The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Blunt,
Mr. Crispin
(Reigate)
(Con)
Browne,
Mr. Jeremy
(Taunton)
(LD)
Campbell,
Mr. Alan
(Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's
Treasury)
Cox,
Mr. Geoffrey
(Torridge and West Devon)
(Con)
Dobbin,
Jim
(Heywood and Middleton)
(Lab/Co-op)
Green,
Damian
(Ashford)
(Con)
Gwynne,
Andrew
(Denton and Reddish)
(Lab)
Hamilton,
Mr. Fabian
(Leeds, North-East)
(Lab)
Hodgson,
Mrs. Sharon
(Gateshead, East and Washington, West)
(Lab)
Hunter,
Mark
(Cheadle)
(LD)
Marris,
Rob
(Wolverhampton, South-West)
(Lab)
Ryan,
Joan
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home
Department)
Smith,
Geraldine
(Morecambe and Lunesdale)
(Lab)
Smith,
John
(Vale of Glamorgan)
(Lab)
Steen,
Mr. Anthony
(Totnes)
(Con)
Wallace,
Mr. Ben
(Lancaster and Wyre)
(Con)
Whitehead,
Dr. Alan
(Southampton, Test)
(Lab)
John
Benger, Committee
Clerk
attended the Committee
Third
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Monday 19
March
2007
[Mr.
Bill Olner
in the
Chair]
Draft Integration Loans for Refugees and Others Regulations 2007
4.30
pm
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Joan
Ryan):
I beg to
move,
That the
Committee has considered the draft Integration Loans for Refugees and
Others Regulations
2007.
The
regulations will introduce a system of integration loans for those
recognised as refugees or given humanitarian protection, and for their
dependants. For ease I shall refer to potential recipients as refugees,
but I shall mean by that not only refugees but those with humanitarian
protection and their
dependants.
Section 13
of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004
enables the Government to set out in regulations a loans scheme aimed
at helping refugees to integrate into UK society. That section was
amended by section 45 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act
2006 to extend eligibility for the scheme to other categories of
migrants, as
prescribed.
When a
refugee is first granted status, she or he normally enters a critical
period of transition during which she or he needs to find
accommodation, train or requalify and seek employment. As part of the
integration process, an interest-free loan will make a considerable
impact on the refugees ability to become established in the UK.
It is intended that the loan should be spent on such things as deposits
for accommodation, the purchase of the tools of a trade or vocational
training.
The
regulations establish who will be eligible to apply for an integration
loan and the criteria against which applications for a loan will be
considered. The opportunity to apply for an integration loan will be
made available to any person aged 18 or over granted refugee status
after the date on which the scheme is introduced. Successful applicants
will be eligible to receive only one loan. Loans may be subject to
conditions, and the regulations set out the types of conditions that
may be applied. They also make provision for borrowers to enter into a
loan agreement that details the conditions on which a loan is made,
repayment terms and how terms may be amended if there is a change in
the borrowers
circumstances.
A system
of integration loans will be much fairer and more cost-effective than
the arrangements that are currently in operation. Current legislation
provides for those who are recorded as refugeeshere I mean only
refugeesto claim a back payment of the income-related benefits
that they would have received, calculated from the day on which they
first claimed asylum. Deductions are made from that sum equal to the
value of any asylum support received in the
meantime. No provision is currently made for those with other subsidiary
status or for
dependants.
Back
payments are inherently unfair. The amount of money due to a refugee in
backdated benefit is based solely on the time that they have spent
awaiting a decision and bears no relation to the needs of the
individual. The integration loans scheme will ensure better value for
money by targeting resources at the refugees most in need, for specific
purposes that will help their integration. The payment of a loan will
not be automatic, and applicants must say what use they intend to make
of it.
It is intended
that the scheme will funded by the savings made through the abolition
of back payments. The maximum loan payable will be capped at
£1,000, while the minimum will be £100. Loan repayments
will be recycled to ensure a continued fund for future refugees. The
scheme will be closely monitored to assess its take-up rate and
cost-effectiveness and will be jointly administered by the Home Office
immigration and nationality directorate and the Department for Work and
Pensions. That partnership will ensure that the administration of the
scheme is as cost-effective as possible.
