Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280
- 299)
TUESDAY 20 MAY 2003
MS JAN
SHAW, MR
MICHAEL KINGSLEY-NYINAH,
MR TOM
BENTLEY AND
MR THEO
KEENCAMP
Q280 Chairman: You mean non-state
persecution?
Mr Kingsley-Nyinah: Exactly. In
other respects the UK's rules are fairly restrictive, for example
the way the rules approach questions of family unity and in terms
of whether a refugee or an asylum seeker can be reunited with
a spouse with whom he married before or after flight, so again
it is difficult for me to give you a carefully calibrated answer
on that. It is a mixed picture and I think it highlights the need
for everyone to support a concerted effort to secure harmonised
standards across Europe.
Chairman: Thank you. Mr Singh?
Q281 Mr Singh: I was not really satisfied
with the answers we received to Mrs Dean's first question. Is
not the truth that the reason why the UK is experiencing much
larger numbers of asylum seekers because we are a soft touch?
Is that not the reason why we experience such large numbers of
asylum seekers? You say safety is our priority rather than the
intention to travel specifically to the UK, but that does not
accord with our experience at Sangatte when we saw at first hand
people in a safe country saying we want to go to the UK. Our direct
experience entirely contradicts your statement.
Ms Shaw: I was actually quoting
from several sets of research, but I was quoting specifically
research commissioned by the Home Office that was published last
year which showed that the primary objective of people fleeing
persecution was to get to safety. Many people, once they are out
of the country that is persecuting them, do not actually have
a choice over where they can go because that is the point when
agents come into play and people are taken to different countries
for various reasons, but other evidence that came out of that
research was that people come to the UK—and I think this
is true of the people who were in Sangatte who were primarily
Iraqi and Afghan nationals—because they have family here,
the community, language and links like that. There was very little
evidence that people knew about benefits systems or procedures
either here or by making comparisons to other EU countries.
Q282 Mr Singh: And in terms of the
UK being a soft touch?
Mr Keencamp: I cannot refer to
research, but the overall hunch or calculated guess which we have
completely corresponds with what Jan said, which is that if people
at home do make a choice often they have no idea where they are
going to, it is on the basis of networks, they have relatives,
people they know, things like that, instead of a very calculated
comparison between the level of benefits and things like that.
Mr Bentley: It is actually impossible
to say what soft touch means, but I think it is pretty clear that
the length of processing time and the availability of welfare
benefits can only be two among many considerations influencing
people's choices or eventual destinations and it is literally
impossible to find out how strong those are without being able
to investigate in much more detail with the people moving themselves,
and because so much of this people flow is illegal and therefore
has to be clandestine it is impossible to get that detailed knowledge
and information on any kind of systematic basis. It may well be
possible that the existence of a relatively strong, informal economic
sector in the UK—and there are various examples of partial
evidence of the strength of that sector—is another factor.
Q283 Chairman: Do you mean the black
economy?
Mr Bentley: Yes.
Mr Kingsley-Nyinah: I was going
to reiterate what I said earlier, which is that it is a complex
mix of factors that determine where a person goes to seek protection.
One cannot avoid the conclusion that the prime reason why a lot
of people move is because they live in countries which experience
persecution, where there is widespread human rights abuse and
where there is armed conflict. That is borne out, as Jan Shaw
said, from the list of countries from which most asylum seekers
come to the UK. That is not to say that human rights abuses, persecution
and armed conflict are the sole reasons why people select a particular
destination, they are other factors that play a role: historical
factors, links to the UK, family ties, perhaps a familiarity with
the way of life in the UK, all these factors also play a role.
There are also economic factors at work and we would be the first
to admit that in as much as poverty and persecution are often
the bedfellows of underdevelopment and economic deprivation. The
burden of our view is that one cannot adopt a partial approach,
one has to be comprehensive, one has to be international and in
the course of your wonderings about why the UK takes so many refugees
I think it is useful to bear in mind that there are other countries
that bear a huge burden, countries like Iran and Pakistan. I believe
Pakistan hosted two million refugees in the last year. With Iran
the figure was something in the region of 2,181,000. We are talking
about countries whose gross national income is a tiny fraction
of that of the UK. So we are arguing for a rational, reasonable
approach that takes into account the full range of factors that
influence the problem and I think that is the best way to approach
resolving the very difficult issues. We are not at all belittling
the concerns of the UK, we are only suggesting that for the asylum
system to exist at all it is important for all states to share
a responsibility to protect and care for refugees.
