| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
4.45 pm
Mr. Allan: Will the Home Secretary clarify for the record that the largest number of asylum seekers--that is, applicants--come from the top four countries that he named: the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia? The largest national groups to whom the support system will apply will be those very groups whose asylum claims are likely to be recognised.
Mr. Straw: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says as a matter of arithmetic, and I defend the system that we are putting in place. As the House knows--I shall put it on the record--we intend to ensure that families are dealt with under the new system within two months. If their cases are genuine and well founded, as we have adjudged them to be in the past, it is highly probable that they will be in the system for only two months, because they will then be granted refugee status or exceptional leave to remain and will not have to make an appeal.
My hon. Friend the Minister has ensured that these cases are dealt with sympathetically and quickly, and that if we accept a case, we do not let it niggle and go to appeal.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington):
I have listened with great care to my right hon. Friend's argument, because it is at the heart of his case for the proposed support system. For the avoidance of doubt, will he confirm that the voucher package he proposes is designed to be a disincentive? Is he content for the large number of people who turn out to be genuine Geneva convention refugees to suffer in order for the system to act as a disincentive to others who are merely economic refugees?
Mr. Straw:
I am not saying that. The proposed system is designed as a fair and just way of supporting people seeking asylum in this country. The availability of cash benefits--the provision that we are making, but by a different means--is open to abuse and is abused, as, I suggest, my hon. Friend and everyone else knows. There is no question but that there is a small industry of people coming in and seeking cash benefits at port. One of the attractions is the availability of cash benefits.
I am clear that the support we provide will ensure that no asylum seeker remains destitute. We are using the voucher system not to disadvantage existing asylum seekers but to ensure that social security benefits, which were never designed for this purpose, are no longer
available, because that amounts to an incentive to people who have no claim whatever to come to this country and abuse the system. That is a different point.
Ms Abbott:
I hate to quibble with a colleague who is both a distinguished Home Secretary and a distinguished lawyer, but if cash benefits are an incentive and if his system is supposed to be superior to cash benefits, it must, of necessity, be a disincentive. One of the problems I have with this system is that it is quite wrong to have a welfare system that is set up on the basis of the old poor law deliberately to be a disincentive.
Mr. Straw:
I do not accept that that is what it is, but I also do not think that it is sensible policy making to set up a system that is an open invitation to fraud and abuse, as is the system of cash benefits. I remind my hon. Friend that that system is currently available only to people who apply at port. Many of the people who have more well founded applications do not apply at port, because of the way in which they have come into this country. Many of those with profoundly unfounded claims who come in clandestinely, who know the ropes and who apply at port are able to use the cash benefits system, unlike those with well-founded claims. I do not think that that is sensible.
I also do not think that it is sensible for us to end up with a system under which some asylum applicants enjoy one type of support, whereas others enjoy a quite different one through local authorities.
On the matter of the poor law, we do not have to look into the crystal ball or in history books to see how a system such as that which we propose would work. We know about it from the experience of local authorities, and I have not heard local authorities say that they are providing "poor law" assistance. Those that provide assistance have worked commendably hard, and on the whole the results have been good. Their problem, and ours--it is a problem in my hon. Friend's area, as it is in many other parts of inner London--is that the burden on individual authorities is far too great. That is why we need a national system.
I know that many of my hon. Friends wish tospeak, as do Opposition Members. [Interruption.] My Parliamentary Private Secretary, who is not supposed to say a word, asks "What Opposition Members?" In any event, it is probably sensible for me to stop speaking now, listen to what my hon. Friends have to say and respond later.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North):
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Straw:
I was trying to be helpful to my hon. Friends.
Mr. Corbyn:
I am trying to be helpful to the Home Secretary.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order. I cannot allow two Members to be on their feet at the same time, and I am trying to decide who should have the Floor. I call the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn).
Mr. Corbyn:
Before sitting down, will my right hon. Friend tell us the cost of bringing back a social security
Mr. Straw:
I shall endeavour to provide those figures when I sum up the debate.