The Home Office is committed to
the successful integration of refugees and recognises the potential
vulnerability of those in that client group, many of whom have little
or no experience of a culture of formal borrowing and repayment. Loans
will be interest-free, with gentle repayment rates based on
pre-existing arrangements that operate in the DWP. The existing
expertise and safeguards built into DWP processes and legislation
should deliver the policy intention of ensuring that repayment terms
are tailored to the individual recipients circumstances. In
particular, it is planned to recover the loans from those on
income-related benefits by way of an amendment to the Social Security
(Claims and Payments) Regulations 1987 and their equivalent in Northern
Ireland.
The amount to
be deducted from those on benefit will be consistent with deductions
already in operation within the current framework. From 5 April, that
will be £3 per week. If and when the regulations are approved by
both Houses, amendments to the relevant DWP regulations will be laid.
For borrowers in employment or not claiming any income-related
benefits, rates of payment will be set in accordance with established
DWP guidelines for other debts and
overpayments.
The
regulations make provision for repayment terms to be revised if a
borrowers circumstances change. Section 12 of the 2004 Act
repeals the various pieces of primary and secondary legislation that
enable the payment of backdated income-related benefits. That section
will be commenced when the regulations have been approved by both
Houses. That is in line with the commitment made during the passage of
the 2004 Act that back payments would not be abolished until a loans
scheme was introduced.
I believe that the introduction
of integration loans will be an important step in helping refugees to
find their feet in British society and to start contributing to our
economy as soon as possible. I commend the regulations to the
Committee.
4.36
pm
Damian
Green (Ashford) (Con): I am grateful to the Minister for
her explanation of what she sees as likely to happen when the system is
introduced. However, at times, it bore a fairly tangential relation to
the reality.
It is
worth putting the regulations into perspective. First, we are talking
about people who have been accepted as refugees, not any of the
controversial groups that we spend our lives debating. Whatever
peoples attitudes to immigration and asylum seeking in general,
we all agree that refugees should be allowed to stay and make their
lives in this country because they would be in danger in their home
countries.
Secondly,
slightly contrary to the Ministers portrayal of the regulations
as a generous loan system enabling refugees to stand on their own feet
and integrate into life in this country, they will replace a benefit
system with a loan system and so make life more difficult for those
people. Whatever ones view of the regulations, it is important
to put that on the record. They will make life on the margins more
difficult for genuine
refugees.
I am
fascinated by how the regulations will work in practice. I hope that
the Minister will address that point. She blandly said that they will
be monitored and operated by the Department for Work and
Pensions. Anyone with experience of constituency correspondence with
the DWP and some of the bodies for which it is responsible, such as the
Child Support Agency, will find it hard to accept that that is a virtue
of the scheme. It seems overwhelmingly likely that many of those
involved in the loan scheme will be changing addresses a lot, for
example; they will not have been in the country for very long and, as
she said, will be setting themselves up in a job and meeting new
people. Those are all complications. Many refugees will be entering
employment for the first time and therefore changing their
circumstances in ways that might affect the repayment of the loan. Some
may be going in and out of employment and changing their circumstances
and address in an extremely complex way. I must say that I do not share
her confidence that the DWP will deal with that situation competently
or smoothly.
I have
another big question that I hope that the Minister will address this
afternoon: how much is this system meant to save? She gave two
figuresthe£100 minimum and £1,000
maximumbut she did not give us the macro-picture. How much is
being spent on the benefits now and how much will therefore be saved by
not paying them? How much will be shelled out for the loans system in
the early stages and when do the Government expect to get it
back?
The regulations
also need to be put in the context of the current squeeze that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer is putting on the Home Office. We already
know that immigration enforcement will be funded by the increase in
visa charges on those coming to this country. It seems to me that the
change that we are considering needs to be seen in that
contexta Home Office that is desperately scrabbling around for
money, because the Chancellor has frozen its budget before he announces
the rest of the comprehensive spending review. This measure is another
small way for the Home Office to try to grab some money back, in this
case from genuine refugees.
It is genuinely important that
the Committee, and therefore the House and the public, should know the
size of this clawback from refugees. The Minister asserted that the
current system of back payments was unfair, because those payments were
based on the time that it had taken for somebody to have their asylum
claim heard and approved, rather than on the need that they have for
such payments. I would gently ask her a question: to whom is that
system unfair? I suggest that it may be unfair to the Treasury, because
the Treasury and therefore the taxpayerthis is not a frivolous
or facetious pointcurrently have to pay for the Home
Offices incompetence regarding the time it takes to process
what are, in some cases, quite straightforward asylum
claims.
