THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES
OFFICIAL REPORT
IN THE FIRST SESSION OF THE FIFTY–THIRD PARLIAMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
[WHICH OPENED 13 JUNE 2001]
FIFTY–SECOND YEAR OF THE REIGN OFHER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II
SIXTH SERIES
VOLUME 400
SEVENTH VOLUME OF SESSION 2002–2003
House of Commons
Monday 24 February 2003
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
HOME DEPARTMENT
The Secretary of State was asked—
Police Pensions
1. Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry): If he will make a statement on the cost of police pensions. [98756]
The Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety (Mr. John Denham): Forces in England and Wales estimate that their police pension bill for 2002–03 will be around £1.2 billion. That has been matched by the £1.26 billion allocated for pensions in the total funding formula. However, the Government are aware that pension costs cause police authorities concern, and we are reviewing the way in which pensions are financed and whether the scheme could be modernised for future entrants.
Mr. Boswell : I thank the Minister for that response. I acknowledge that Northamptonshire's settlement this year is less ungenerous than some recent settlements.
Does he accept, therefore, that it is disturbing that the police authority has had to put up its precept by more than 25 per cent. for the second successive year? The chief constable has said that a major contributory factor has been the cost of police pensions. Will the Minister assure the House of some future relief from this treadmill for hard-pressed council tax payers?
Mr. Denham: We recognise that pension costs are a concern, but they represent the lifetime service of police officers in previous years, and we must honour that commitment. We should not reward forces—Northamptonshire is not one of them—that have been slack in their handling of early medical retirements in years past.
The hon. Gentleman referred to precepts. Northamptonshire has chosen to employ additional police officers and community support officers over and above the increase in officer numbers funded centrally. It is for the police authority to decide what should be done to meet the needs of its local community. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support his authority in doing that.
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford): The Government's pensions Green Paper makes many constructive statements about funded pension schemes. Why should there not be a fully funded police pension fund over time?
Mr. Denham: If we were overnight to replace the existing pay-as-you-go pension scheme with a funded scheme, the Government would have to find about £25 billion to establish that. I suspect that Members would feel that there were more immediate policing priorities to which such money should be devoted.
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy): Further to the question put by the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), is it not correct that between 50 and 60 per cent. of any annual allocation to police
authorities goes straight into pensions and salary increases that have been centrally agreed? Is not it time to review the whole position? There is a huge burden on council tax payers, and it is disingenuous of the Government to talk about percentage increases when most of the money goes overnight.
Mr. Denham: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Government have put more money into the system through the funding formula for police pensions than the total cost that we estimate was paid out on police pensions or will be paid out this year. There are two problems. The first is how individual forces could be better protected from short-term fluctuations in pensions if, for example, a large number of officers were all to retire in the same financial year. The second is to ensure that forces continue to bear down on unwarranted early ill-health retirement, which adds significantly to pensions bills and to the costs on local people.
Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley): Obviously, my right hon. Friend will be aware that council tax payers in Lancashire and in many of the northern police forces are subsidising police forces in the south because of the ceilings and floors on increases. Money is trapped, that is the problem. Will he hold discussions with other Departments to ensure that we get the funding that we should be allocated, instead of having to subsidise the south.
Mr. Denham: In introducing the new funding formula, we have tried to be fair to all forces. That is why there is a ceiling on increases of 4.9 per cent. and a floor that ensures that no one gets less than 3 per cent., which is above inflation. We should not forget the background to this issue, which is that the police service received a 10 per cent. increase in funding in 2001–02 and a 7 per cent. increase for 2002–03, and had an overall rise of 6.2 per cent. in the coming year, and a 16 per cent. increase in the current spending review settlement. Whatever the detail of the formula, no one can claim that the Government are not putting significant extra resources into the police service. That is why we have record numbers of police officers, and those numbers will continue to rise.
Asylum System
2. Mr. Charles Hendry (Wealden): What discussions he has had with his counterparts in other EU countries regarding the asylum system. [98757]
The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes): The UK continues to play a leading role in developing the asylum measures proposed by the treaty of Amsterdam. That represents an important step towards achieving a common European asylum system with our partners.
We are also working bilaterally with the French, and in conjunction with other countries including Belgium and Holland, to continue to strengthen our borders and tackle abuse.
Mr. Hendry : Can the Minister confirm that although the Sangatte asylum centre was closed and bulldozed in
December, the French Red Cross is now building another camp in Sangatte for 1,000 asylum seekers? Does that not make a mockery of the agreement reached by the Secretary of State with his French counterparts? Does it not also highlight the need for asylum seekers to be detained in secure accommodation until their applications have been processed?
Beverley Hughes: I know that a number of newspapers have spread that story about an alternative camp. I have been contacted by a journalist who has been at Sangatte, as well as by our own officials, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the story is absolutely untrue.
What the hon. Gentleman says about detention is rather outdated. It refers to an earlier variant of asylum policy than the one we have heard more about lately, in relation to quotas. There is certainly a place for detention—we apply it when appropriate, particularly to effect removals and to keep people where they are while we fast-track the processes—that has been very successful at Oakington—but the wholesale detention of every person would require a building programme that would not only be horrendously expensive, but would take five years to deliver. In the meantime, we have more effective measures to enable us to get to grips with the system.
