Examination of Witnesses (Questions 440-459)
MS NICOLA
ROGERS AND
MRS SALLY
TARSHISH
TUESDAY 4 FEBRUARY 2003
440. How do you think the process could be improved
to stop that happening?
(Ms Rogers) If one compares, for instance, prisoners,
a prisoner who is post-conviction will enter into a programme
that prepares them ultimately for their release, that release
being normally into the community. There is nothing in the Immigration
Service way of doing things, either in detention centres or prior
to a person being detained, which prepares a person for what ultimately
is going to happen to them. In fact, to some extent I think there
is a shutting-off and everyone in the system does not look to
the end point at what is going to happen to the person. Preparing
the person for release may actually assist them in coming to terms
with what happens. They may become much more co-operative, they
may voluntarily decide to leave if they are prepared for that.
Preparation could take the form of assisting them to get their
belongings together and pack up their lives, giving them adequate
time to do that and adequate time to consult with their representatives
and to know that there is no other avenue for them and that is
the end of the process for them. If they have adequate time and
facilities to be able to pack up their lives, I think the Immigration
Service will find that people are more co-operative.
441. How long is adequate time?
(Ms Rogers) It depends on the individual. For some
people it may take a few days, for others, if they have a large
business in the UK, have a home, a mortgage etc, it may take a
little more time than that.
442. If they have gone through the whole appeals
process and they are not legally supposed to be able to work or
anything, how can they have large businesses and mortgages and
all these other things?
(Ms Rogers) Some people who are subject to removal
are permitted to work. It is only now that the Government have
withdrawn the work concessions for asylum seekers that per
se asylum seekers cannot work as of that time, but previously
people had work permission. People who are subject to removal
are not just asylum seekers and I think we have to make that very
clear. People may be subject to administrative removal or deportation
who were here in the UK on another basis other than claiming asylum.
We are not simply talking about asylum seekers, we are talking
about people who may have been here legally in an immigration
capacity and have overstayed their stay, as it were.
443. We were actually concentrating on asylum
seekers, so I do not want to go into too much detail about people
who are illegally here for other reasons. Let us go further down
this road on how people support themselves. A person has failed
as an asylum seeker in terms of going through all the appeals
process. What do they do? How do they support themselves while
they are awaiting removal?
(Ms Rogers) That is a very good question and probably,
in spite of their situation, they do their best. I do not know.
They may have family; they may have friends.
(Mrs Tarshish) We have no statistics to clarify the
extent of the problem and particularly under the new NASS arrangements
whereby single applicants will have to support themselves with
the withdrawal of financial support. I have no figures for this.
I imagine it will be dreadful. I think it is repugnant.
Chairman
444. Is benefit automatically removed when someone's
claim is rejected?
(Mrs Tarshish) This is under the new NASS arrangements
if you are a single person and your case is unsuccessful, you
have no means of financial support other than perhaps going on
the street with a begging bowl.
445. Where I live has rather a lot of asylum
seekers and we do not have them on the street with begging bowl.
(Mrs Tarshish) They may be very lucky, but I can tell
you that, where we are, that is not the case. They depend on the
local community to help.
446. But it is automatically cut off?
(Mrs Tarshish) I believe so.
447. Is that your understanding, Ms Rogers?
(Ms Rogers) That is my understanding. At the end of
the process. There are other groups of asylum seekers who are
not entitled to support now as a result of the new legislation.
448. Those are the ones coming in, I am talking
about the other end.
(Ms Rogers) Yes, but at the end of the process they
will not be entitled to NASS support. That is my understanding.
Bridget Prentice
449. That obviously would be a very good reason
why the removal system should be more efficient than it is then,
so that they are not going to wherever it is that you live on
the street with begging bowls.
(Mrs Tarshish) Yes.
450. Have you any views as to how we can make
that more efficient?
(Mrs Tarshish) The removal?
451. Between the end of the appeal and the removal
there is a gap; how can we shorten that gap?
(Mrs Tarshish) I do not know that I am in a position
to actually inform you on that. How can you make it more smooth?
I think we would suggest that the Immigration Service look at
creating something like an independent welfare officer who helps
to monitor and progress smoothly the departure from the time the
determination and the process is completed to the time of removal.
If you had somebody that had some sort of independent oversight
of this, then I do not think that many of these problems would
be half as gruesome as some of the instances we have come across
are.
452. Ms Rogers, do you have any views as to
how we can shorten the gap? Do you think the gap should be shortened?
(Ms Rogers) I think that a system can be made more
efficient if you have the co-operation of everyone within the
system and I have identified the ways in which you seek their
co-operation.
(Mrs Tarshish) It is important that these people have
time to get together whatever small belongings or things that
are theirs. They should have the time and the ability to collect
them. If you collect people and remove them without giving them
that, they are bound to be upset. These are their personal possessions.
They belong to them. They have a right to them.
Chairman: Yes, we understand that.
453. I do not think anyone would deny them having
their personal possessions.
(Mrs Tarshish) That is not our evidence, you see.
That is what is so distressing. People are picked up and whisked
away without a chance to settle things and that is very undignified
and is inhumane.
454. But you would agree that, once the appeal
process is over, in order for everyone to see the system as efficient
and fair, the gap between that appeal process being over and the
removal should be as short and admittedly as humane as possible.
(Mrs Tarshish) If it is finished and they have legitimately
come to the end of the process and they are unsuccessful, then
the departure, as it were, should be done as humanely and efficiently
as possible and I think there is a very real problem, that it
does not work well and that the Immigration Service make a rod
for their own back by not conducting it in a dignified and humane
manner.
455. You both mentioned earlier and I want to
come back to the business of those people who are supposed to
be removed but there may be reasons why they are not. The Government
have now changed exceptional leave to remain to humanitarian protection.
Can you give us your views on the difference between exceptional
leave to remain and humanitarian protection, assuming that you
can find the difference.
(Mrs Tarshish) I am afraid that I do not know what
humanitarian protection exactly means because I thought that we
are all probably entitled to protection of a humanitarian kind
in a civilised society. I find this new phrase worrying because
I do not understand whether they mean it to narrow down the obligations
that they have to just meeting the basic human needs and I think,
for what it is worth, that exceptional leave to remain actually
has quite a reassuring resonance to it: `exceptional' because
it alerts us to some degree of compassion and `leave to remain'
gives to the person a degree of certainty, even though I know
it is a fairly short period. I think the removal of leave to remain
is a rather sad omission.
(Ms Rogers) Exceptional leave to remain was granted
in a variety of circumstances to give effect to the UK's obligations
under other international human rights instruments other than
the 1951 Convention and, to my mind, there is no difference between
calling it exceptional leave to remain or calling it humanitarian
status, if it is to give effect to those obligations. There were
a number of announcements concerning the high levels of exceptional
leave to remain. Those high levels of exceptional leave to remain
were granted by the Home Office itself. They were not granted
by some arbitrary outside body which inflicted this upon the Home
Office. The Home Office granted it and that was to recognise the
humanitarian situation in which people find themselves. I cannot
see how calling it humanitarian protection will change anything
other than give a new name to something. Ironically, humanitarian
protection may more accurately describe it but, if we are looking
at offering persons security, where there are humanitarian reasons
and international human rights law reasons why they cannot be
returned to their own country, then the change in name makes very
little difference to me. It is very, very important, in my organisation's
submission, that people who are non-returnable because their countries
are in such a state that they cannot be returned, such as civil
war or there are humanitarian reasons why they personally cannot
return, are given security, stability and status here and they
do not become part of a socially excluded population. It is very
important that they remain within the law and the way to do that
is to grant them status. What you call it does not matter much
providing that with that status comes a degree of security, a
degree of understanding about how long they are to remain here
and on what basis they remain here and that they are given access
to public services. If you keep people outside of that system
and you just do not give them a status at all and you say, "We
will tolerate you here, but we are tolerating you because we cannot
return you, we are not going to give you security", you put
people outside the law and you force them into situations where
they have to beg or work illegally or do whatever they can to
survive and that is not good for public perception and that is
not good for this country.
456. Why do you think the Home Office has made
this change? What do you think they are intending to achieve by
it?
Chairman: That is a question to put to
the minister, I should have thought.
Bridget Prentice: Can I just speculate.
(Ms Rogers) I suggest it was window dressing. I would
suggest that unless there is some intention to denigrate the status
and to give it to less people and, as I have suggested, that will
not work and it will put people outside the law, it is window
dressing.
457. Let me speculate as to why the Home Office
has decided that. I think one of the reasons might be that they
feel that exceptional leave to remain is open to abuse and perhaps
Mrs Tarshish's very use of the phrase "leave to remain"
has encouraged people to think that actually they have the opportunity
to stay here for longer than they are entitled and perhaps that
might be in fact the reason the phrase has been dropped.
(Mrs Tarshish) That is very sinister.
458. Does it not encourage economic migrants
to think that, having gone through the asylum process, exceptional
leave to remain is a way of overcoming the fact that their asylum
claim has been rejected?
(Mrs Tarshish) I do not think I can comment on that.
Somebody who comes here as an economic migrant might have been
starving in the place from which he or she comes. I do not feel
I can make those sort of judgments. Looking at the Home Office
statistics, you have 10% in 1998 who were given exceptional leave
to remain, in 2002 you have 25%, so I can only attribute some
sinister interpretation to it, thinking, "Is it becoming
too popular?—therefore let's stop people using that as a
term," or is it that there just simply are more people who
need the protection of the exceptional leave to remain? They need
it because they live in places to which people cannot be returned
that easily.
459. Is it not more humanitarian or at least
as humanitarian to say to people, "Your asylum claim has
been rejected, that is the end of the road, that is the end of
the process, you must now go," instead of giving them any
suggestion that there is a reason or a way or a possibility that
they can stay here for any longer. Is that not the humanitarian
system.
(Mrs Tarshish) I do not see how that can equate, because
how can you possibly return people to a country where you know,
for example, the United Nations has not decreed a cessation clause?
How can you possibly return people when some of the Home Office
websites show that these places are not safe? I think this is
impossible.
(Ms Rogers) Could I come in on that?
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