Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
MR KEITH
BEST, MR
NICK HARDWICK
AND SIR
ANDREW GREEN
TUESDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 2002
Chairman
100. Sir Andrew?
(Sir Andrew Green) I would like to share Mrs Prentice's
scepticism on this. I think we are living in "Alice-in-Wonderland",
Chairman. We are spending something of the order of £600
million a year on this process and nine people out of ten are
staying anyway. It would be a very good question to ask the Home
Office, and they have not given this figure for some time, exactly
what this is costing and how it is broken down. They are very
reluctant to tell you, but it is of that order. It is just money
poured down the drain. I just cannot believe what I am hearing
here.
101. You would not offer any advice?
(Sir Andrew Green) We have to go back to the drawing
board and ask ourselves how nine out ten people can stay.
102. I think that point is well-understood.
What advice would you make available to people that come here
just to make the system more efficient.
(Sir Andrew Green) It depends how you put it. I find
it very difficult to understand why the taxpayer should pay for
people in Bangladesh to fill in their forms. If you look at the
joint entry clearance annual review, you will find that the applications
for visas instead of going up at 5% a year as it has done for
ten years, it has doubled, and it is now going up at 10% a year.
What is more, in Islamabad it is up 34%; in Accra 55%; and Madras
24%. How much money—
103. Is the success rate going up accordingly?
(Sir Andrew Green) They have only given one years's
figures here so I cannot answer that question.
(Mr Best) Can I just correct Sir Andrew factually
on one thing. Our operation in Sylhet is not funded by the taxpayer.
It is funded entirely independently and no taxpayers' money goes
into that office. It is an alarming concept that, by analogy,
all the legal advice and representation on those who are acquitted
in a criminal court is wasted.
(Sir Andrew Green) Just on the question of funds,
I am amazed to hear that. I was looking at the annual accounts
of the Immigration Advisory Service. 99.99% of their funds come
from government sources. The total amount of donations, according
to the latest accounts, is £14,000 on £8.5 million.
104. The only point we are addressing here,
without opening up a new front, is whether providing legal advice
at an early stage is essential to get what we all desire, which
is a more effective and a less accident prone and appeal prone
system of processing applications.
(Sir Andrew Green) I think you are throwing even more
good money after bad.
105. So you are saying under no circumstances.
Obviously you are going to have to provide interpreters. Do you
agree about that?
(Sir Andrew Green) They are there already.
106. Out of this large budget.
(Sir Andrew Green) Are you talking about visa sections?
107. No, I am not talking about visas, I am
talking about asylum seekers. This is about providing legal advice.
I do not think you are really against, are you, at this stage?
I am pressing on this point.
(Sir Andrew Green) I was picking up the point about
Sylhet.
108. Never mind Sylhet because that is not germane.
We are talking about asylum seekers and we are talking about advice
available to them, not only legal advice but interpreters as well,
in the earlier stages, in the interests of once they are here,
making the system of dealing with their applications more efficient?
(Sir Andrew Green) I do not have a strong view. I
just want to re-organise the system.
109. I thought we were at cross-purposes.
(Mr Hardwick) I am not a lawyer and I do not have
experience of lawyers. I would say from our experience that I
would be in favour of early legal advice, provided there was a
tough regulatory regime that went with that. Certainly we too
have had experience not just of people encouraged to spin their
cases out, which I accept sometimes happens, but also we have
the other end of the problem where people with perfectly good
cases have been incredibly badly advised and not been given an
opportunity to put their case properly to begin with. Our view
would be an appropriately regulated system, if people have adequate
advice the first time so it was clear to them and well-understood
and they have had the opportunity to put all the facts relevant
to their case right at the start of their process, would reduce
delays, both as the process worked its way through, but also at
the end, for those people in those circumstances having been properly
advised and having had a proper right to appeal and had failed
to make their case. Some of the obstacles that now occur in the
removal process would be much less severe. I think proper legal
advice would speed it up.
Chairman: You are more or less at one
on this. Mr Russell on accommodation centres.
Bob Russell
110. You are obviously aware that the Nationality,
Immigration and Asylum Bill proposes to create a network of centres.
