeted way to help people who want to come to Britain to seek asylum.
Question put, That the amendment to the Lords amendment be made:--
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |