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8.50 pm
Mr. Peter Brooke (Cities of London and Westminster): The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and I once lived opposite each other in
Hampstead. It is a pleasure to be linked with her again due to the chronological and consecutive order in which we have spoken in the debate. I am aiming to speak for seven minutes to let other hon. Members in.
I left the previous Government in July 1994, and have had a detailed involvement in the matters of today's debate since the autumn of 1995, when I wrote to the then Leader of the House saying that I feared a degree of interdepartmental incoherence was attending the then Government's review of benefits for asylum seekers. I spoke in the debate on Second Reading of the predecessor to this Bill in December 1995, and in the 90-minute debate on the accompanying social security orders in January 1996. I spoke in the 90-minute Adjournment debate on this subject secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) in mid-1996.
In this Parliament, I have not asked the Minister who will reply to the debate to invest his time in meetings on individual constituency cases. As he will remember, however, I brought a generic issue in my constituency to his and the Home Secretary's attention. I shall not dwell on the detail, for we were all agreed at the meeting that we would make more progress on solving the issue if we did not raise its profile. I pay tribute to the Minister for the constructive and imaginative way in which we were received, and to members of his private office for the way in which they have coped with the individual emergency cases that I have loaded on them.
I remarked in another debate that I am one of the two remaining inner-city Conservative MPs in the entire country. It will come as a surprise to some that in both the recent Economic and Social Research Council classifications--the first for the period 1981-92, and the second for 1991-95, both of which were calculated in accordance with current constituency boundaries--my constituency of the Cities of London and Westminster came in the top 50 out of the country's 659 constituencies by all the standard household indices of poverty. The top 50 are the poorest.
The problem for local authorities, which I helped to identify in 1995-96, is significantly assuaged by the Bill, but I have looked at the figures in Greater London for supported asylum seekers broken down by authorities for November 1996 and for January 1998, and in aggregate, but not broken down by authorities, for this very month. The Minister will not need me to tell him of the inexorable rise in those figures--it has been formidable. Westminster's precise place in the league table has fluctuated, but it has been consistently near the top.
In an era when Westminster is periodically vilified--as was exemplified by the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas), who intervened on the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) and asked him to condemn Westminster practice, which my hon. Friend admirably parried--I am happy to report to the House that a dozen or so London authorities are coming together in a London regional consortium for commissioning and contracting good quality services outside London. I am quietly proud that, despite the intervention of the hon. Member for Harrow, West, Westminster is both housing and managing that consortium.
I remark drily that far fewer than a dozen London local authorities are controlled by the Conservative party, and the fact that Westminster is managing the consortium is an echo of the golden opinions won in this field by the director of social services for Westminster, not least from Mr. Nick Hardwick, the chief executive of the Refugee Council.
I have three questions to ask the Minister. First, I understand the Bill's provisions for dispersal. However, once a determination is made, who will have a statutory duty? If people come back to London and have no other local connection established, what will the arrangements be? Secondly, with no local authority powers or duties relating to families with children who are awaiting a decision, what will happen once a family application has failed? We shall need clear arrangements between the final decision and the act of leaving the country. Thirdly, how will unaccompanied young children from abroad be dealt with after 1 April 1999? Numbers continue to grow, including the number of young people. The Greater London figure this month is three times the size of the figure in November 1996, and that relates not least to eastern Europe. Dispersal is not considered to be a serious option at this stage. Certain questions hang in the air.
Those questions are generic, but I have a personal query that relates to individual constituency cases. All hon. Members representing urban constituencies will have experience of asylum seekers who want a decision from us to discover and advance their places in the various queues. I realise that such requests slow down the overall procedure, but I have not succeeded in persuading either Lunar house or Liverpool to explain their general queueing principles on the basis of territory, so that I can save them the bother of my questions by essaying an approximate answer to constituents myself.
I am generally supportive of the Bill. Certain Labour Members have devoted some of their respective quarters of an hour to attacking the last Government. As one who deals with my fair share of cases, in the last Parliament I calculated that, for every five letters that I received from electors in my constituency, I received a further two from constituents who were resident there, but who were not on the electoral register. I personally hope that the Government will meet the targets that they have set themselves for 2001, and I hope, for their sake, that they have not created a rod for their own back. Those of us who support the Bill in general will mark their progress closely against those targets.
Notwithstanding my general approval, I recognise the various uneases expressed by at least eight well-informed outside bodies that have briefed all of us on the Bill. Every hon. Member has received that briefing, and I dare say the Government have as well. In that context, I am delighted that a Special Standing Committee will be set up to deal with the issues that have been raised. The uneases stir a resonance with me in the comparable field of homelessness. As the owner-occupied element in the housing stock has increased, our human concern for those who are not in owner-occupied accommodation has gradually receded, not least our concern for the homeless. If the Bill improves the overall situation in the field that it addresses, it will place a particular responsibility on those of us who take an interest in such matters to ensure that we do not lose sight of the genuinely disadvantaged in the general euphoria.
I have one last word to say, about an earlier exchange between my hon. Friend the Member for Woking(Mr. Malins) and the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape). The hon. Gentleman asked my hon. Friend why he was worried about the possibility that those who had failed every legal test would go to ground, and why he needed to know how many such people there were. I think that my hon. Friend's question was important. Our nation is a great one for fairness, which is one of the pleasures of living here. Those who fail all the legal tests but still stay are cheating the system, and damage the wicket for the law abiding, while generating domestic and indigenous anger with asylum seekers at large. My hon. Friend's question was reasonable, and the Government must give an answer if they are to sustain their overall policy stance.