I believe they are going to be called accommodation centres (although
you may have another description for them) at which asylum seekers
will be processed. Can you confirm that these asylum seekers will
include dependents, wives and children?
(Mr Hardwick) Certainly I think that seems to be the
Government's policy. I think when and whether these are going
to happen is now looking more and more dubious. As I understand
it, as a result of the planning process that now has to be gone
through, the first of these is unlikely to open until late 2004.
Given the way these things have a way of slipping behind schedule,
I would be very surprised if any accommodation centres actually
open until 2005.
111. What are your problems with the Government's
proposals?
(Mr Hardwick) Let me make my point on that. The second
point is I think it is very clear that these accommodation centres
will have 750 people each. Let's say by some miracle they get
people through in six months, they are still then looking in total,
even by 2005, at less than 10% of all asylum seekers going through
this system. The idea that they will then somehow be able to construct
the other 40 they need in a short space of time is unlikely. The
point I want to make is that from our point of view the key issue
for the support of asylum seekers is going to be that the dispersal
system pretty much as it now is will continue for many years to
come. One of the problems I have with the accommodation centres
is the huge amounts of political and management energy which is
going into setting up something which, frankly, is not going to
have that much impact on the overall support of asylum seekers.
The key issue from our point of view is making the dispersal system
work. Having said that, in principle our problem with the accommodation
centres as proposed is that they are too big and in the wrong
place. The Home Office has got itself in a muddle over this. When
they started they said, "This is a trial. By definition,
we are not sure if this is going to work. We are going to try
this and see if it works". And suddenly this trial has become
an enormous point of principle. Even if you look at the way the
trials have progressed so far in the planning stages, the costs
and time involved are much greater than originally anticipated.
I think they should look at the whole system on that basis. The
starting position is let's have these big centres and then decide
what we are going do in them. I think they should have done it
the other way round and said, "What is the process we want
to follow"? How do we best integrate and support the decision-making
processes and what infrastructure do we need in order for that?
That is where we are coming to our proposal for much smaller "core
and cluster" centres.
112. You have explained why the Government proposals
will not work in your view. What models would you prefer and how
would they surmount the problem you have just outlined?
(Mr Hardwick) We have put forward a detailed proposal
to the Home Office and we are in the process of discussing it
with them now. What essentially we are arguing for is what is
called a core and cluster model which would be located in diverse
areas, so the accommodation units where people live would be much
smaller. We have suggested no more than 100 places. You would
have a number of these and then you would have central services,
including the Home Office functions, located in a central building
within reasonable travelling distance of the places where people
are actually staying. I would add to that, as I was alluding to
earlier, a really clear casework management system so the progress
of the individual through both the support system—schools,
education and other things—and their progress through the
asylum system were managed on a fairly intense basis. Our view
is that you can do as that cheaply in terms of running costs,
certainly cheaper in terms of capital costs, and certainly more
quickly than the Home Office's model.
113. Why have the Home Office not accepted your
Utopian solution?
(Mr Hardwick) To be fair, I do not think it is Utopian
because it is based on a number of years of very factual experience
and it worked successfully in the Kosovan evacuation programme.
To be fair to the Home Office, we are involved in very real and
detailed discussions about making that. The Home Secretary has
indicated that he is willing to try something along the lines
of our model in one of his trials. We are having very practical
discussions with them about how it would work on the ground.
114. So there may be a meeting of minds but
in the meantime how is the National Asylum Support Service going
to cope without the accommodation centres, either your system
or the Home Office system? What needs to be done to ensure that
something can be done for the asylum seekers at this moment in
time?
