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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. Five hon. Members hope to catch my eye in the 25 minutes before the winding-up speeches begin. With the co-operation of the House, I hope that they will all be successful.
11.46 am
Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow): I shall try to be brief. The right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke) has discussed this subject on several occasions and raised the issue of responsibility. His speech contrasted considerably with that of the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) at the beginning of the debate. I must admit that I was one of those who laughed at some of the things that she said, not because I do not take the subject seriously, but because it was obvious that she does not have the slightest clue about who asylum seekers are, the circumstances in which they find themselves, and what happens to them.
I agree that London boroughs should not carry the responsibility for asylum seekers, but what are the alternatives? The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the Government should shift the responsibility somewhere else. The hon. Member for Billericay seemed to endorse the Government's option of appealing the court decisions and returning to their favoured position of removing benefits completely and leaving asylum seekers with absolutely nothing. I remind the House that the measure applies to asylum seekers who apply in country, and not to those who apply at the port of entry. That is despite the fact that the success rate for asylum applications of people who apply in country is at least as great as--and sometimes greater than--that of people who apply at the port of entry.
In the first four months of last year, 775 people were awarded refugee status, 610 of whom were in-country applicants--precisely the people who have been denied benefits. The Government were warned about the repercussions from the beginning. The Social Security Advisory Committee warned the Government not to change the social security regulations in 1995, and pointed to the likely consequences of that action.
The Government's reasoning was the same then as it is now: they still talk about economic migrants and benefit scroungers. Anyone who deals with asylum seekers knows the reality. It is rubbish to say that people come to this country because the benefits here are more than the average wages in the countries from which they have come. They may be, but we should consider what that means in real terms, and what standard of living people have had in their own countries.
An Algerian asylum seeker told me that he had been a general practitioner in Algeria and that his wife had been a vet, but people were telling him that he had come here to live on benefits. I have known an 18-year-old Somali girl for a couple of years. She is struggling to look after six children younger than herself. They all live in a bed-sit, and she showed me photographs of her house in
Somalia, which has a mosque in the back garden that her father built. Yet we tell those people that they have come here to live on a few pounds a week in benefits.
The people who manage to get to this country are usually not the poorest or most downtrodden. The poorest people are in refugee camps in neighbouring countries: that is where the majority of refugees end up. How many of the 20 million refugees worldwide are trying to get to Europe, never mind the United Kingdom?
The Government lost the court case on the benefit regulations. At the last minute, they included these provisions in the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996. Time and again, those of us who served on the Committee considering that Bill and who participated in the debates asked what would happen and who would have ultimate responsibility. We said that local authorities would be stuck with the problem of having to deal with children under the Children Act 1989 and with homeless people on the streets. We did not know then that the courts would decide that the National Assistance Act 1948 could be used. We pointed out the problems and said that council tax payers would have to pick up the bill.
Even if we accepted the Government's view--which I do not--that only a tiny proportion of people who claim asylum are genuine refugees, we cannot defend a policy that leaves genuine refugees destitute. The hon. Member for Billericay defended the Government's position. Even if only a small number of cases are genuine, how can anyone defend such callousness? Genuine asylum seekers will be left without a penny to live on. Only one other country in Europe has such a policy, and that is Italy. On the outskirts of large towns such as Naples one sees shanty towns full of asylum seekers. That is the logical consequence of the Government's policy.
It is a disgrace to any civilised society even to consider leaving genuine asylum seekers without a penny to live on. That is what we should be debating, not the financial position of a few local authorities that have been dropped into this mess by the Government, who want to leave them in that mess. Hon. Members should read the Refugee Council's report, which shows the impact that having to live on nothing has on the lives of asylum seekers. People have to walk miles to soup kitchens to get a meal.
As the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South said, delays should be eliminated. Why are people having to wait four or five years for a decision on their case? Why are the queues getting longer? In 1993, we were told that the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 would make things better, and we were told last year that the 1996 Act would makes them better, but waiting times are getting longer. If we want to encourage people to make bogus applications, the way to do so is to let the queues get longer, but that penalises the genuine asylum seeker. I believe that the majority of applicants are genuine: I do not believe the 90 per cent. figure.
Long queues encourage the bogus applicant, so the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department should do something about it. Why has the number of cases awaiting appeal gone from 13,000 to 21,000? Many of those people will have to await their appeal--which they may well win--without a penny, because their benefits have been cut off. Do not tell me that that is what happens to people who are refused benefits through the social security system. Few people who are refused social
security benefits are left destitute without a penny. The people who are refused benefit tend to be those claiming a particular benefit to which they are not entitled.
Mr. Charles Wardle (Bexhill and Battle):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) on securing this debate. The topic of asylum seekers is fundamentally important for two obvious reasons. First, it matters crucially that this country honours, as it always has, its obligations under the Geneva convention. It is equally important that abuse of the asylum rules by the large number of people who make asylum applications knowing that their position as illegal immigrants has no bearing on the Geneva convention should be debated openly, so that it is fully understood and tackled.
Bearing in mind the fact that year in, year out the number of people found to be genuine Geneva convention cases ranges from 1,000 to 3,000, it stands to reason that the other tens of thousands of applicants include people who knowingly abuse the system. Those people do a disservice to genuine refugees, who are held up in the queue, to which the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) alluded, and do not receive the treatment and care that should come their way.
Mr. Corbyn:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Wardle:
I shall not give way. The hon. Gentleman and I have often discussed this matter, but I am aware of the time, and I would like to make progress.
Britain has always honoured the Geneva convention, and has given sanctuary to people with a well-founded fear of persecution in the country from which they are fleeing and whose first safe country landing is in the United Kingdom. The only occasion that I know of when our proud record under successive Governments of honouring the convention was sullied was the recent al-Masari case. Reference to the primacy of British business interests in Saudi Arabia brought the integrity of our asylum criteria into question, and, when the Government lost the appeal, a thoroughly undesirable person was allowed to remain in this country and continue his political activity.
I want to make three points on detention, the asylum queue and the wider issue of asylum, the European Union and broader immigration policy. Much of what is said about detention is confused or misleading. Protesters may genuinely be concerned about refugees in detention, but the fact is that only a tiny proportion of applicants are detained. In virtually every case--not in 100 per cent. of cases, but in almost all of them--a detainee is someone whose appeal has been refused, who is waiting to be removed from the country and is only temporarily in detention, or whose application has been refused and is awaiting appeal but is considered likely to abscond. However, it is a tiny proportion of the number of people concerned.
Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North):
Will my hon. Friend give way?
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