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Mr. Allan: I commend the Bishop of Southwark's amendment. It was supported by a rainbow coalition of all parties and of none in the Upper kaufHouse. It is a tribute to the Bishop of Southwark and those in the upper House who took an independent view and were not tempted to view immigration matters as a sensitive political concern about which they must at all times be defensive. It sometimes appears that the other place is more willing to celebrate the contribution made by refugees to this country.
The Home Secretary appeared at one point to have seen the light when he referred to international conditions being the main driver behind the recent increase in asylum applications. That is the argument advanced by the Liberal Democrats in recent years, but the Home Secretary contradicted himself later by describing the cash benefits as the principal pull factor. The Home Secretary appears to argue either position as it suits him.
The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) said earlier that Liberal Democrats said nice things about the Home Secretary, but the hon. Gentleman himself played a constructive role in Committee. We formed an effective opposition in that Committee, but unfortunately the Home Secretary was not able to appreciate that.
We agreed with the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) when he said that the issue is primarily administrative, not legislative. Getting the administration right is the key, not simply banging through more legislation to pile on top of what we have had already. We were promised a fundamental review of all immigration legislation in this Bill, but other issues have been tagged on--not least the support system that we are debating.In our view, the Government are following the Conservatives' pattern of talking tough and legislating on immigration but then watching the system descend into further chaos. The support system in the Bill will continue that pattern.
The Lord Chancellor's comments about the likelihood of meeting the six-month target and recruiting the adjudicators have already been mentioned. The Home
Secretary also said that the Government were aiming to meet the target, but that is meaningless in terms of holding the Government to account on those targets. We have also heard the evidence of the unions who represent workers in the immigration service. They appeared before the Special Standing Committee and said that even with the workers who were being recruited, the service would not be able to keep up with the growing backlog. The immigration service unions have since confirmed the problems faced in Croydon and elsewhere. We cannot therefore sit here and blithely accept the Home Secretary's assurances that he hopes to meet the target.
In the context of dispersal, it is vital that local authorities be given assurances about the targets, because they need to be able to plan. The local authority in Sheffield has voiced its concerns to me, and I am sure that other hon. Members will have had the same experience. How can local authorities plan for education and social services unless they know how long they will be responsible for applicants for asylum? Local health services have similar problems.
We provided a tremendous reception for Kosovans in my local authority, but that was based on full backing from the Home Office and a clear idea of what would happen. That will not happen under the new system and the asylum support directorate. The situation will be chaotic, and local authorities will find that difficult. However, we can be sure that they will continue to pick up the pieces for people who are desperate. The social services and other agencies, including the churches and the voluntary sector--often funded by the local authority for precisely that purpose--always do, whatever we put in the Bill about specific responsibilities for local authorities.
We are concerned that the Asylum Support Directorate is advertising under the Government scheme--not the one in the amendment--for other accommodation outside the consortium. How can a local authority plan to participate in such arrangements when advertisements are placed seeking other providers of accommodation in its area? Again, it may not always feel included in those discussions, nor able to contribute effectively to decisions about where people should end up.
The messages that have been given out have not always been helpful. I join in the commendations of the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Prosser) for the way in which he has taken a principled position, but it is clear that local authorities have been told that knife-wielding maniacs from Kent will be coming their way under the dispersal arrangements that the Government will impose. The publicity that has been created--and examples have been cited in the House--has been entirely counterproductive when it comes to getting local authorities outside London and the south-east to co-operate and participate. I very much regret some of the comments that have been made.
The figures given by the Home Secretary in rejecting the amendment were assertions, not facts. They are supported by no evidence other than the assertions of his officials. As happened with the police figures, the Home Secretary sometimes has to return to the House and say that the assertions made by his officials are not entirely what he would have wished to make had he checked them more carefully. We consider that the assertions behind the figures that the Home Secretary gave are based on supposition, in an attempt to make a case that he has decided already.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow rehearsed the arguments about the figures after the 1996 Act, when the choice was between cash benefits and nothing. If a deterrent effect existed, at most it was of about 10 per cent. initially, before fading altogether. The Home Secretary's figures ask us to assume a deterrent effect of 20 per cent., but we have no serious reason to take that as a fact.
The costs of the new system will be much higher--even the Government have admitted that administering vouchers will be more expensive. Officials from Kent county council told the Special Standing Committee that choosing the voucher option would be a disaster. Representatives from the Association of London Government said that the system would be expensive and difficult to administer.
