House of Commons - Scottish Affairs

Select Committee on Scottish Affairs Written Evidence

Memorandum submitted by the Scottish Refugee Council

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Asylum seekers, refugees and their children living in Scotland experience poverty during all parts of the asylum process. Scottish Refugee Council believes that UK asylum policy is wholly incompatible with strategies to tackle poverty in Scotland. Increasingly, some of the most vulnerable individuals in Scotland, in particular children and those with mental health problems, are experiencing abject poverty and destitution through the complete withdrawal of statutory support, the only available method to support themselves and their families. This is due to administrative errors and delays, but most disturbingly UK Government policies which use welfare support to coerce families refused asylum to return home and to act as a deterrent to future asylum claimants. Even when support is available to such people in Scotland this may be denied because of differences and misunderstandings of Scottish legislation. We believe that refused asylum seekers should not be left in abject poverty and support at the end of the asylum process needs to be reassessed. The UK Government should grant a legal status to asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected but cannot return.

ABOUT THE INQUIRY

The Scottish Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament is conducting an inquiry into Poverty in Scotland. The inquiry will begin by addressing issues such as: what poverty is; the extent of poverty; contributing factors to poverty; and the impact of Government policy on poverty.

ABOUT SCOTTISH REFUGEE COUNCIL

Scottish Refugee Council provides help and advice to those who have fled human rights abuses or other persecution in their homeland and now seek refuge in Scotland. We are a membership organisation that works independently and in partnership with others to provide support to refugees from arrival to settlement and integration into Scottish society. We campaign to ensure that the UK Government meets its international, legal and humanitarian obligations and to raise awareness of refugee issues. We are also an active member of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), a network of over 80 refugee-assisting organisations across Europe.

Scottish Refugee Council welcomes the Committee's inquiry into the area of poverty in Scotland and we are pleased to submit this written evidence. We would also be pleased to provide oral evidence, if needed, to further the aims of the Committee's inquiry. We could also assist in supporting asylum seekers and refugees in Scotland to provide oral evidence. Our response focuses on the poverty experienced by asylum seekers and refugees living in Scotland and in particular the major contribution that UK Government policy and legislation has on the poverty experienced by this group of vulnerable people.

1. Introduction

1.1 The majority of people who flee their country and seek sanctuary in Scotland arrive with few or no possessions and are destitute. Most have had to abandon property and assets, leaving everything behind including family and friends, and often every penny of their life savings are spent on paying people smugglers to secure their journey out of danger. On arrival in the UK, they have no choice but to apply for financial support from the UK Government as they are forbidden to work[63] and support themselves.

1.2 The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 removed the right of new asylum seekers to access mainstream welfare benefits, public housing and some forms of Local Authority assistance, ie services to meet a need that "arises solely out of destitution or the effects of destitution". In place of this, the UK Government created a separate system and body, the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) to provide financial support to destitute asylum seekers. The package of support provided by NASS includes a weekly allowance.[64] This is currently set at 70% of Income Support rates for adults.

1.3 NASS also provides accommodation to asylum seekers which it does through agreements with local authorities. Asylum seekers applying to NASS for accommodation support[65] are therefore dispersed to local authorities around the UK which have entered into a contract with NASS. Glasgow City Council remains the only local authority in Scotland to have entered into such an agreement with NASS and thus asylum seekers are dispersed to Glasgow. 4,770 asylum seekers, including a high number of asylum-seeking families are currently housed[66] in NASS accommodation in Glasgow.

2. Asylum and Poverty

2.1 Scottish Refugee Council believes that asylum seekers in Scotland and the rest of the UK are forced to live at a level of poverty which is unacceptable in a modern and civilised society. In 2002, Scottish Refugee Council and other refugee-assisting organisations contributed to a report by Oxfam and the British Refugee Council.[67] In the survey, 85% of organisations reported that their clients experienced hunger; 95% of organisations reported that their clients could not afford to buy clothes or shoes; and 80% of organisations reported that their clients were not able to maintain good health.

2.2 The NASS support[68] that asylum seekers receive does equate with Income Support, the most basic minimum level of support given to UK residents required to maintain an acceptable standard of living. Moreover, the Income Support system is not just a one-off weekly payment but it is a gateway to a range of support, such as emergency payments and passported benefits[69] which help poor people to meet additional costs. Asylum seekers in Scotland are not allowed to access any of these additional forms of financial assistance.

2.3 Asylum seekers face specific forms of poverty such as learning to manage on a low and fixed income in a foreign country; loss of status;[70] coping with additional costs such as travelling to reporting centres, obtaining copies of legal documents, accessing culturally appropriate food; having limited social support networks; social isolation due to language difficulties and trauma; limited access to further education and having no access to credit.[71]

2.4 Due to poor-quality decision making and delays in determining asylum claims by the Home Office, asylum seekers can be subjected to these levels of poverty over a long and protracted period. This can have a major impact on their mental-health.[72]

2.5 The withdrawal of the right to work[73] does not only impact on the immediate poverty of asylum seekers, but has longer-term consequences of future employability, earning potential and planning for the future once a decision on their claim has been made.

