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Mr. Straw: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 15, in clause 79, page 51, line 2, leave out 'or' and insert--
'( ) is a child who is being looked after by the asylum-seeker, or his spouse, who is under 18 and dependent on him; or'.
Government amendment No. 70.
Amendment No. 1, in clause 101, page 62, line 37, at end insert--
Government amendment No. 3.
Amendment No. 27, in clause 108, page 66, line 38, leave out 'may be' and insert 'are being'.
Mr. Straw:
A good deal of reference has rightly been made in our debates on the Floor of the House to the work of the Special Standing Committee and to the debate outside the House that that work generated. I have never believed in the theory that what Ministers and their officials produce and present to the House at First Reading is perfection and can never be worthy of improvement. Indeed, it would render the work of the House otiose if that were the case. Sometimes the way in which a policy is put into practice has not been dealt with satisfactorily in a Bill; sometimes the policy itself may have to be changed. That is part of the very important
The work of the Special Standing Committee has enhanced the scrutiny of the Bill. That is very much to the credit of the system as well as to the credit of Members who served on the Committee and those who gave evidence to it.
I hope that my hon. Friends will agree that one of the areas that came within the first category of which I spoke--where the policy, which I hope to justify to my hon. Friends, was clear, but where we accept that the execution of the policy and the words used were not satisfactory--relates to the references in the Bill to the Children Act 1989. Wider issues are associated with that, some of which will be debated now, and some later. Given the original wording of the clause that started as clause 99 and is now clause 108, there has been understandable concern about whether we are seeking to remove from the children of asylum seekers the protection afforded by the 1989 Act.
The Government never intended to remove from asylum seekers the protection afforded by the 1989 Act. Rather, it has been our intention to transfer responsibility for providing accommodation and essential living needs from local authority social service departments to the new Asylum Support Directorate of the Home Office. There was nothing sinister in the wording of what is now clause 108, so I assure the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) that there was no conspiracy.
Mr. Straw:
No, not even a cock-up. Sometimes, first efforts and second efforts do not amount to what is needed, so things need to be changed.
If the House expects Ministers to come to this place and to propose amendments in light of discussion, it is important that there should be some good will on both sides, and a recognition--I make a general, not an ad hominem point--that it is easier for Ministers to do so if they are not accused of a conspiracy or cock-up every time that they make a change in response to criticism in the House. A more accurate accusation would be that we have listened carefully to the arguments and accepted them, as is the case here.
We have decided to replace clause 108 with new provisions which I believe express far better the intentions of Ministers, and which in particular respond to the concerns of hon. Members, especially Labour Members, about the protection that the Bill should provide for children. The new clause places on the Secretary of State a duty in respect of children--defined as dependants under the age of 18--of asylum seekers. Where the Secretary of State considers that adequate accommodation is not being provided for the child in question, or that the child's essential living needs are not being met, the Secretary of State will have a duty--not a discretion, but an obligation--to use the powers under clause 80 to offer to provide that.
4.30 pm
The phrases in new clause 6 are drawn from equivalent phrases in the Children Act 1989. The purpose is to ensure that the assistance provided in such cases is comparable with that provided under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, of which, for these purposes, local authorities are being relieved. Where the Secretary of State's offer is accepted, he falls under an obligation to provide, or to arrange to have provided, the necessary accommodation or other living needs.
That will address the basic needs for accommodation, food and other support of the asylum-seeking family. As at present, local authority social services departments will retain responsibility for addressing the individual needs of children that extend beyond the norm--for example, needs that arise from physical, medical or educational problems.
We recognise the care and expertise with which social services departments have exercised those duties. The House will recognise in turn that it was never Parliament's intention when the Children Act 1989 went through the House that the Act should be used, as it has come to be used, to deal with the day-to-day living needs of asylum seekers.
The local authorities had that duty imposed on them only as a result of a landmark judgment by the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, following the previous Government's refusal to provide for any support for in-country applicants for asylum. We can debate the matter at greater length on Third Reading.
One of the reasons why we objected so strongly to the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996, which the righthon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) mentioned yesterday--I make no apology for our opposition to it--was that we believed that the 1996 Act would neither be fair nor effective. It has certainly not proved effective--which is why, three years later, we are having to introduce a comprehensive reform of asylum and immigration law--and it is also profoundly unfair.
The 1996 Act was so unfair that asylum seekers took a number of local authorities to court on the ground that there must be some duty on someone to support children who would otherwise be destitute. The noble and learned Members of the Appellate Committee stated that, unless Parliament clearly intended to remove all measure of support from statute, in their judgment, the duty fell to local authorities under the provisions of the Children Act 1989 and, in respect of single people, of section 21 of the National Assistance Act 1948.
Members of the Appellate Committee were judicially interpreting parts of those two Acts in a way that had not been anticipated, but they did so to meet a profound social need. As I have explained and will explain again, we seek to meet that need in a different way.
I recognise that hon. Members want to ensure that the children of asylum seekers are not treated significantly differently because of their asylum status. They will not be. Local authorities are being relieved of their support powers. Local authorities--as it happens, many controlled by the Labour party, but some controlled by other parties--in inner London boroughs and in some Kent districts pleaded with us to relieve them of the burden of supporting asylum seekers in their areas because they could not cope.
Anyone who knows the true burden that has fallen on Kent social services department, on Dover district council and on inner London boroughs including Westminster, Camden, Lambeth and Hackney, as well as Waltham Forest and one or two outer London boroughs, will understand why some of those authorities have been at the end of their tether. Fifty per cent. of all asylum-seeker families are being supported by a handful of local authorities. That burden is simply unsustainable, so we propose instead that local authorities be relieved of their support powers and that those be replaced with a duty on the Secretary of State to provide support.
Aside from local authorities' objections about the disproportionate burden that was falling on a handful of authorities, there was also the fact that, in practice, the kind of support that was being provided by local authorities differed considerably from one authority to another.
No authority has the power to pay any cash whatever to singles. Thus our provision for a mixture of vouchers and cash represents a significant improvement, as I pointed out on the radio yesterday. Local authorities have a power to provide some cash and some benefits in kind to families, but their provision has varied considerably. In some areas, all the provision has been made by way of vouchers, whereas in others it has been made by a mixture of cash and vouchers. I do not happen to think that that is a satisfactory arrangement, and neither do the local authorities. There is now a clear duty, which will be exercised consistently across the country.
I understand--although I do not accept--some of the arguments that the level of support is not sufficient, but we can at least now have a proper argument about what the appropriate level of support should be. Moreover, as the regulations to underpin the primary powers in the Bill are introduced, there can be further and more detailed discussion about the precise levels of support.
I shall now deal with some of the other amendments in the group. Amendment No. 15 follows a similar amendment that was tabled in Committee. As we made clear on that occasion, we intend that the family group to be supported under part IV of the Bill should be the same as in the substantive asylum application. I wish to make it clear, particularly to my hon. Friends who are concerned about whether the definition of "family" includes only blood relations, that that is not the case. It may include minors who are not children--blood relatives--of the principal applicant, but who nevertheless live as part of the asylum seeker's family unit, either because they have been separated from their own parents or for some worse reason, for example, because their parents have been killed. That could include children who are totally unrelated to the asylum seeker concerned, as well as those who are more distantly related, such as nephews and nieces.
For that reason, although for the purposes of the support arrangements, a "dependant" is defined in clause 79 as the spouse and minor children of the asylum seeker or of his spouse, there is provision for regulations to be made adding to that definition, and it will be so added to. In the light of the reassurance that I have given that we intend that the family group for the purpose of the support arrangements should be the same as for the asylum application, I hope that those who tabled amendment No. 15 will accept that there is no need for it.
Amendment No. 1 seeks to exclude asylum seekers with families from the new support arrangements by allowing them access to the social security benefit system throughout their application for asylum. That would affect over 10 per cent. of all asylum seeker households. Last year, for example, some 6,000 applicants--a little more than 10 per cent.--had dependants. Altogether, those 6,000 had 13,000 dependants, so the total number of people, and the burden on the social security system, is significantly greater--it is about three times greater--than the proportion of asylum seekers with dependants to the total number of principal asylum applicants.
To exclude asylum seekers with families from those arrangements would be to drive a coach and horses through a central part of our proposals. We are fully committed to supporting destitute asylum seekers for as long as it takes to consider their applications. We are also committed to that because to do otherwise would be to breach our convention obligations.
Our commitment goes further in the case of families, although that point has sometimes not been understood outside the House. Such families will be supported for as long as they remain in this country. That includes families that may have lost, on their initial application, any appeal and any judicial review, and families awaiting removal or deportation. Families with children will be supported under the arrangements as long as they are here, but the whole purpose of this part of the Bill is to support asylum seekers separately from the mainstream social security system.
There are two reasons for that. First, asylum seekers have distinctive needs which are best addressed through the new support arrangements. They generally arrive with no possessions and need help in acquiring living essentials and adjusting to living in a strange country. Secondly, for some people claiming to seek asylum, the current benefit system is a real attraction. I do not by any means suggest that that applies to every asylum seeker, but we would be naive not to recognise that factor.
It is important in that context to get across again the fact that asylum seekers are people who are in very different circumstances. For example, the asylum seekers who last year came from Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and the former Yugoslavia were almost always able to establish a claim for asylum or for exceptional leave to remain in this country. In the case of some countries, 98 per cent. of people--singles as well as those with dependants--are able to establish a claim. Applicants from those four countries account for 70 per cent. of all acceptances of refugees or people given exceptional leave to remain.
A group of about 14 countries--such as Turkey, Nigeria, Algeria, Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone--contributes almost all the other acceptances. The proportion of acceptances ranges from 6 per cent. for applicants from Turkey up to 82 per cent. for applicants from Rwanda. There is a mixed picture and I concede that some of those who are rejected, either for refugee status or for exceptional leave to remain, have none the less made their claims genuinely and in good faith, although they cannot establish them.
'(2A) Subsection 1(e), (j) and (k) of this section shall not apply to an asylum seeker who has a dependant under the age of 18, but income support shall be paid at the urgent cases rate as prescribed.'.
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