As constituency
Members, we will all have had personal experience of asylum claims that
go back five, six or seven years; many claims go back longer than the
Governments six-month target. I can therefore understand that,
if people become eligible for back payments of benefits for such a
period, they will receive cheques for quite considerable sums from the
Treasury. I can also understand why the Treasury wants to change the
system. However, to suggest, as I think the Minister was trying to do,
that the present system is somehow unfair to the asylum claimants
themselves is a bit rich, frankly. It is unfair to the taxpayer and to
the Treasury, and it is an expense created by governmental and
departmental incompetence, but it really is not unfair to those who
receive the benefits.
The appropriate attitude to
adopt towards these changes is one of benign scepticism. I can see why
the Government want to introduce the regulations, but we need to take
the decision in a clear-headed way, as this measure is essentially
concerned with saving money for the
Treasury.
4.42
pm
Mr.
Jeremy Browne (Taunton) (LD): I should like to start by
echoing some comments made by the previous speaker, who said that we
must remember that the category of people that we are talking about is
refugeespeople who will quite often have come to this country
in extremely straitened circumstances and be suffering considerable
distress. Within all groups of people moving from one country to
another, there are examples of abuse of the system and I do not think
that anyone would claim otherwise. However, we ought to assume that
people who have applied for and been granted refugee status are
legitimate claimants and view their cases in those
terms.
On viewing such
cases in those terms, it seems extraordinary to me, as it would if I
were a Labour Member who had sat in this House for 10 years under a
Labour Government, that such measures are being introduced. Had I been
elected as a Labour Member in 1997, I would not have imagined that I
would be brought along to such a Committee to ensure that money was
clawed back from acknowledged refugees to try to save money in times of
straitened budgetary circumstances. I should like to work through a few
of the reasons why I suspect that many Labour Members serving on this
Committee will be extremely uncomfortable about supporting this
measureand I would expect them to be uncomfortable, because I
know that many Members serving on this Committee are genuinely concerned
about such issues.
For
a start, we are talking about a loan. The Government
state:
The
integration loans are to be funded by savings made from the abolition
of back-dating of income related
benefits.
As was noted by
the previous speaker, we are discussing removing a benefita
cash entitlement, as it wereand replacing it with a loan, so it
is difficult to see immediately the legitimacy of the savings
correlation. I would be extremely interested to know what assessment
the Minister has made of the overall savings that will result from this
initiative. She spoke about achieving better value for
moneyI quote her directlyso one assumes that
there has been an assessment of how much money the Government will save
by introducing these measures, but I have difficulty imagining that it
will be a substantial amount in return for the pain that it may cause
individual applicants.
The Minister also
saidthis was the least reassuring part of her opening
remarksthat the measures would be administered in a way that
nobody on the Committee need be too concerned about. Admittedly, I have
been a Member of Parliament for just under two years, but
overwhelmingly the biggest category of people who come to see me at my
weekly surgeries do so because of their exasperation and frustration
with incompetent Government administration, whether in the form of the
Child Support Agency or the Chancellors greatest achievement,
tax
credits
The
Chairman:
Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying wide of
the
mark.
Mr.
Browne:
Tax credits, the Child Support Agency or
other functions of Government
administration
The
Chairman:
That is the last time that you mention
that.
Mr.
Browne:
In such areas, people often feel that they have
not received a service to the highest administrative standard. I shall
leave it at that, but I hope that the Minister is confident on that
matter.
I worry that
people who apply for the loans will be deterred by having to fill in
forms. In many cases, they may be deterred by language barriers;
anxiety about the process that they are being asked to undergo; lack of
familiarity with the currency; or anxiety about incurring debts,
particularly in a country with whose banking system or other such
procedures they are unfamiliar with.
The Government have given
assurances that the loans will be processed within a respectable time;
I will be interested to hear from the Minister some clarification about
how long she thinks the process will take, how the loans will be
administered and the amount of money that will be saved. For all those
reasons, unless she says something so compelling that it requires us to
change our minds, my party will oppose the statutory
instrument.
4.47
pm
Rob
Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab): I welcome you to
the Chair, Mr. Olner.