Angela Eagle (Wallasey): Will my hon. Friend draw attention to other inaccurate reports in the newspapers about the number of people coming into the country? We are constantly told that the United Kingdom takes more than its fair share of asylum seekers, but the figures show that we are about sixth or seventh in the European Union league per head of population.
Beverley Hughes: My hon. Friend is right: the UK is in the middle of the EU range, per head of population. However, the picture has fluctuated over recent years in terms of the number of people we take relative to the number taken by other EU countries. That is why it is important for us to work towards a common European asylum system and to strengthen our borders with France, Belgium and Holland. It is also why we recently introduced robust legislative measures to deter people whose applications are unfounded.
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East): My office in Bolton has now dealt with about 75 single male asylum seekers from northern Iraq. They are, of course, Kurds. Most have become destitute; they are now sleeping rough in Queen's park in Bolton or overcrowding existing national asylum support scheme accommodation. That cannot be allowed to continue. What pressure are we putting on the Turkish Government to stop the trafficking of such people through Turkey, on Turkish lorries, to Dover? They are paying between £7,000 and £8,000 for the transit.
Beverley Hughes: We are working closely with France, which is interested in working with us on the Turkish issue—not only in relation to the trafficking of people through Turkey, but, in particular, the negotiation of an agreement on readmission to Iraq via that route. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the growing problem in some of our communities
caused by people from northern Iraq who have been refused asylum, who are therefore not entitled to support, and whom we need to return as soon as we can. We shall do that as soon as the route is available.
Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport): We are pleased that the Minister is discussing asylum with her European colleagues, and we welcome her undertaking to consult local people who are concerned about residence accommodation centres. We look forward to those meetings, which have not been possible so far.
Will the Minister assure us that when the meetings do take place they will not be sanitised meetings in London involving tea and biscuits with civil servants, but will be genuine consultations initiated by the Minister? I invite her to walk up and down Lee high street and meet local residents. She will then quickly learn how strong and universal is the hostility to her proposal for a local accommodation centre in Daedalus.
Beverley Hughes: There will be proper consultation. On the point about the two accommodation centres that are in the planning inquiry process, I visited those areas, had a meeting arranged by the local councils there and talked directly to local people. If we go ahead with the proposal, both I and officials in the Home Office will take it on ourselves to repeat that process in exactly the same way.
I raise a more general point with the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members. All hon. Members and the general public at large rightly expect us to get to grips with the asylum system, to reduce the intake, to return people when their claim is refused, and to do that more efficiently. That is what the Government are trying to do. Some of those measures depend fundamentally on having the facilities available—induction centres, accommodation centres and detention centres. We cannot locate those on clouds in the sky. They have to be somewhere in this country. Therefore, we have to have a mature approach that recognises that, if we are to be able to address the problem successfully, in some parts of the country we have to build those facilities.
Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey): The Minister will know the figures for the last three quarters show that the largest national group seeking asylum in this country is the Iraqis. Given the Prime Minister has now said that the case for war against Saddam Hussein is a moral one, do the Home Office and the Government accept that we also have a moral responsibility to grant asylum to those fleeing from Saddam Hussein? If that is the case, does the Minister accept that the best way of dealing with public concern is for Britain to lead the case for a genuine European integrated asylum system in which responsibility is shared but not shirked?
Beverley Hughes: The hon. Gentleman raised a number of points. On Iraq, most of the people claiming from Iraq are from the autonomous northern zone. There is no reason why those people should not be returned. As I said earlier, if we can negotiate a route through with Turkey, that is what we propose to do.
I have discussed the hon. Gentleman's proposals for a common system with him. He knows that I do not think the detail of some of his ideas would work in
practice, but on two points I do agree with him. First, if one added up the contribution of all the asylum systems of the European Union countries, that would not make any significant contribution to the vast majority of refugees world wide. We certainly need to do more about that. Secondly, there is a need for international co-operation to be accelerated, to go further and to address some of the big questions about what we can do to protect people closer to source countries.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate): If, as my hon. Friend rightly says, we are not taking more than our fair share of asylum seekers, why is it taking the immigration and nationality directorate so long to process applications for appeals and for indefinite leave to remain and also to issue status letters? The Home Secretary has said that he wishes to see a step change in the IND and has devoted additional resources, both financial and human, to that process, but I am sorry to have to tell my hon. Friend that, certainly as far as my constituents are concerned, far from speeding up the steps they are becoming slower and slower and leaving many of my constituents in serious situations.
Beverley Hughes: While I accept that there is a very long way to go until we make the IND into the effective and efficient public service that it should be, I cannot agree with my hon. Friend that things are getting slower and slower and worse and worse. Although there is a long way to go, things are improving substantially. Well over our target of 65 per cent. of new applications—in fact, over 75 per cent.—are being decided within the two-month target deadline. The process of appeals, which is the responsibility not of the IND but of the appellate authority, is reducing too, and we are coming close to the six-month target overall. There is still a problem with backlog cases, although that backlog has been reduced from an all-time high of 120,000 to fewer than 40,000, so we are working through the backlog. She is right to say that some of those cases are of long standing, but we are getting through them.