Q284 Mr Prosser: That latter analysis
is well taken, but you must understand that the Committee is looking
into these matters internationally and also in terms of domestic
politics and it is only right and reasonable that residents in
the UK will tend to compare their share of responsibility of asylum
seekers with the rest of the EU. In the year 1992, according to
the UNHCR figures, we were receiving 5% of the total asylum inputs
into the EU and in 2002 it was over 25%. I am just going to take
up Marsha Singh's probing on the specific factors which bring
people across the English Channel. Jan Shaw and other witnesses
have talked about the individual asylum seeker, be he/she an economic
migrant, maybe not being aware of their destination and having
little input into it, but that does not tie up with the experiences
already declared and that is that until those sites were closed
down in Sangatte in northern France people were almost free agents
and they were making that decision almost personally or as families
to come across to the UK and they were literally risking life
and limb. We have heard a lot of evidence about what the pro factors
are and it is very easy to say they are complex. I would like
to ask each of the witnesses from their various points of view,
if they were to put one particular specific factor/attraction
that makes people take that decision about coming from the safe
country of France to the UK, what would it be and what is your
view of the theory put to us that it is very easy to slip into
the black economy of this country in that (a) if you come to this
country you win because you gain asylum, and (b) you do not lose
because if you do not win your asylum case you can slip into the
black economy because of the lack of identity cards and other
documentation?
Ms Shaw: I can only really reiterate
what I said before, if I was to pick one factor it would be family
ties, and there are many Afghan and Iraqi families here. My organisation
does not say that every single person that seeks asylum has a
bona fide claim, but I can only make the correlation between
where people are coming from and the link to the human rights
violations. Instead of just looking at numbers we also have to
look at the root causes and the human rights violations that do
make people come. It is not really in the interests of asylum
seekers facing persecution to slip into the black economy because
they want to seek protection and therefore have some form of status
here.
Mr Bentley: If I had to identify
one factor I think it would be Britain's fairly distinctive perhaps
even unique cultural or historical role in the world.
Mr Keencamp: These people usually
come from countries where the larger family is also responsible
for the welfare of the whole. So the combination of family ties
plus the apparent economic opportunities to be gained through
the family network would be the decision factor in my case.
Mr Kingsley-Nyinah: There are
historical factors. In the 1990s Germany bore the heaviest burden
because asylum seekers from the Balkans drifted towards Germany.
Francophone countries in West Africa and other parts of the world
tend to go to France. There are historical links between asylum
seekers who come to the UK from Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan, the
colonial factor, but there is also the element that these people
feel that they will receive protection in the UK.
Q285 Mr Cameron: A quick question
to Ms Shaw. You say in your paper, "The final destination
of many asylum seekers is in the hands of agents who simply offer
a safe country and do not permit the individual asylum seeker
a choice." What percentage of those agents would you characterise
as criminal gangs and why do those agents or criminal gangs pick
the UK in such a large percentage of cases?
Ms Shaw: I do not have any figures
for how many are criminal gangs or why they choose the UK. I think
it has to do with the amount of money that an individual may have.
We do not have any up-to-date research on that.
Q286 Mr Cameron: It is not the easiest
country to get to. The easiest safe country to get to in most
cases is not Britain, surely.
Ms Shaw: I suppose it depends
where you are coming from, if you are coming over land borders
or whether you are flying in. If you are coming from West Africa,
for example, there are direct flights to the UK. Other nationals
would come over land borders.
Q287 Mr Cameron: But in terms of
the people coming over land borders, as has been said, it is much
easier to claim asylum in a safe European country. Amnesty does
not have any feeling about why these criminal gangs actually work
to get people into the UK rather than France, which has half the
number of asylum applications that we have or Germany that has
two-thirds the number we have, or Italy that has many fewer even
though these countries are easier to get to?
Ms Shaw: I do not have data on
that.
Q288 Chairman: Is it that the French
and Italians do not allow a lot of people to turn up as asylum
seekers? How accurate are the figures for other especially southern
European countries?
Mr Keencamp: It is a very difficult
thing to talk about because of the lack of reliable data, but
one of the things I have been reading several times in reports
is that you can only compare properly if you take into account
the way through which in northern countries the influx manifests
itself, which is primarily through asylum applications and the
way through which the influx manifests itself in southern countries,
which is through direct illegal access. You do not really know
if the UK is disproportionately hit by an influx of outsiders.
It might well be if you add up asylum seekers but not illegal
entrants the picture is completely different. That is an important
factor, but still reliable data is not really there.
Q289 Miss Widdecombe: If somebody
makes a case for asylum in a European country and that case is
accepted and they are recognised as a refugee then they would
be able thereafter to make contact with families and other people
who were in this country, would they not?
Mr Bentley: Yes.
Miss Widdecombe: So therefore the family
connection and the idea of community I would put to you is not
as strong a reason as you have suggested. Furthermore, there are
Iraqi and Afghani communities in most European countries now,
it is not unique to Britain. Why is it that people at Sangatte,
who are in a perfectly safe country, under the rule of law used
to risk life and limb sometimes to try and get into Britain unlawfully
and, as Mr Prosser said, were acting as free agents, nobody was
making them do that? Do you completely rule out the idea that
they have got a message even if they are not quite certain of
all the detail, that this is a place where once you come here
you are most unlikely to have to leave?
Chairman: To whom is that question directed?
Q290 Miss Widdecombe: Anybody who
likes to pick it up.
Mr Bentley: I think it is very
important that we do not exclude the possibility but I think it
is equally important that the Committee recognises that there
is no way of knowing without finding perhaps different kinds of
evidence sources from the ones we are able to put before you.