(Mr Hardwick) First of all, if you take the current
dispersal system, there is no doubt that there are significant
problems with the dispersal arrangements as they exist at the
moment. I would say the stories of its mass demise have been rather
exaggerated. It is a difficult situation but it is not the critical
situation that is sometimes described. Our experience on the ground
in terms of what happens to people as they get dispersed is that
it is slowly beginning to improve, despite the fact there was
the very tragic incident in Sunderland the other day. If we look
in general, what is happening is local services are beginning
to adapt, communities are beginning to form. Just to give a practical
example, we see about 40,000 people a year going through the initial
part of the system, to begin with very large numbers of those
were coming back to us and saying, "It is dreadful, we cannot
cope". That return rate of numbers of people coming back
has very significantly reduced. The problem within that system
is with the mechanics of getting people from A to B through the
various applications, large numbers of people are building up
in emergency accommodation before they get dispersed. I think
that is fixable. The fundamental thing is we have been making
two really big mistakes with the dispersal system. The first is
they agreed a year ago that to make this work properly they needed
to regionalise the system. You cannot run a massive housing programme
from offices in Croydon. We said, "What you need to do is
get regional managers with authority to take decisions and a proper
infrastructure on the ground", so they advise, negotiate
with all the other services, so that when you are trying to decide
where you are going to place people, you are not deciding that
with temporary staff in Croydon but deciding it with people in
Sunderland or in Birmingham or wherever who have got a knowledge
of the situation and of the working of the links. The second thing
is they have to recognise that what they are running here is a
housing programme. It seems to me extraordinary that nowhere in
that of which I am aware is there anyone who has a housing background.
It is a matter of very good people doing their best and working
incredibly hard, but constantly reinventing the wheel. I think
there are some management fixes that could be put into the dispersal
system which would resolve the current difficulties. I would appeal
to politicians to focus on that, not this five year distant pipe
dream of the accommodation centres.
115. In conclusion, you just painted a picture
of doom and gloom and earlier on I got the impression that you
were saying that the Home Office was taking on board the serious
reservations that you have. Where exactly are they? Are they meeting
you?
(Mr Hardwick) I am trying to be very specific about
what I am saying. I think there are problems in dispersal, but
I am saying I do not think they are as critical as sometimes they
are painted. On the accommodation centres, we are having detailed
discussions about our model with them, but they know and we have
pointed out our reservations about the feasibility and "in
principle" problems with the accommodation centres. They
have talked about taking that on. What we are saying is that whatever
happens in the accommodation centre-type model, you are stuck
with dispersal for a number of years to come. There are problems
and these problems can be overcome, but you need to learn from
experience, and some of the things we are suggesting, which the
Home Office seem to accept take a long time to do, would go a
long way to resolving some of the current difficulties.
Mr Cameron
116. Do any of you think that the existence
of the accommodation centres will reduce the inflow of asylum
seekers into the United Kingdom or do you believe they will assist
the removal of those who have been refused asylum in the United
Kingdom, particularly if they are not secure?
(Mr Best) No.
(Mr Hardwick) I do not think it will have any impact
on the numbers of people coming here.
117. Do you all agree with that?
(Mr Best) If potential asylum seekers were also to
read Hansard in the Lords to see what Lord Filkin is saying
about accommodation centres, it might be regarded as being a positive
draw because they have been billed as having so many facilities
and such a wonderful nature that, if anything, it could only be
seen as an incentive.
118. Sir Andrew, do you agree with that? There
will be no impact on the attractiveness of Britain as a destination?
(Sir Andrew Green) Yes, because I think it brings
us back to this question of removal, and the failure to remove
crucially undermines the Government's policy in its two main elements.
One is accommodation centres and I would entirely agree with what
Mr Hardwick says about those. The other is speeding up the judicial
process. If nine out of ten are going to stay anyway, you can
fiddle around with accommodation centres or whatever you like,
but the Government's policy is shot out of the water.
119. To go to the second half of the question,
do you believe that the existence of accommodation centres will
help the process of removals?
(Sir Andrew Green) The point follows. Because people
can leave the accommodation centre if they think the case is going
against them, it does nothing to help deal with the removal question,
which is crucial.
(Mr Hardwick) On this particular point, one of the
flaws in the Government's proposals for accommodation centres
is they have not worked out how people are going to leave, either
they be properly ejected in terms of being removed, or finding
a place for those who are accepted to go. The experience on the
Continent is that these things have silted up and very soon you
are back into the same problem you were before. That is what is
going to happen.
(Mr Best) Sadly, it is not universal. There is general
goodwill towards the idea of reception centres, but this is an
example where the Government is flying in the face of not only
all the excellent evidence from the Continent but also flying
in the face of its own research department.
Chairman: Moving on to detention because
I want to spend more time on how we deal with removal, Mrs Watkinson?
|
