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EU Constitution
Mr. Speaker: I call Angela Watkinson.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Splendid.
8. Angela Watkinson (Upminster): What assessment he has made of those sections of the draft EU constitution relating to external border controls. [119018]
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Blunkett): I have not spoken yet and the hon. Gentleman says "splendid"!
There is no threat in the draft constitution that will go to the intergovernmental conference in October to the frontiers protocol secured at Amsterdam by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. We have strengthened our own borders by moving the immigration and security measures to the French coast, by closing down the routes through the Frethun and Coquelles depots
and by securing better the route through the channel tunnel. Things are much more secure than they have ever been and that will remain the case.
Angela Watkinson : Does the Home Secretary recognise that the only effective way of overcoming the asylum chaos is to scrap the existing system altogether and introduce a quota system for genuine refugees?
Mr. Blunkett: I proposed a quota system in the White Paper a year last February. Along with UNHCR, I am implementing the first steps, as of last 1 April, to do just that. However, we also have to deal with a situation in which quotas are irrelevant, which occurs when people reach our soil. Opposition Members, including the shadow Home Secretary, have to answer a simple question: if someone arrives in Britain from Zimbabwe and claims asylum, what do we do with him?
Mr. Chris Bryant (Rhondda): The Home Secretary may well have heard over recent days much huff and puff in many of the tabloid newspapers about the draft constitutional treaty and what it will do to border controls and asylum and immigration in Europe. Will he ignore all that nonsense and focus on the genuine issue at hand, which is ensuring that we have a better integrated system with the rest of Europe so that we have justice and fairness for those who claim asylum and seek to immigrate?
Mr. Blunkett: Yes, I agree entirely. We need much greater co-operation, but not a unified and centrally operated force, along the new borders of the extended European Union. All parties in the House are committed to that. We have experimented with that by helping the Spanish with those who traverse the Mediterranean and the straits of Gibraltar, and we are doing the same with other countries. I hope that we can do much more. However, I hope that we can act in a civilised, rational and organised fashion once people are inside the EU.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): I do not understand the Home Secretary's comments about the EU constitution. In its draft form it explicitly says that the Union
- "shall ensure the absence of internal border controls for persons and shall frame a common policy on asylum, immigration and external border control".
Secondly, the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration said that even if we had international co-operation we would still need robust measures to deal with issues such as asylum. Will it not become impossible to take those robust measures nationally? If so, will the Home Secretary kindly tell the House whether, in those circumstances, the Government intend to veto the proposal, or will he explain why the sacrifice needs to be made to accept it?
Mr. Blunkett: On the latter point, I make it abundantly clear that not a single measure that we are
taking would be ruled out or disqualified by the changes to be put to the intergovernmental conference in October—not one.On internal border controls, the Government secured, and have had for some time, an opt-out clause on all those matters, including Schengen. The opt-outs remain and are not affected by the Convention's discussions and proposals. I am simply stating a fact. It is no good Opposition Members dreaming up a different protocol, a different Convention and a different constitution, presenting that constitution to the British people and asking them to vote it down when it bears no resemblance to the reality of what the Government are prepared to sign up to.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich): But is not an opt-out, by definition, something that comes to an end? Is my right hon. Friend sure that the clause recently added to the Convention, which enables the Commission to change, by its own internal arrangements, the controls over not only immigration but other aspects of the legal system normally decided by the House of Commons, will not have a direct impact irrespective of any opt-out that we hold at the moment?
Mr. Blunkett: Yes, I am certain. I can tell my hon. Friend that neither I nor the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary would sign up to anything that precluded our getting off an escalator that was going somewhere that we did not wish to go.