Q291 Miss Widdecombe: You do not
exclude the fact that we are seen as a soft touch?
Mr Bentley: There is no way of
excluding it absolutely. There is no way of ruling it in or out
without finding more direct, authoritative sources of evidence.
Q292 Miss Widdecombe: You think the
fact that somebody is in a perfectly safe country and could, if
they had a genuine claim, settle down in a law abiding European
country, the fact that they take huge risks to get over here,
has nothing whatever to do with the idea that their case is not
strong and that we are the softest touch going?
Mr Bentley: The things I assume
you refer to as part of whatever it means to be a soft touch might
include the length of processing time, the likelihood of expulsion,
the likelihood that a refugee claim would eventually be substantiated,
which might also include an informal economic opportunity and
a whole series of other things.
Q293 Miss Widdecombe: Is an informal
economic opportunity the black economy?
Mr Bentley: That is not a phrase
I would choose to use.
Q294 Miss Widdecombe: It is the black
economy into which, without identity cards, you can disappear?
Mr Bentley: Yes, and I believe
that is a very significant factor.
Ms Shaw: You referred to Sangatte
in northern France. I would refer back to what Mr Kingsley-Nyinah
said about the EU harmonisation process. There will be a harmonisation
of the procedures, reception conditions and definition of a refugee.
There will be minimum standards by the end of this year. At the
moment, there are very different systems within the European Union.
In France, you are talking about Iraqis and Afghans being safe,
but the reason why Sangatte existed is because there were so many
people around 1999 during the Kosovo crisis were sleeping rough
in the streets. It took, at the end of last year, something like
nine months to even register to apply for asylum in France.
Q295 Bridget Prentice: Ms Shaw, perhaps
I could ask you if Amnesty take a very critical view of the Government's
processes. The Government now says it is speeding things up. Do
you think that has led to any improvement in the processing of
asylum applications? How do you think, for example, the fast track
schemes are working?
Ms Shaw: I do not think they have.
I think they have just cut down on the time but they have eroded
safeguards like appeal rights. For applicants who now have to
go through the Oakington process which is a seven to ten day process,
it is very difficult for representatives to do a really good job
on putting forward the applicant's claim. As well as doing policy
work in Amnesty, we also receive cases from individual lawyers
who are representing asylum seekers. We look at them to see if
we can corroborate them and put them into a human rights framework.
We see a lot of refusal letters as part of that process. The whole
approach seems to be to discredit the applicant and to pick on
the fine details of their story. Country of origin information
is sometimes incorrect and this means that a lot of resources
should be put into the initial processing of claims because this
would cut down on the amount of resources and the number of people
who would have to appeal. We only recently had a case of a Syrian
national where the Home Office in a refusal letter had said that
the party that he said he belonged to did not exist. We were able
to say, when it came to appeal, that the party certainly did exist
and the applicant then went on to have their appeal allowed. Regarding
the cutting back of rights of appeal for those countries, the
accession countries to the EU and the seven other countries that
have been added to that list—there are nationals of those
countries who did get refugee status and exceptional leave to
remain. There are applicants who when they had the right to appeal
did win their appeals. It is a real erosion of the human rights
safeguard to take away those appeals. I cannot see where the initial
decision making has improved.
Q296 Bridget Prentice: Surely the
robustness of looking at the details is exactly what the initial
decision makers should be doing?
Ms Shaw: It is not robust in a
positive way. For example, the country of origin information which
is provided by the Country Information Policy Unit at the Home
Office. We have advocated for many years, along with other organisations,
that there should be an independent documentation centre where
country of origin information can be accessed by all relevant
parties. You only have to look at the case of Zimbabwe last year
in the run up to the elections where the Foreign Office's assessment
of the human rights violations and what was happening in Zimbabwe
was not being taken into consideration by the Home Office, who
were refusing Zimbabwean applicants for the first part of the
year because they were relying on information that was completely
out of date.
Q297 Bridget Prentice: I notice you
used that example in your statement. I had always assumed that
the Home Office used the Foreign Office's country of origin briefings
but you are telling me the Home Office uses its own unit which
is coming out with contradictory information?
Ms Shaw: The Home Office uses
a lot of sources of information, including our own, but they assess
it and put it into reports. It is all sourced but it is their
own interpretation of events rather than completely independent
documentation which can be accessed by all parties.
Q298 Bridget Prentice: How independent
would an independent centre be? How could you guarantee its independence?
Ms Shaw: It is difficult to say
because it depends what the criteria are. In 1998, Amnesty International,
along with many other organisations including the Home Office,
had a consultation process and the end result was that the group
wrote to the Home Secretary advocating the setting up of an independent
documentation centre, which has never been followed through.
Q299 Bridget Prentice: Would not
there be a tendency to suggest that every applicant should be
assumed to have a right to asylum rather than that they do not
necessarily have a right to asylum?
Ms Shaw: It has to be weighed
up objectively on the basis of the testimony that has been given
in relation to the evidence that is available on a particular
country.
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