Mr. Clappison:
I shall concentrate on the new clause and on amendments Nos. 15 and 27, which I tabled along with other Opposition Members. I should add that amendment No. 27 relates to clause 108, and as clause 108 is to be taken out of the Bill, is probably redundant.
We are dealing with an important subject which has caused considerable concern to all who have commented on the Bill--both in the House and outside--and to the witnesses who gave evidence to the Special Standing Committee. Hon. Members will have become more familiar than ever with the body known as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in recent weeks, because of its activities in the Balkans. It was Hope Hanlon of the UNHCR who described the arrangements for children proposed in the Bill as
New clause 6 takes the debate a stage further. As the Home Secretary has said, it replaces clause 99, which sought to deprive the children of asylum seekers of some of the important protection afforded by the Children Act 1989. The Home Secretary says that the Government have listened to views that have been expressed. I think that they could scarcely have done otherwise, given the volume of concern expressed to them. We shall see in a moment just how much of what the Government have heard they have implemented, but new clause 6--the modified version of the Government's original intentions--is still the subject of serious concern in children's charities and other organisations, on the grounds that formerly applied to clause 99.
The Government, however, have now retreated from clause 99. Indeed, there seems to be a wide consensus that it was a bad clause. I could say that a political spectrum is opposed to clause 99--now clause 108. Amendment No. 3 removes the clause from the Bill. It is signed by, among others, me, my right hon. Friends, the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn).
Mr. Clappison:
We could hardly get a wider spectrum than that. I will leave it to hon. Members to guess who stands where in the spectrum.
Clause 99 has now become clause 108, which is to be taken out of the Bill. The key question that we need to deal with is: does new clause 6, replacing clause 108, meet the concerns that generated such widespread opposition to the original clause?
As the Home Secretary said, the Government's intention is that the needs of children of asylum seekers should be met through the new asylum support system, rather than through section 17 of the Children Act 1989, or indeed any other provisions. Quite a number of statutory responsibilities have been stripped away from various agencies by the Bill, but it is section 17 that is the most important. The Home Secretary said that the Government's intention was to transfer the responsibilities under section 17 from local authorities to the new asylum support organisation. That may be the Government's intention, but we have to ask: do new clause 6 and the transfer protect children in as comprehensive and assured a way as section 17 does and was intended to do?
Clause 108 asserted that, if the families concerned were eligible for support under the asylum support system, their children could not be given protection under section 17. That created a problem for families who were entitled to receive support under the asylum support system, but did not, in fact, receive such support for one reason or another, which was all too possible because of the rigidities and inadequacies of the way in which the Government's asylum support apparatus is designed.
We were concerned--and so were many others--that children could slip through the safety net that the Government were seeking to put in place and that, as a result, children and families could suffer hardship, especially children who were taken into care and separated from their families--which is undesirable and should be avoided if possible--or even worse. If children slip through the asylum support system because of its inadequacies, local authorities will not have section 17 powers to step in and to provide protection for those children and to keep them with their families.
The Home Secretary has asserted that it was not the intention of the framers of the Children Act to cater for situations such as the one that he has outlined. That may be so, but he is wrong in one respect. The framers of the Act, which received all-party support, intended to provide comprehensive protection for children, covering all contingencies; going back to the spirit of the Act, I think that that was its intention.
Indeed, the Opposition of the day--which was, of course, the right hon. Gentleman's party--sought and received assurances from the then Government that the Act would provide a safety net to protect children and to keep families together, even when homelessness legislation or possibly--although they did not contemplate it at the time--immigration and asylum legislation failed children. Their intention was that all children should receive comprehensive protection.
"fundamentally unacceptable, and even inhumane".
Serious concern has also been expressed by a wide range of major children's charities, including Barnardos, the Children's Society, UNICEF and the Save the Children Fund, as well as by a number of religious groups and interested organisations.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |