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Asylum Seekers
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): We now come to the next motion, and I must tell the House that Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
7.26 pm
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury): I beg to move,
- That this House believes that the United Kingdom should continue to offer a safe haven to genuine refugees in fear of persecution; is concerned that the right to claim asylum in the United Kingdom is at present subject to widespread abuse; believes that the large proportion of unfounded asylum claims harms the interests of genuine refugees who are fleeing from persecution; notes that in 1999 there were over 71,000 claims for asylum in the United Kingdom, compared with fewer than 30,000 in 1996; further notes that the backlog of unprocessed applications stands at over 103,000, double the levels of 1997; further notes that the vast majority of asylum applicants are refused and are neither granted asylum nor exceptional leave to remain; further notes that fewer than 8,000 failed asylum seekers leave the United Kingdom annually as a result of Government action; deplores the 'soft touch' message sent out by the Government and condemns the Government for its failure to address the root causes of the present crisis; supports the abolition of cash benefits for asylum seekers but deplores the Government's incoherent and ineffective attempts to implement new arrangements for their support and the continued burden on local authorities; and calls on the Government to implement common sense solutions, including the increased use of detention and more removals of failed asylum seekers, to discourage bogus applications and address the current crisis, which is causing great concern to the people of the United Kingdom.
In the three years since the Government took office, the number of people claiming asylum in the United Kingdom has more than doubled, from 26,640 in 1996--the last full year of the Conservative Administration--to 71,160 in 1999. That means that last year the number of asylum claimants in Britain was roughly equivalent to the electorate in an average parliamentary constituency. The backlog of cases awaiting a decision from the Home Office has almost doubled, from 57,405 in 1996 to 102,870 at the end of 1999. I therefore make no apology whatever for the Opposition's decision once again to choose this subject for debate.
The truth is that the crisis over asylum policy is now arousing anger and resentment among our constituents and, if Labour Members are honest, among their constituents as well. People are angry about the transparent abuse of this country's long tradition of giving asylum to genuine refugees, and they are indignant that our asylum system is overwhelmed by bogus applications from people who are intent on evading our immigration controls.
Mr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South): What would the hon. Gentleman say to my constituent who came to my advice surgery on Monday with his wife and daughter and told me that he had made an application in 1993, under the Conservative Government, and his wife had made an application in 1994, also under the Conservative
Government, and neither of their cases had yet been resolved? Will the hon. Gentleman accept that the policies introduced by his Government were responsible for at least some of that delay of six or seven years?
Mr. Lidington: If the hon. Gentleman had been listening to my introductory remarks, he would have heard me say that under the three years' stewardship of asylum policy by the Government whom he supports, the queue and the number of applications have doubled. Despite all his lectures to me across the Chamber, he cannot escape from the fundamental truth that while his Ministers have had stewardship of this area of policy, the problem that he described has been getting much worse.
The anger and resentment of our constituents do not, I believe, spring at all from feelings of racism or xenophobia among the people whom we represent. Most people in this country are willing to welcome men and women who are genuinely fleeing for their lives. They are willing to give such refugees the rights to education, health treatment and family reunion granted by the 1951 convention--rights which in practice pretty well match those given by this country to its own citizens.
Most of our countrymen and women well understand the positive contribution that various groups of refugees have made to British life and British culture over the centuries. I cite the Ugandan Asians who fled Idi Amin in the early 1970s as perhaps the most recent example of such a group.
There is also widespread public understanding that the great majority of applications for asylum are indeed bogus, and that the negligence and chaotic mismanagement by the current crop of Home Office Ministers have brought about a state of affairs that is unfair to genuine refugees. The very people whom we have both a moral and a legal duty to assist, and whose cases should be determined quickly so that they can be accorded the rights to which they are entitled under international law, are instead left to shuffle along in a queue with almost 103,000 other case.
Mr. Lidington: I give way first to the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck).
Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Is he aware that the average processing time is now down to 13 months? It was last down to 13 months in 1990. At no point during the 1990s was the processing time down to its present level. At the time of the last election, for applicants who had come in before 1993, the waiting time was 65 months. That is entirely down to the appalling mismanagement under his party in government.
Mr. Lidington: I am always delighted to have the opportunity to pay tribute to the dedication and professionalism of staff in the Home Office, whose efforts begin to make progress at times, despite the handicap of having to cope with the mismanagement of the Ministers to whom they report. I must tell the hon. Lady that at the current rate of decision taking, it will still take roughly five years before the Home Office can eliminate the backlog which the Ministers whom she supports have allowed to develop.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mrs. Barbara Roche): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I join him in paying tribute to the staff of the immigration and nationality department. If he is so fond of their work, why did the previous Government offer redundancy to several hundred of them, an act which caused the disruption in the service?
Mr. Lidington: The hon. Lady will refresh her memory after the debate. She will discover once again the fact that at the time the Labour Government took office, both the backlog of applicants and the number of applicants were falling dramatically, as consequence of the measures introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). The Conservative Government were getting on top of the asylum problem. The current Government got in and the problems began to get worse.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): If the Conservative Government were getting on top of the problems, why was the delay 20 months at the time of the general election, whereas it is now down to 13 months?
Mr. Lidington: The Home Secretary can take no pride in a backlog that has risen from 50,000 cases to 103,000 cases during his stewardship of the Home Office.
Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman must answer the question. If the position was so good in 1997, why was the time that it took to deal with the backlog 50 per cent. longer than the corresponding time now--20 months then compared with 13 months now?
Mr. Lidington: The number of people waiting has doubled. If we examine the number of decisions taken during the past year, we find that until the last couple of months, the number of decisions was desperately low, at a time when the number of applications was rocketing. As regards decision taking, the Home Secretary was failing even to keep pace with the number of applications coming in.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Everyone in the House knows that issues to do with race, immigration and asylum excite real fears. Is it responsible to pretend that the challenge that we perceive from thousands of asylum seekers coming in has everything to do with the failings of the present Government, and nothing to do with the civil war that has been raging across the Balkans over the past three years?
Mr. Lidington: I intend to deal with that point slightly later in my speech. If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will respond to her point when I come to that passage.
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