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset): In the course of discussions with their EU counterparts, did the Minister and the Home Secretary offer any views on the achievability of the Prime Minister's target of halving the number of asylum seekers by September? In particular, did they guarantee to their EU counterparts, and will they now guarantee to the House, that they will not seek to achieve this target by statistical manipulation, through the issuing of work permits to people who would otherwise claim asylum?
Beverley Hughes: That represents our firm commitment to our approach to the need to reduce the intake in this country—it is not something that we have discussed with European partners. It represents what we want to achieve here, and it reflects the overriding priority of reducing the intake in order to achieve our other aspirations of increasing removals, reducing support costs and getting order into the system. That is our fundamental objective.
Mr. Letwin: I am not entirely clear whether the answer to my question was yes or no, but perhaps we can get a clearer answer to this question. In talking to their
EU counterparts, did the Home Secretary and the Minister discuss the Conservative proposal to scrap the current asylum system and replace it with a system of rational quotas for genuine refugees? Moreover, did they discuss the need to revise, or to withdraw from, the Dublin convention and the New York protocol in order to achieve that desirable result?
Beverley Hughes: For the record, I did answer the right hon. Gentleman's previous question, and the answer was no. On his further question, I am pleased to note that he now supports the work that the Government have already done, and the discussions that we have already had, with the UNHCR and others on resettlement and safe havens. We have not discussed the right hon. Gentleman's fourth variant of Tory asylum policy on quotas—the fourth version that we have heard in as many weeks. A quota system is a fiction, in the sense of his suggestion that it will solve the current problem. First, it would do nothing to address the bigger problem of the total number of asylum seekers across Europe, which he talks of simply carving up in some way. Secondly, it would not of itself prevent or deter illegal immigration. There remains a need for all the measures that this Government are implementing to strengthen border controls, to deter illegal immigration, to negotiate readmission arrangements and to manage migration. So far, we have heard nothing from the Tories on those issues.
3. Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde): What estimate he has made of how many people will be seeking asylum in the UK in September 2003.[98759]
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Blunkett): In the light of the proposals in the White Paper, which was published this time last year, and the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which received Royal Assent in November, we are very confident indeed that we can achieve a dramatic reduction in the number of claims, compared with the number made before Royal Assent in November.
Mr. Jack: I am disappointed in the Home Secretary's reply. My question asked what his estimate was of the number of people who will be seeking asylum in September of this year. He said that he hoped for a dramatic fall, but in the light of demonstrations against his reception centre policy, and of the courts' taking against his approach to finance and asylum seekers, can he spell out in much clearer terms why anybody should have any confidence in the Prime Minister's target of a 50 per cent. reduction? Also, what does the Home Secretary mean by "dramatic"?
Mr. Blunkett: The answer to the last question—there were many questions in one—is that, as I said in my initial answer, we have a firm commitment to reducing the number of asylum claims to 50 per cent. of their level immediately before the 2002 Act received Royal Assent. Secondly, we believe that the measures that we have taken—including the closure of Sangatte, the new border controls moved to France, the new technological equipment at Calais, the securing of Frethun and Coquelles, and the way in which we now deal with those
who, having come into this country, claim late—will assist us in dramatically reducing the numbers claiming asylum.
Mr. Jim Marshall (Leicester, South): Does my right hon. Friend accept that not all his hon. Friends accept his statement last week in which he condemned the High Court judgment on section 55? Instead of appealing against that judgment, will he instruct immigration officials to interpret section 55 in terms of a reasonable period after entry into the United Kingdom, rather than on immediate entry?
Mr. Blunkett: Anybody who immediately claims asylum at a port or airport will be entitled, under the rules we laid down in the legislation, to receive the support—housing, equipment and financial—that they require. I do not accept that I should withdraw the appeal, but I accept entirely that it is right for judges to be able to use judicial review to facilitate challenges to Government when it is thought that they have acted in an administratively inadequate fashion. I do not accept, however, that judges have the right to override the will of this House, our democracy, or the role of Members of Parliament in deciding the rules.
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): Does the Home Secretary realise that a high proportion of asylum seekers enter the UK from EU countries that are, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) said, signatories to the Dublin convention? Why should we accept, prima facie, such individuals? Why does not the Home Secretary take to the European Court the EU nations that flagrantly abuse the convention? Is it because he has no confidence in that body to safeguard British interests?
Mr. Blunkett: The European Court has nothing to do with the first, or second and recently approved, Dublin convention. In obtaining agreement with other countries, I must bear in mind the fact that it was his Government who abandoned the so-called gentlemen's agreement by saying that it would fall when Dublin 1 was introduced. If I am to obtain agreement across Europe, as I was being pressed to do a moment ago by the shadow Chancellor—[Interruption.] I am sorry, I nearly did a reshuffle for the Leader of the Opposition. No doubt that will happen shortly. The shadow Home Secretary suggested that we should be collaborating with our European partners, not taking them to court.
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