I am sorry to disappoint the
hon. Member for Taunton, but as a Labour Member I do not have a problem
with the regulations. I have one or two questions that I should like to
put to the Minister to clarify matters. First, what will be the
position of asylum seekers who have ordered their affairs currently on
the calculation that they will get a back payment of benefits on being
granted refugee status, in a sense taking a gamble that they will get
it, who will now not get the back payment and will have to apply for a
loan with all the attached conditions?
Secondly, I understand from
regulation 11 that joint applications can be made and that both parties
to such an application must be eligible. One thinks of two refugees who
are husband and wife, for example. Will the maximum for a joint
application be £2,000, or will those individuals be
disadvantaged? I am not saying that every couple would get
£2,000, but given that the maximum for one person is
£1,000, is the maximum for a joint application
£2,000?
My other
points relate to English for speakers of other languages. I should like
the Ministers reassurance that refugees will not be expected to
take out a loan to pay for ESOL courses. I know that that is not
directly within her Department, but I imagine that it has been
considered with regard to the regulations. Coupled with that is a point
related to one made by the hon. Member for Taunton. Under the proposed
changes that the Department for Education and Skills is discussing,
which are likely to go through as they are Government proposals, asylum
seekers whose applications are being processed will not be eligible for
ESOL courses, unlike under the current system. An asylum seeker who
becomes a refugee will therefore be less likely than current asylum
seekers, who can access ESOL courses, to have any command of English.
That leads us on to the issue of refugees who have been asylum seekers
and have not had access to ESOL courses, who will then have to cope
with form filling and so on to go through the DWP. I say,
parenthetically, that I do not have a problem with the DWP
administering the scheme jointly with the Home Office. I stand open to
correction, but presumably the DWP handles the back payment of benefits
anyway, and I am not aware of any problems with it. I do not have
asylum seekers who have been confirmed as refugees coming to my surgery
about problems with back payments, and I would not expect there to be a
problem with the proposals.
My final point, which was
adverted to by the hon. Members for Ashford and for Taunton, is how
much the rotating fundI think that that is the expression the
Minister usedwill be. I understand that under the regulations,
in contradistinction to the current position, in humanitarian cases
which are not, strictly speaking, asylum seeker or refugee cases, those
being granted leave to remain on humanitarian grounds will be eligible
for the loans. I think that such people are not currently eligible
under the back-payment scheme. That will have an effect on the
magnitude of the rotating fund. I hope that the Minister will be able
to shed some light on that matter when she replies to the
debate.
4.51
pm
Joan
Ryan:
I must say that I am very surprised by some of the
comments made by Opposition Members, who will, like me, know that
applications for asylum were down by 75 per cent. in quarter 4 of 2006
and that applications are at their lowest level since 1993. As to
people being in the asylum system and waiting for a decision, obviously
the longer they wait the higher their back payment becomes. That is not
necessarily related to need in any way.
The need for refugee integration
support of people who wait a much shorter time might be just as great,
if not greater, than that of people who have waited a long time for
their decision, yet they do not get fair treatment. As so many people
are now dealt with so much more quickly, back payments would be at a
much lower rate anyway. This is therefore a sensible time for the
proposal, especially as it has been on the cards for a considerable
time. Most people have known since 2005 that it would be introduced, so
it is not a shock; it has not happened because of some sudden Treasury
issue that may or may not
exist.
What we propose
is a much fairer system; people wait a much shorter time now than in
the past because of the introduction of the end-to-end system in the
IND and the new asylum model. The likelihood now when someone gets
refugee status is that they have been in the country for a much shorter
period than was previously the case and their need for an integration
loan should be assessed at that time.
We are very conscious of
integration needs, and so we should be. Across the House, there has
been debate about the need to ensure that integration measures are in
place, as they are important for the refugee, for the wider society and
for the community as a whole. The measure will enable us to take
account of those integration needs in respect of matters such as
accommodation, employment and
education.
Mr.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con): I have just two questions
for the Minister. The first arises from her statement that the previous
structure of benefits was not related to need. They were income-related
benefits, as far as I understand it, which suggests that they were
related to need and that there would have been some assessment of the
individuals receiving them. Will she please clarify exactly what she
meant by that? Secondly, and more importantly, I have been unable to
identify any cost-benefit analysis of the regulations. That is linked
to the questions put to her by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford
and the hon. Member for Taunton. Can she give us a figure for the costs
and benefits to the
taxpayer?