2.6 Upon being granted status refugees face many difficulties similar to those on low incomes, however they also have specific financial burdens such as accessing secure and stable accommodation; appropriate employment; English language attainment and family reunion application costs. The Home Office is currently introducing an integration loan to assist with some of these financial costs. Whilst Scottish Refugee Council welcomes the fact that the Home Office appreciates the difficulty that refugees face upon being granted status by offering an integration loan, we are not convinced this is the most effective way to provide financial support to refugees to assist in their integration.[74] Firstly, we are concerned that the refugees will be forced to take a loan to provide for areas where mainstream statutory support is actually available and should be available but where access to this is difficult, for example Community Care Grants and English language training. Secondly, we are concerned that the imposition of debt will create yet another obstacle to integration into communities and will increase the risk to both individuals and communities of greater numbers of socially excluded refugees.

2.7 Scottish Refugee Council believes that the UK asylum system is wholly incompatible with UK Government and Scottish Executive strategies[75] to tackle and eradicate poverty in Scotland as it actively forces asylum seekers into poverty.

2.8 We would urge the Committee to assess the impact of the NASS system and the introduction of integration loans for refuges on UK Government and Scottish Executive cross-departmental policies to tackle poverty and social exclusion in their inquiry.

3. Destitution experienced by asylum seekers and refugees through withdrawal of statutory support

3.1 Scottish Refugee Council continues to be extremely alarmed by the rising number of asylum seekers who are experiencing abject poverty in Scotland, stripped of their dignity and forced to live hand-to-mouth on the charity of others in order to survive when statutory support is withdrawn. The withdrawal of support can be for a number of reasons including administrative errors or delays in processing NASS support. Or, unlike other forms of destitution in the UK which arise because people have slipped through the social welfare net, the destitution of asylum seekers in Scotland can be as a direct result of UK Government policy. The aims of such policies are to: use the removal of welfare support as a coercive tool to ensure compliance with immigration control;[76], [77] be seen by the general public to be acting tough on asylum seekers; and act as a deterrent for asylum seekers to register an asylum claim in the UK in the first place.[78]

3.2 Scottish Refugee Council recently conducted a survey of destitute clients presenting at our offices and the offices of other voluntary-sector support agencies in Glasgow.[79] The research revealed that at least 154[80] asylum seekers, refugees and their dependents were destitute. 27 people surveyed were asylum seekers with active asylum claims, seven were refugees and had yet to access mainstream support and 78 had been refused asylum and were at the end of the process. However, only 33% were satisfied with their legal support, indicating that people may have been let down by the well-documented failings of the asylum system.

3.3 The research, which we append to this submission, made a number of recommendations including calling on the UK Government to accept that some asylum seekers cannot be immediately returned and that the support offered at the end of the asylum process needs to be reassessed. We also call on the Scottish Executive to ensure that legal aid is properly maintained to ensure that asylum seekers in Scotland have good quality and timely legal advice to enable them to pursue their asylum claim and allow them to appeal negative decisions. We would urge the Committee to review the findings and recommendations of this research in their inquiry.

3.4 When Section 4 support[81] is available, Scottish Refugee Council is concerned that asylum seekers in Scotland are falling through gaps in procedural differences between Scottish and English legal systems and being left destitute and in appalling situations. This is due to NASS refusing to accept timescales for lodging appeals on asylum cases. The following case study gives an example of this situation.

A young Iraqi woman approached Scottish Refugee Council on many different occasions seeking assistance in connection with her case. She became destitute after NASS terminated her support despite her having an ongoing asylum appeal at Edinburgh Court of Session. NASS stated that the client's appeal was made out of time (an appeal must be made within 12 days from the previous court decision date according to English law. However, under the Scottish legal system this is 42 days). Evidence from the client's solicitor and Edinburgh Court of Session confirmed that the appeal was made in time but NASS refused the client's application for support re-instatement stating that according to its policy her appeal should have been made within 12 days for her to be considered for support. The client has been left destitute and homeless. She is now dependent on charitable support and temporary accommodation provided by friends to avoid having to sleep on the streets. Her lawyer is pursuing this case at judicial review.

3.5 Fundamentally however, we believe that Section 4 support is inhumane and that refused asylum seekers who cannot be returned through no fault of their own should not be subjected to protracted periods of severe poverty where the only support available is provided by vouchers. We call on the Committee to urge the Government to grant a legal status and rights to asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected but cannot return.