However, the Bill proposes a central unit to administer that system throughout the country and to manage contracts that are supposed to cover details such as the changing of light bulbs and the provision of basic necessities. We are expected to take at face value the assertion that, in effect, the system will cost nothing, whereas a system involving social security benefits would be a full-cost operation. Clearly, rejecting the amendment and going down the route proposed in the Bill will involve an enormous cost.
We are also asked to take at face value the assertion that the administration system will work, yet we hear stories about how little communication exists between the asylum casework section and the new Asylum Support Directorate. The two operations must go hand in hand: the support system cannot work unless the casework is progressing effectively. I hope that the Home Secretary will be able to correct me, but I understand that the computer systems for the casework directorate and the Asylum Support Directorate are not compatible.
Major worries remain about the manipulation and management of the hearings that will allow people to come off the system within six months. There is no evidence that the problems of that self-created millennium bug have been solved, even though the clock is ticking and there are only five months to go until the system becomes operational in April 2000.
The key is to get the determination right and fair at the first attempt. That is the way to speed up the system and resolve the problems with it, but there is no evidence that the Government will be able to deliver that.
My noble Friend Earl Russell referred in another place to the Child Support Agency. The difficulties that he described with that agency bore uncanny parallels with the problems evident in the asylum system. He spoke of implementing simultaneously a major piece of legislation, a major administrative reorganisation and a major new computer system, and described the disaster that that could cause. That is uncannily reminiscent of what happened with the Passport Agency, and I regret that it may also happen with the Asylum Support Directorate.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton):
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) talked about a magic wand. There is no such thing and I do not see one coming along.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) spoke with authority and compassion about the effect of the present system on genuine asylum seekers--the situation inherited from the Conservative party. Those of us who represent constituencies with large numbers of asylum seekers, as I do, are well aware of the impact on them of that administrative confusion.
The hon. Member for Hallam also says that he wants a system that is fair, but in my experience, where the system works, it is very fair. For example, last month I held a three and a half hour advice bureau, which dealt mostly with people who were here and had been given indefinite or considerable periods of leave to remain. They were mainly Somalis. They had no complaints about the system that had allowed them to be here as asylum seekers. Nor did they have any complaints about Manchester city council. That council has not had any complaints about the situation--it has done remarkable things for asylum seekers, particularly those from Somalia but also those from Kosovo. We have a large number of people from Kosovo in my constituency.
So many people who have been asylum seekers come to my advice bureau not because they are here or are not being sustained, but because the system has become so clogged with bogus asylum seekers that they cannot get the processing that they need--for example, with travel documents and verification of their presence here.
One of my cases concerns a woman from Croatia who is an asylum seeker. She needs verification of her status from the Home Office because she cannot obtain the benefits to which she is entitled. She is getting cheques on a weekly basis, at best. That is because she has been waiting for 15 months simply for a reply from the Home Office, owing to the misguided legislation of the Conservative party which has resulted in chaos in the system--utter chaos for applications and appeals. As a result, people with genuine and important problems cannot get responses.
Week after week I have to deal with the problems of people not only from Somalia, but from Sierra Leone, Algeria, Libya--an appalling case involving a man who had had a frightful wound inflicted on him--Iraq and many other countries. They have no problem with being in this country. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has treated all of them very well indeed. The problem is that they are in a state of limbo because the system is clogged with bogus asylum seekers.
Last weekend, I had a discussion with senior members of the race relations sector in Manchester. As it happens, it was at an event organised by Asian constituents. They told me of their total support for this legislation. They do not support it because they are happy with it--who can be happy with legislation that has to introduce such Gordian measures? My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is not happy that he has had to introduce it. They support it because they believe that it is the best way to cut open the system and rid it of the awful consultants and solicitors who have battened and leached on certain people, urging them to apply for asylum when they are not eligible and making money out of human misery.
That human misery is twofold. There is the human misery of the genuine asylum seekers who are not having their cases dealt with efficiently or satisfactorily, and that of the people who have been induced to apply for asylum who are never in a million years going to get it but whose cases must be considered as if they are genuine, just in case they turn out to be such.
That is the unhappy dilemma facing my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. He is using better endeavours--better than any Home Secretary whom I have encountered in my 29 years in this place--to deal with problems that are often insoluble, always vexatious and sometimes--far too often--exacerbated by the exploitation of the system by people who are exploited by consultants. If there is one reason why I want this Bill on the statute book, it is so that the measures against the bogus consultants and exploitative solicitors can be brought into action. I name Thornhill Ince in Manchester as a firm of solicitors whose exploitation of members of the ethnic minority communities is absolutely scandalous.
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