Joan
Ryan:
Let me tell the hon. Gentleman, his hon. Friend the
Member for Ashford and the hon. Member for Taunton that the DWP in fact
does not record back-payment spend, but on the basis of a model
developed to calculate an estimate, a budget transfer of £5
million has been agreed for 2007-08 and the budget will be reviewed on
a yearly
basis.
Damian
Green:
Will the Minister give
way?
Joan
Ryan:
I shall do so shortly when I have covered some of
the points that have already been made. I presume that hon. Members
asked me questions because they wanted me to answer them. I shall come
to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West and his
questions in a moment.
I say to the hon. Member for
Taunton that if people are on benefits, the DWP will know their address
for the benefit payments systema point that was also raised by
the hon. Member for Ashford. Obviously people not paying back their
loan will not be an issue in those cases. If people are not on
benefits, they will have made a commitment to provide details of any
change in address or circumstances in their loan agreement. Obviously,
there are sanctions if people do not pay back their loan; the loan
would become payable in full if that was the case and we would be able
to take enforcement action in the usual
way.
Damian
Green:
Can the Minister repeat what I think she
just told the Committee? I think she said that the DWP is paying out
benefits to a group of people and does not know how much it has paid
out. Specifically, she said that it does not count it and does not know
how much it has paid out. In that case, several members of this
Committee may well go straight from this sitting to the National Audit
Office to ask it to investigate the matter. If it is the case, it is
appalling.
Joan
Ryan:
The hon. Gentleman asked about the impact on
individuals. The payments received by individuals will in certain
circumstances be lower than if those individuals were in receipt of a
back payment. Therefore, the impact of this change would be potentially
to save resources on back payments.
Mr.
Blunt:
Will the Minister give
way?
Joan
Ryan:
Not at the moment.
However, that is not the purpose
of this scheme. The purpose of the measure is to introduce a loan
scheme of which all refugees, including people on humanitarian
protection, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton,
South-West mentioned, will be able to take advantage and which will
address their integration needs.
To clarify the point, what I
actually said was that the DWP does not record back-payment spend. To
clarify that for the hon. Member for Ashford, I should explain that it
does not record back-payment spend separately. It is not that it is not
accounted for; it is simply that it is not recorded
separately. Whatever he chooses to do at the end of the sitting,
however, is of course a matter for him.
Rob
Marris:
As I understand it, what the Minister is
sayingperhaps she could confirm thisis that the DWP
does not keep separate records of back payments made to asylum seekers
who become refugees, bearing in mind that there are back payments of
benefits to other individuals who are not asylum seekers or refugees
but are UK citizens who are applying for benefits and, for whatever
reason, get back payments. She may or may not know, as she is not a DWP
Minister, but the DWP will have records of back
payments, although it may not disaggregate them with regard to asylum
seekers who have become refugees and other individuals who are quite
properly claiming and who get back
payments.
Joan
Ryan:
My hon. Friend is exactly right. The spend is
recorded as part of a larger record of benefit
spend.
Mr.
Blunt:
Will the Minister give
way?
Joan
Ryan:
I shall, but I think I will make it the last time
that I do so before I move on to answer some of the other points that
were
raised.
Mr.
Blunt:
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way,
although I am slightly concerned that she is not going to do so again.
There is plenty of time, and this is an important issue. Is not even
some form of estimate kicking around inside Government as to what the
savings will be? It is beyond comprehension that the Government could
have introduced a set of regulations without the first idea of the
savings or whether there will be additional costs. She says merely that
she expects that there will be savings, because there would have been
considerable back payments to asylum seekers and those sums would have
been rather greater than the maximum loan of £1,000. However,
she must do better than that. She must give the Committee at least an
estimate of the amount that the measure will either save or cost the
taxpayer.
Joan
Ryan:
I think that I have made clear the reason for the
change, and why we wish to introduce integration loans. I have also
made it absolutely clear that of course records are kept, but the
back-payment amount is recorded as part of a larger record of benefit
spend. That is perfectly understandable, and I am sorry if the hon.
Gentleman is having difficulty with it. I would also say that, as I
have explained, the calculated estimate that he has asked for is a
budget transfer of £5 million agreed for 2007-08. The
budget will then be reviewed annually. I had already made the point
that the transfer would be made from the DWP to the Home Office in
order to cover the first year of the
scheme.