Mr. Marsha Singh (Bradford, West):
During the debate, it has been established beyond doubt that there is an urgent need for reform and modernisation of our immigration and asylum system. The last Government presided over a system of huge backlogs, delays and widespread abuse. Even after secretly writing off26,000 people from the backlog, by the end of 1996 they still presided over a backlog of 55,000 unresolved cases, which have fallen into the lap of the Labour Government. That is unacceptable and the Government are now attempting to modernise that system. They have already moved on the primary purpose rule, abolishing it as soon as they came to power.
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Singh:
No. I have only a few minutes.
That rule was blatantly unfair and unjust and it divided many families.
I welcome the Government's commitment to a fairer, faster and firmer system, but the crucial word is "fairer." No one believes that any of the Bills on immigration or asylum that were passed by the previous Government were fair. In fact, among minority ethnic communities and immigration professionals the belief is widespread that the legislation on immigration that was passed by the previous Administration during their 18 years in power was racist. There is no doubt that in that atmosphere, and with those beliefs, parts of the immigration service have been operating a policy of institutional racism--something which we will hear a great deal about during the rest of the week.
It is my experience that during debates on immigration and asylum, the flames of prejudice are fanned against not just asylum seekers and economic migrants, but British communities of different backgrounds that are lawfully
settled here. That is why sensitivity is paramount when we debate immigration and asylum in the House. I can speak with authority on what happens at grass roots level when those matters are debated insensitively and intemperately.
Genuine asylum seekers flee their homelands not for fun, but because of persecution, violence and repression. Again, I will not accept the notion that economic migrants should be vilified, demonised, or seen as some sort of disease infecting the western world. Economic migration has been part of human history for thousands of years.
It ill behoves us in the west to vilify and demonise economic migrants because Europeans have been engaged in economic migration for centuries; they have certainly been engaged in it over the past 200 or 300 years. I mention just a few of the countries to which they have gone: South Africa, Zimbabwe, the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The list could go on, but do we ever talk about Europeans as economic migrants? No. Unfortunately, in this country, it is a term that goes with colour--black or Asian people. I will not accept that. We should learn to accept that Europeans have also been part of economic migration over the years.
The modern counterparts of those European economic migrants seek only to flee the modern poverty and wretched economic conditions that have been inflicted on them through no fault of their own. The long-term answers to their problems lie not in ever stricter immigration control by western countries, but in the eradication of poverty in developing countries.
The sooner that the west collectively undertakes to cancel third world debt, the better. I welcome the action to deal with the matter that has been taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development, but we have to make ever more progress on it. Ultimately, affluence and security in developing countries are the answers to economic migration.
I welcome many of the Bill's provisions. Many of my constituents will welcome the right of appeal for visitors, and the fact that that right can be exercised quickly.Hon. Members on both sides of the House have said how their constituents, too, will welcome that right. I have had many constituency cases in which relatives of my constituents have wanted to attend family occasions, but were refused permission to do so and did not have a right of appeal. They will very much welcome the provision.
Many of my constituents will welcome the pilot scheme on bonds. Although I realise that the provision is causing some controversy--about its potential effects on poor and rich people, and about the countries in which it will operate--one after another many of my constituents have told me, "My relatives have been refused entry, but we will give you any guarantee you want." What am I to say to them--that no system of bonds or other security or guarantee has been enshrined in legislation? The provision will be warmly and widely accepted by my constituents as it will enable their relatives to come to the United Kingdom for important family occasions.
The provisions on automatic bail hearings for immigration detainees will be widely welcomed, as I welcome them now. Placing management and operation of immigration detention centres on a statutory basis also will be welcomed.
Many hon. Members have mentioned the provisions on licensing immigration advisers and told their horror stories. I shall not take up the House's time with my similar horror stories. However, my constituents who have been ripped off--or who are likely to be ripped off in future--will warmly welcome the provisions.
The Bill contains much that should be welcomed both by the House and by our constituents. However, my hon. Friends have also mentioned some concerns, some of which I share. I am concerned that the Bill contains no provisions for early identification of those who have suffered torture or to prevent detention of those who have suffered torture. Such provisions are crucial. We do not want to throw into detention--or prison--the survivors and victims of torture. Doing so would be inhumane and a retrograde step. I should welcome hearing the Minister's thoughts on the point.
The Bill contains no provision for preventing detention of children. I should welcome the Minister's comments on that matter, too. We cannot be a society that throws children who are asylum seekers into detention centres.
I also wonder--I have not yet made up my mind on the matter--whether extension of the measures on carriers' liabilities will prevent genuine asylum seekers from reaching the United Kingdom. It is precisely genuine asylum seekers who may have the greatest difficulty in obtaining genuine documents, or any documents. I think that bogus applicants are more likely to have documents that are probably fraudulent. I should welcome the Minister's comments also on that matter.
My greatest concern about the Bill is its provisions on the welfare of children and on stopping cash payments. The Bill intends that support should be withheld from families and their children until they
"appear . . . to be either destitute or to be likely to become destitute".
That is not good enough for the welfare of children. It sounds like the "Bear Necessities" policy from "The Jungle Book".
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