4. Destitution of asylum-seeking children

4.1 Disturbingly, the research revealed that there were at least 24 asylum-seeking children from 16 families affected by absolute poverty living in Glasgow during February 2006. Seven of those families (a total of 10 children) had been destitute for longer than six months. Eight of the families who were recorded within the survey were destitute because they are at the end of the process. Three of those families had applied for Section 4 support but had become destitute while they waited for it to start. That means that a total of four children were destitute in Glasgow during February 2006 because of an administrative delay on the part of NASS.

4.2 A further four families were also at the end of the asylum process but were not receiving Section 4 support either because they did not meet the criteria for the support or were unwilling to apply. Such families should continue to receive NASS support until they leave the country.[82] However, this is often not the case either because a child has been born after the parents received their final refusal on their asylum case, or because they failed to register their child on their asylum claim, or because a dependent child had arrived in the country after the asylum claim had failed. In these cases Social Work Services are obliged to provide support for the children under Section 22 of the Children Scotland Act 1995, but in practice whether they also provide support to the parents varies depending on which social work team is responsible for the area the family live within.

4.3 Two families were destitute and potentially homeless because their NASS support had been terminated because of a breach of conditions (for example, being caught working or allowing destitute asylum seekers to share their accommodation). This is despite the fact that families with children whose NASS support had been terminated for this reason should be supported by Local Authorities under Section 22 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995.

4.4 We are very concerned that Government policy forces children in Scotland into such appalling conditions and we would urge the Committee to recommend to the UK Government that:

all families should continue to be supported while they remain in the UK, regardless of whether the children were born after their parents became fully refused asylum seekers; and

the role and responsibility of local authorities in Scotland for supporting destitute asylum-seeking families should be clarified to ensure that children are not made destitute.

5. Destitution of asylum seekers with care needs

5.1 Scottish Refugee Council is increasingly encountering difficulties securing financial support and accommodation for clients with special needs from Social Services in Scotland. In several cases Social Work Services in Glasgow refuse to support clients regardless of clear indications that clients' needs are above and beyond that which can be met by Section 4 support (if eligible). The threshold for accessing this support is set extremely high in Glasgow and the most vulnerable asylum seekers including those with mental health needs are being left in dire situations. This is due, in large part, to the different legislative framework in Scotland. One such recent case where a mentally-ill woman who was left without any support committed suicide attracted considerable media attention.[83]

5.2 Despite the changes in entitlements brought about by the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999,[84] asylum seekers retain entitlement to some Local Authority services. Existing Community Care legislation, the National Assistance Act 1948, which sets out the responsibilities of Local Authorities towards people with disabilities, mental health or other health needs, still applies to asylum seekers. However, many Local Authorities disputed their responsibilities and a resulting legal challenge in the English courts defined the parameters.[85]

5.3 Whilst this judgement settled the threshold for social work and other assistance in England and Wales and has subsequently informed policy since, it has no bearing in Scotland where existing social work policy remains unchanged. Policy Bulletin 82 in which NASS clearly states the limits of support it can provide under section 95 for those with care needs does mention Scottish legislation. However, it relies on the Westminster ruling which, although it could be considered persuasive, does not constitute legal precedent in Scotland.

5.4 This lack of precedent leaves asylum seekers with care needs in Scotland in a precarious position which subsequent Policy Bulletins have failed to address.

5.5 On an operational basis, Scottish Refugee Council caseworkers continue to make persuasive cases to ensure that clients with special needs receive appropriate support and entitlements. However, the Home Office, Scottish Office and the Scottish Executive have still to address this issue.

Gary Christie

Policy Officer

October 2006

63 On 23 July 2002 the UK Government withdrew the concession that asylum seekers could work six months after their claim for asylum was made if they had not yet received a decision on their case. Any asylum seeker who obtained the right to work before that date is allowed to work, but asylum seekers making a claim after that date. Back

64 Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Back

65 People claiming asylum may apply for subsistence only support. This means that they are responsible for their own accommodation and thus may live in other parts of the UK. Back

66 Asylum Statistics, 2nd Quarter 2006, Home Office, http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/asylumq206.pdf Back

67 Poverty and Asylum in the UK, Oxfam and the Refugee Council, 2002,http://oxfamgb.org/ukpp/resources/downloads/poverty_report_jul02.pdf Back

68 Section 95 support. Back

69 Such as Crisis Loans, Community Care Grants, Maternity Grants, Child Tax Credit, Child Benefit, Guardian's Allowance, Carers Allowance, Disability Living Allowance. Back

70 Refugees are frequently the most educated members of their communities, but are unable to access the employment market or higher education. On being granted status and allowed to work many will not achieve their previous employment status. Back

72 Seeking Peace of Mind: The Mental Health Needs of Asylum seekers in Scotland, Iain Ferguson and Aileen Barclay, University of Stirling, 2002, http://www.dass.stir.ac.uk/staff/SeekingPeaceofMind.htm Back