Mr.
Browne:
Will the Minister give
way?
Joan
Ryan:
I shall do so shortly. As loans are made and repaid,
the money will then recycle and rotateas repayments come in,
further loans can be made. I think that that is a perfectly acceptable
system, and it is also perfectly understandable.
Let me come to some of the
points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West.
We seek to start the scheme on 10 April 2007, so it will begin shortly.
Anybody who gets their decision after that date will be included in it.
It could have been introduced in 2005, so it is not a measure of which
people have been unaware.
Mr.
Blunt:
On a point of order, Mr. Olner. The
Minister has given no explanation of the impact of the regulations on
the taxpayer. She is refusing to give that kind of information to the
Committee. How can we be in a position to make a decision on the
regulations in these circumstances? Have you ever in your experience as
a Committee Chairman come across a similar state of
affairs?
The
Chairman:
I am very aware of political interventions, and
I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that that is not a point of order for
the Chair; it is a point of
debate.
Joan
Ryan:
Thank you, Mr. Olner.
I think that I have fully
covered the estimate of costs, the estimate of previous spend and how
the scheme will be financed. I have been very open with the Committee
about how the scheme will work, as I would expect to be.
[
Interruption.
]
I shall give way further in
a moment, but having been asked an array of questions, I think that I
should give the Committee some answers.
There is nothing hidden, strange
or unusual in the financial information that has been made available to
Opposition Members. I do not think that, other than showing some
manufactured indignation, they have managed to point out anything that
would give anybody any real cause for
concern.
Mr.
Browne:
Will the Minister give
way?
Joan
Ryan:
I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, who seems
very keen to get
in.
Mr.
Browne:
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on
this crucial point. In her introductory remarks, she told the Committee
that the measures provide better value for money than
the existing arrangements. Therefore, I expected to hear first how much
was currently being spent on back paymentsthe separate
calculation that she seems to be unable to provideand secondly
an assessment of the cost of the interview process and the
administrative burden that will go with assessing who is eligible for
loans of what size. Thirdly, I expected to hear how many people she
expects to qualify for the loan and at what level, as some people will
be eligible for £100 and some for £1,000. Fourthly, I
expected to hear in what time she expects the loans to be repaid and
how much interest the Treasury will incur if they are interest-free. It
seems reasonable that all those calculations should be put before the
Committee so that we can assess whether the scheme will offer better
value for money, as she put
it.
Joan
Ryan:
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has been
bothering to listen at all to anything that has been said. If somebody
applies for an integration loan, an assessment will be made of whether
they should be entitled to £100 or anything more than that up to
£1,000. I clearly cannot tell him here and now exactly how many
people will be entitled to any particular amount between those
figures.
I have made
it absolutely clear that the scheme will be funded solely by the
savings made from the abolition of back payments and that no more will
be spent on
the loans, including the administration thereof, than is currently spent
on back payments. I have also made it clear that although the DWP does
not record back-payment spending separately, its calculation is based
on a model developed to calculate an estimate. A budget transfer of
£5 million has been agreed for 2007-08 and is the estimated
annual spend. That is absolutely clear and I see no difficulty with
it.
Mr.
Blunt:
On a point of order, Mr. Olner. Would it
not be an abuse of the Committee and of Parliament if there were an
existing estimate inside the Government, subsequently discovered under
a Freedom of Information Act 2000 request, that had been denied the
Committee by the Minister in our proceedings
today?
The
Chairman:
I have to say from the Chair that I think the
Minister is trying to answer the debate as honestly as she possibly
can. I am sure that if anything else comes to light further to the
debate, it will not be a problem for it to be
published.
Mr.
Blunt:
Further to that point of order, Mr.
Olner. If there is information in the Department that has been
requested by the Committee in the course of its proceedings and is not
produced, but is then subsequently ascertained under the Freedom of
Information Act, is that a form of abuse of the Committee and of
Parliament?
The
Chairman:
That is not a question for the Chair. It is a
question of procedure, and as I far as I am concerned, the Minister is
answering as honourably as she can. The hon. Gentleman has pressed her
hard, and that will come out in the
debate.
Joan
Ryan:
Thank you, Mr.
Olner.
I shall cover
some of the other points that my hon. Friend the Member for
Wolverhampton, South-West made. He asked a question about married
couples, implicit in which was the assumption that one loan would be
available on that basis. If that was his assumption, he was correct. He
also asked about ESOL, and he is right that the scheme will in no way
affect a refugees right to the arrangements that the DFES is
putting in place. However, that does not mean that an applicant for a
loan cannot specify that they wish to use the loan for further access
to English provision of one type or another. That will not be
precluded.
The way in
which the regulations have been received by Opposition Members is
unfortunate. They are concerned that somebody is trying to hide some
figures from them, but I assure them that I am trying to hide nothing
whatever.
Mark
Hunter (Cheadle) (LD): Will the Minister give
way?
Joan
Ryan:
Not at the moment; I shall do so
shortly.
It
is important to bear in mind how important a refugee integration loan
could be for an individual who has not been in the country long and
might have gone through very difficult circumstances in the country
from
which they had to flee. When they are given refugee status, a big
difference could be made by their being able to apply for such a sum of
money, which they can use to assist their integration in employment,
education and accommodation. The difference between the scheme and the
previous back payments is that all refugees will be able to apply for
the integration loan, fairly and across the board, however long they
have been here. If they have a bona fide application with an acceptable
purpose, they should be able to access a
loan.
I was asked how
long we expect people to take to pay back their loans. We think that
five years is adequate, but clearly, as with DWP rules for other loans,
a degree of discretion and flexibility would be exercised when
considering a refugees individual
circumstances.
Mr.
Browne:
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but
still we have not heard any numbers, which is the crucial problem.
However, let me very briefly try a separate tack. She has not run
through with the Committee the type of requirements that would be
deemed suitable in order for a person to access a loan. In passing, she
mentioned employment, education and accommodation, but is there a more
specific list of requirements that would satisfy the person conducting
the interview as to which reasons were legitimate for accessing a loan
and which would be regarded as insufficiently worthy to warrant that
sort of financial
arrangement?
Joan
Ryan:
Obviously, it was not in passing that I covered
those three requirements; they are three of the most important needs
for refugees when applying for such a loan. However, each of those
areas could contain a range of options. The form will allow for a
separate reason not covered by those three areas. A refugee could
outline something completely different, which would then have to be
assessed. The IND and DWP guidance for a person considering a loan is
that that reason should be able to be categorised as an integration
purpose, which is why those three categories are the main
guide.
The hon. Member
for Taunton also referred once again to the figures. I have given the
Committee today all the figures that I have available. I am not trying
to withhold any figures from Opposition Members, including the hon.
Member for Reigate in particular. Those that I provided for the basis
of the model, how it was calculated and the estimate are correct. I am
not seeking to mislead the Committee, and I hope that hon. Members are
satisfied with that.
I
think that I have covered most of the points raised. Those who fall
into the category of humanitarian protection do not receive back
payments, but will be able to apply for a loan. The hon. Member for
Taunton suggested that we are uncomfortable with the measures, but my
hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West pointed out that
he was not uncomfortableand neither am I. We have put quite a
lot of work into the measure to ensure that it meets the needs of
refugees and of the wider community. That is important to bear in
mind.
The grants might
not seem a very large amount to the Committee, but they could make a
significant difference to the ability of a refugee to get into
employment or to ensure that they have appropriate accommodation. When
someone gets their decision and is given refugee status, they have a
short period in which to sort out their accommodation if they are in
National Asylum Support Service accommodation and to sort out their
income and the way forward. That can be a very stressful time. Knowing
that it is possible to apply for the loan could be very reassuring and
make a considerable impact on their ability to move
forward.
Looking a
little further down the tracks, we have consulted on refugee
integration provision across the board and we are looking to ensure
that at the point of decision, refugees will be able to access an
advice and support service similar to the SUNRISEstrategic
upgrade of national refugee integration servicesservice, of
which hon. Members may be aware. We hope that within that service, the
SUNRISE workers will be able to advise refugees about this provision
and how they can access
it.
Overall, these are
good regulations. They will make a difference to the lives of refugees
at a very important time. The scope of the regulations is bigger than
that,
however, because good integration is crucial to all of us in society. I
therefore commend the regulations to the
Committee.
Question
put:
The
Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes
2.
Division
No.
1
]
Question
accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That
the Committee has considered the draft Integration Loans for Refugees
and Others Regulations
2007.
Committee rose
at seventeen minutes pastFive
oclock.