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The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Mr. Desmond Browne): In my remarks I shall endeavour to deal with the issues raised by the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) and to anticipate some of the matters that might be raised by right hon. and hon. Members, such as the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
I should say at the outset, and it will come as no surprise to anyone, that the Government agree with the Lords in amendment No. 15 and disagree with amendments (a) to (e). That may mean that we need to divide at some stage this evening, but that would surprise me, given that when the matter was discussed in the other place, Baroness Scotland wrote to Baroness Anelay on 2 July explaining in some detail our views on the issues raised by amendment (e) on withdrawal of support. As a result, Baroness Anelay subsequently withdrew her amendment on Third Reading in the Lords. But I suppose that what the Opposition do in this House need not necessarily be consistent with what they do in another place.
As the hon. Member for Woking rightly identified, new clause 15 enables the Secretary of State to make regulations specifying additional criteria to be used in determining whether to provide, or continue to provide, accommodation to failed asylum seekers under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The House will be aware that that is commonly referred to as hard case support.
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It is important to state at the outset of my contribution that hard case support is available by and large to single failed asylum seekers who have come to the end of the asylum process, including any appeal, and have had their claim finally rejected. Other than a handful of cases—for example, where a mother has given birth shortly after existing support has ceased—families will not be in receipt of section 4 support. I shall come to that in more detail later. It would be helpful if we did not have hon. Members creating the spectre of families being subjected even to such limited conditionality, which I do not believe can be described in the extravagant way in which it has been described by others.
Mr. Oaten: Perhaps we can clarify that once and for all. I interpret the Minister's remarks to mean that individuals who have to look after a child would not be forced to work as part of those conditions. He says it is unlikely that they would apply to individuals in that category, but can he state that even if people fell within that category, they would not have to work?
Mr. Browne: We are told that time for debate is limited and I am reluctant to repeat what I have already said. I made it perfectly clear that hard case support is available to single failed asylum seekers, and other than a handful of cases—for example, where a mother has given birth shortly after existing support has ceased and she has already been in receipt of section 4 support—families will not be in receipt of section 4 support. So they do not come into the category of people to whom the conditionality applies. I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands the provisions of the existing support, and I do not propose to take any more time by explaining them. From the lack of reaction of other and very knowledgeable Members, I suspect they understand the distinction.
There are already conditions attached to the provision of hard case support; it does not come on its own. For example, failed asylum seekers must continue to co-operate with efforts to return them to their country of origin. The conditions are set out clearly in policy bulletins published by the National Asylum Support Service and we now advise failed asylum seekers routinely of the availability of section 4 support.
It may be appropriate to give the House some sense of the scale of the proposals and the number of people who will be affected, which I have been asked directly and indirectly. Since January 2004 there have been in total 945 applications for section 4 support, and there are currently fewer than 500 people receiving section 4 support. It is not to be concluded from that, as some people do in this area of policy, that half the applications were refused. I have no idea how many applications were refused, but there are fewer than 500 people receiving the support at present.
I was asked which countries those people come from. They come from a wide range of countries—including the countries identified by the hon. Member for Woking—where there are difficulties, particularly in re-documenting citizens of those countries for return. However, the key point about the provisions is not the countries that people come from, but how the provisions relate to the individual circumstances. I repeat that we
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routinely advise failed asylum seekers of the availability of section 4 support. There is no reluctance to give that support to people who are entitled to it.
The new clause allows regulations to make the continuation of hard case support dependent upon a person's performing or participating in community activities; to place the existing criteria for provision of such support on a statutory footing; and to provide for a right of appeal to the asylum support adjudicator against a decision not to provide support or against termination of support under section 4.
Jeremy Corbyn: Does my hon. Friend have any estimate of the number of people who might be eligible for hard case support but do not wish to participate in putative removal, so simply disappear? Has he any estimate of the costs of administering a system that will apparently apply to a maximum of 500 people?
Mr. Browne: My hon. Friend pointed out in an earlier intervention—not on me—that there is a point of principle involved. That will presumably be the focus of the bulk of his contribution to the debate. The matter is as much a point of principle for the Government as it is for others who seek to adopt other principles in relation to it. I shall refer to that later. The principle was established in this context for reasons other than numerical reasons.
To answer my hon. Friend's first point—I think he was making a rhetorical debating point, rather than expecting a detailed answer from me—without examining the individual circumstances of all failed asylum seekers, I am not in a position to know whether they qualify for section 4 support. That depends on their applications and the processing of those applications, so I cannot give him the figures. If he wants to know how many people fail in their application for asylum, those figures are available and are published quarterly.
Mr. Gerrard: I understand my hon. Friend's point that from the Government's viewpoint, this is a matter of principle, but if we are setting up systems, do we not want them to provide value for the money to be spent on them? Is it implied that people in receipt of hard case support will be required to go to certain places to live? If they are scattered across the country through dispersal, the system will become an administrative nightmare to operate and ineffective in terms of return for the cost.
Mr. Browne: My hon. Friend makes an important point. In the course of my contribution, which is designed to be as comprehensive as it can be given all the circumstances, I hope to address all the points that he makes. He ought not to, and I do not believe he does, accidentally lead the House to believe that those who are already on section 4 support decide where they will go. They do not.
Mr. Browne:
I am grateful for my hon. Friend's agreement to that. Recipients of the support do not decide where they will go. It is a directive process. People in receipt of that support are required to live in certain accommodation and to that extent there will be no
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difference. My hon. Friend is right, however, to suggest that this part of the process involves public money and will be required to give value for money. Value for money can be judged in a number of ways, and I hope that when he hears everything that I have to say, he will be persuaded that this process will be fair to everyone including the taxpayers of the United Kingdom, and that it will not make unreasonable demands on people who have been given support—which some people might say they were not entitled to, although I am not saying that—when they have reached the end of the process. Many of those people could return voluntarily to their country in different circumstances, and they should give something back in return for that support.
Let me develop these arguments in the order in which I have laid them out, rather than jumping back and forth, in the hope that I can cover the points that have been raised by various hon. Members and persuade them of the appropriateness of this policy.
The Government need to explain the rationale behind these provisions, and I agree with the hon. Member for Woking that it is not ideal to introduce substantive amendments to a Bill at a late stage. In my experience of the United Kingdom Parliament, however, it is not unknown. I have watched legislation being introduced here for many years, and the introduction of amendments at a late stage is not ideal but it happens a lot and for a variety of purposes. Having done that on this occasion, however, the Government did something relatively unusual, in that we offered the new measures for consideration in the other place on recommitment. Indeed, they were debated extensively in Committee, on Report and on Third Reading there. It is also our intention that they will be subject to further consultation before regulations are introduced, and that the regulations will be introduced using the affirmative resolution procedure.
We remain committed to the principle of offering support under section 4 to failed asylum seekers who, for certain specified reasons, are not immediately in a position to leave the UK. For example, if a person cannot return home because there is no viable route, and provided that they are complying with re-documentation procedures and co-operating with efforts to help them to return voluntarily, we should in the interim be prepared to give them support to insure against destitution. However, we believe that it is right to require persons in receipt of state support to give something back to the community in return for their board and lodging. We have made it absolutely clear that we do not see this as a punishment, and it is unhelpful for people to cite analogies relating to punishments delivered by the criminal courts. This is about a person occupying himself or herself—it will mostly be himself—usefully and not expecting to receive something for nothing.
Proposed new subsection (6)(a) therefore provides that the regulations made under the section may include a requirement for receipt of support to be conditional on a person performing or participating in community activities. Community activities are defined as activities that appear to the Secretary of State to be beneficial to the public, or to a section of the public. Tackling the
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culture of "something for nothing" runs through Government policy—the new deal is a prime example—but that may manifest itself in different ways.
Failed asylum seekers in receipt of support under section 4 are in a different position from UK citizens. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris) pointed out, they are not entitled to remain here permanently and will at some point return home, even if they are unable to do so immediately. However, in one sense, the requirement for them to give back to the community that supports them is even clearer than it is for other people. Their asylum claim has failed and they have no right to remain in the UK. If they are then to receive state support during this period—for example, while they co-operate with efforts to arrange their return—we need to ask what is the best way for them to give something back to the community that is supporting them. We believe that the best way is for them to engage in activities for the benefit of the community in which they are staying.
7.15 pm
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