Home Affairs Committee
Executive Summary
If the asylum system allowed for more energy and resources to be focussed on getting the assessment of individual cases right first time, we believe that many organisations operating in a similar sphere to our own would happily cease to exist. We see a good deal of suffering on a weekly basis and estimate that around 50% of clients through our doors eventually achieve status. Yet it is the timescale involved and its debilitating effects on asylum applicants that we would see minimised. We assert that conversely, this will involve a considerable investment of time (and resources) at the initiation of an asylum claim.
At a time when UKBA itself is mortally discredited, this purports to present an opportunity to overhaul a system that has summarily failed above all the asylum seeker but also the British taxpayer. The prognosis for those seeking asylum—based on Mrs. Theresa May’s proposals to bisect and reformulate the service into visa/immigration and enforcement arms—would seem to be poor and is significantly aggravated by a rampant privatisation agenda that sees security giants such as Serco and G4S running asylum housing and support contracts. We would propose a specially-appointed independent body to both advise on and carry out some of the core work around asylum, ensuring that the well-being indeed the survival of some of the most remarkable and yet vulnerable members of our world society is not irrevocably prejudiced.
Huddersfield Asylum Advice Service (HAAS)
Huddersfield Asylum Advice Service was established in April 2011 with the aim of supporting work at St Thomas’s Church and Community Centre in Huddersfield providing services to refugees and asylum seekers in the region. This work had previously been carried out by KRAFT, an organization operating in the Huddersfield area for over 10 years and two long-term KRAFT workers remain on the HAAS board. The service had been and remains particularly known for its work in signposting and empowering asylum seekers whose appeal rights are exhausted, with clients often attending from well beyond the bounds of the Yorkshire & Humber region. Although in the past the service has operated a full five-day week drop-in manned by several staff and volunteers, in its current form a two-day service is delivered by a paid coordinator supported by a small number of volunteers. We see on average 8 clients per day, frequently destitute and bringing a range of issues. There is a degree to which clients become long-term attenders at the drop-in, some over the course of years (the current coordinator is an ex-client) and this has given useful insight into the trajectories of individuals caught up in the asylum system over a significant period of time.
1. Effectiveness of the UKBA screening process
In one sense, it is difficult to comment on this area as we almost never receive news on those ‘screened out’ by the process.
One thing is certain, that clients are uniformly ready to say far more about the traumatic experiences that forced them to flee their homeland by the time they reach our service than they are on arrival in the UK. Given the implications for mental health and well-being of a long and perilous journey by sea or in the cargo space of a goods lorry, for example, the compressed timescales of screening and the ‘Detained Fast Track’ procedure would seem inappropriate to say the least.
Screening represents the key opportunity to ‘get it right first time’. Here, as throughout the process, interpreter interventions are crucial and the quality of interpreting, taking into account the specificities of ethnicity, culture and dialect, is paramount. We would support the establishment of an independent body with presence at ports of entry, to also include health professionals and Freedom from Torture specialists, providing a counterpoint to the UKBA screening regime. Applicants meeting certain criteria could be referred across and allowed the time to appreciate that in this country where the rights of refugees are respected under the 1951 Convention, they will not be punished for being homosexual, HIV-positive or for speaking out against government practices.
2. The use of Country of Origin Information and Operational Guidance Notes in determining the outcome of asylum applications
We are mindful of the ‘culture of disbelief’ that we have seen routinely brought to bear in UKBA caseowner assessments of asylum claims and the use of COI/country information to bolster a negative view on a claim. We would support a more flexible, discretionary and circumspect deployment of such information, given that the framework for such reports is often ‘majority world’ orientated with a dependence on ‘theoretical’ guidelines, viz. an approach that does not deny out of hand the existence of an issue, a place or a cultural experience simply because it does not appear in a report. We appreciate that UKBA executive officers and decision-making caseowners are frequently under-trained and over-stretched in the face of very complex narratives and would again point to the establishment of an independent specialist body to support this vital function. The weight and responsibility of making a decision based on country guidance documents can be considerable indeed resulting in an individual being returned to serious physical harm or death (cf. Item 9).
3. The assessment of the credibility of women, the mentally ill, victims of torture and specific nationalities within the decision-making process and whether this is reflected in appeal outcomes
The ‘burden of proof’ bar seems to get higher in concert with the heightening of the ‘culture of disbelief’. Our service excludes no-one who has claimed asylum, makes no pre-judgments and looks at each case on the information presented openly. We acknowledge that there are those in the system who more vulnerable and at risk than others and who often require rarefied support well beyond the knowledge range of more general practitioners; equally, that these individuals are not always easy to identify and to refer on to the services they need: further reason to support the establishment of a specialist body, independent of government imperatives and political priorities, to oversee and intervene in asylum claims from the outset.
Associated with our organisation and willing to provide oral evidence on the life of a long-term stateless person (10 years+) in the UK is Constant Atsin Baka: latjam7@gmail.com
4. The effectiveness of the 5 year review system introduced in 2005
We have observed the following potential effects of the 5-year review system, particularly since the first cases started to come up for review:
- — individuals being granted leave to remain and retaining a similar degree of uncertainty vis-à-vis their future in the medium term as they did whilst in the asylum system proper, with the debilitating effect that can have on decisions around settlement, employment, family planning and self-determination in general; this is equally true of any form of short period of leave to remain, the incidence of which we note has increased in recent times
- — a significant impact on employment opportunities and discrimination whereby the onus for verifying that status has been attained falls to the employer, who would naturally on the whole wish to eschew the risk of fines and the bureaucracy altogether
- — suspension of employment pending Home Office resolution of indefinite leave to remain with potentially permanent consequences
The net effect is that the 5-year review system becomes a punitive mechanism, which quickly allays much of the relief of finally being granted status. Their must surely be considerable costs associated with this further layer of bureaucracy but if it must be retained then the delays associated with granting indefinite leave to remain at five years should be eliminated. The proposal for the more specialist aspects of case resolution to be taken up by an expressly appointed independent body would surely free up the UKBA to attend promptly to these more mundane matters.
5. Whether the system of support to asylum applicants is sufficient and effective and possible improvements
The present system of support is largely sufficient and effective with the clear exception of support by voucher, which is punitive and unremittingly discriminatory against an already vulnerable group. The Section 4 voucher system inevitably incurs further costs in its administration, thereby increasing the potential for errors in loading/charging the cards. It should be abolished forthwith: all funds covered by vouchers invariably enter the bank in the same (cash) format anyway.
6. The prevalence of destitution amongst asylum seekers
Destitution is the inevitable by-product of an asylum system that turns its clients into dependents, eg removing the right to work, and provides a number of opportunities for becoming destitute, however temporary, beyond simply refusing Section 4 applications.
7. Whether the UKBA or third sector organisations should be able to highlight concerns regarding legal practitioners to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority
Where the characteristics of a client group means that they are likely not to be empowered nor have the wherewithal to highlight concerns themselves then the opportunity for other organisations to advocate should be available.
8. Whether the media is balanced in their reporting of asylum issues
Absolutely not; we’re talking about the media.
9. The prevalence of refused asylum seekers who are tortured upon return to their country of origin and how the UK government can monitor this
UKBA is already in possession of some the very statistics that indicate that this is a problem of shattering proportions: For Sri Lanka alone over a 3.5 year period, 15 individuals granted leave to remain who had previously been removed from the UK before suffering torture or equivalent harm in their home country: http://www.freedomfromtorture.org/news-blogs/7104
Huddersfield Asylum Advice Service
April 2013