Asylum Seekers
9. Sir Teddy Taylor (Rochford and Southend, East): How many asylum seekers lost their applications for asylum in 2002; and how many of them have left the country. [119019]
The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes): In the calendar year 2002, 54,650 people received negative initial asylum decisions. Some of those will still be in the appeals process and therefore not yet due for removal. However, during the same period we removed a record number of failed asylum seekers: 10,410 principal applicants, or 13,335 including dependants. That is an increase of 12 per cent. on the previous year and a 45 per cent. increase on 1997. A number of new measures are being taken to continue to increase the number of people removed when they come to the end of a claim that has not been approved.
Sir Teddy Taylor : I thank the Minister for what I hope is hopeful news. Has she read the Home Affairs Committee report of April, which said that it was unsatisfactory that the Government could not even offer a rough estimate of the number of failed asylum seekers remaining in the UK? As it seems that at least 80 per cent. of those who have failed after lengthy and costly appeals remain here, should not the Government try to find out what is happening?
Is the Minister aware that, according to advice that I have had from my constituents, there is an easy way to remain here? One simply makes a new application in a different name in the next town and starts all over again. I have given the Minister details of individual cases.
Will she consider the matter and find out why so many failed asylum seekers remain in this country without any apparent difficulty?
Beverley Hughes: We are tackling some significant issues that make it difficult to remove people when their applications fail, including the problem of redocumenting them to the satisfaction of the country from which they have come. However, we are working actively with those countries, including instituting interviews by high commissioners in detention centres, to make sure that we can redocument people. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand that, without documentation, we simply cannot put people on planes and ship them out. However, we are addressing that issue.
We are using the detention estate much more effectively so that we can bring people to the point of removal and then get them out of the country. We are processing people more quickly, we are issuing them all with ID cards, and we require them to report regularly. We are therefore keeping in contact with people. Through those measures, we are able to increase, as I have said, the number of people who are removed. However, we need to go further. Eurodac, the international system that came online in January, enables us to identify whether people have claimed before—here or in another European country. There is a range of robust measures to increase the number of people removed, but it is equally important to reduce the intake. The hon. Gentleman will know that the combined measures that we took with France produced a reduction of 32 per cent. in the first quarter of this year. Reducing the intake is just as important as removing more people.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate): But when did those who have now been removed first apply for asylum? Many of my constituents are suffering grave disquiet because they have yet to be told whether their application has failed. Certainly, many who have been in this country for a considerable period have experienced a slowing down of the appeals process, most markedly in the acknowledgement of applications. I know that there has been an increase in both financial resources and personnel, but the backlog seems to be getting longer. What comfort can my hon. Friend offer my constituents that they will soon know their situation?
Beverley Hughes: As my hon. Friend is aware—and I am glad that she acknowledged this—extra resources have been provided. The new intake of asylum claims has now been processed, and 75 per cent. will get their initial decision in two months. Further resources have been put into appeals—6,000 asylum appeals a month are now dealt with, so appeals are processed much more quickly.
My hon. Friend is wrong that the backlog is getting bigger. There is still a backlog, but clearly, as the number of new claims is reduced, we are able to invest more resources in reducing it. In fact, it is going down
very considerably indeed. I hope that towards the end of this year we will only have work in progress, and will have eradicated the backlog completely.
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury): Is there not an inconsistency between the Minister's robust language and the huge expansion in in-country work permits? Will she confirm that more than 100,000 work permits will be handed out this year to people in-country, many of them without any skills, who are being given a sweetener so that they do not apply for asylum?
Beverley Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. Indeed, the points that he made demonstrate strongly that this is a real issue of difference between the Opposition and the Government. He is completely wrong that there is any link at all between the asylum system and managed migration policies, including work permits. It is not possible for somebody who has claimed asylum to switch to a work permit or any other managed migration route. We make no apology for encouraging people to come here to work, provided that that is done in a regulated and transparent way. Our economy needs it, and we welcome people on that basis. Whether an application for a work permit is made in-country or for somebody outside, it is employers—British business people—who apply for work permits because they want people to work in their businesses and support the UK economy when they cannot employ an indigenous member of the population.
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