Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-66)
MR RICHARD
DUNSTAN, MS
RENAE MANN,
MS SALLY
DAGHLIAN AND
MS TWIMUKYE
MUSHAKA
4 DECEMBER 2006
Q60 Lord Judd: Twimukye, I gather
you want to come in on this point, but could you also tell us,
because I understand you have some real anxieties about this,
a bit about your feelings on the negative impact of the media
on this whole situation?
Ms Mushaka: Speaking from an asylum
seeker's point of view, when you have reached the end of the process
and your support has been stopped the next thing you think about
is where is my meal going to come from the next time round, where
am I going to sleep, I am not going to appeal against a system
which has already put me in this position, that is the first point.
The second point relates to the fact that we assume that all asylum
seekers have access to this information. It may be a problem that
people do not know they have the right to appeal. Also, the other
thing we must bear in mind is if the hearing centre is in Croydon,
that is really close to going home. You must be in the position
of an asylum seeker to understand the fear attributed to Croydon.
I would never put myself there if I could avoid it
Q61 Lord Judd: Twimukye, I understand
you have some views you want to share with us on the impact of
the media on all this?
Ms Mushaka: Public perception
of us is 90% fed by the media. The media has labelled us as illegal,
as scroungers even when we do not have that choice because many
of us would be willing to earn our own living if we were given
the chance to do so. When we are picked on as people who just
want to be dependent on the state, that is one negative image.
It affects our social standing in society, it affects our self-esteem,
it devalues our confidence, it devalues our skills which we believe
could contribute to this country, and that is very, very unfortunate.
Q62 Dr Harris: I want to ask about
the vouchers. You mentioned already, Twimukye, the stigma associated,
so you do not have to restate that, but I want to ask you, and
possibly Richard, what actual problems the provision of support
in the form of luncheon vouchers or supermarket vouchers provides
in terms of your needs?
Ms Mushaka: I have already mentioned
that the vouchers stigmatise the users, so I am not going to speak
anymore about that, but the fact that you have no access to money,
there are a lot of other things that one can only buy with money
and not vouchers. I will give an example of traditional appropriate
food. If one wants to buy Halal meat, for example, and it is not
available in the supermarket, then if you have a voucher you have
no option but to exchange your voucher for less value. The other
problem people often face is the fact that they have no money
for other things which may not necessarily be present in the supermarket.
For example, if I want to buy a phonecard to contact some friends
which may be cheaper and the supermarket does not have a phonecard,
it is only there at the corner shop. Those are some of the challenges
people face in not having access to money. While the voucher is
valued in terms of money, it is not hard cash and that makes it
a limitation.
Ms Daghlian: May I add to that
because I think sometimes people think things like telephones
and telephone cards are luxuries and for asylum seekers they are
absolutely essential. People are often in situations where they
are separated from their families, they need to try and keep in
touch with their legal advisers, they have to keep in touch with
the Home Office and they have to be able to do all of the normal
things which we do by telephone these days. I want to emphasise
the point that it is very much a practical issue and does create
hardship for people not being able to access things like telephone
cards and not being able to buy cleaning materials or goods, as
I mentioned earlier, like nappies.
Q63 Lord Plant of Highfield: That
is a good answer.
Ms Mushaka: The other thing also
is that somebody on section 4 support may not have a landline
so they have no access to a telephone line of their own. Buying
a card allows you to go into a telephone booth and make any contacts
you need to make at that point in time.
Mr Dunstan: I endorse everything
which is being said about the difficulties of not being able to
access certain goods and services without cash, such as transport,
not being able to use telephones, not being able to use a laundrette,
but I want to introduce another side of it which is as well as
being very inhumane, it is also incredibly inefficient. The Home
Office is currently going through a rather bizarre process of
drafting regulations under the most recent Act to specify in what
situations the accommodation providers can provide additional
support for making journeys to see legal advisers, to see doctors
and to make telephone calls. The bureaucracy that is going to
be established simply to enable people to undertake extremely
basic activity is really quite mind-blowing. From everyone's point
of view, it would be so much easier to give people cash. I really
do not understand the Government's intransigence on this point.
Q64 Lord Plant of Highfield: Do you
think making a section 95 sum available would solve that problem?
Mr Dunstan: I think all support
should be in the form of cash. As I think has already been said,
section 4 support should disappear in the sense that its terms
and level of support should be exactly the same as section 95.
What it is called is irrelevant and if the Home Office wants to
call it something else for accounting purposes, that is fine.
Q65 Lord Plant of Highfield: I did
not mean that, I meant is the level of support you get on section
95, low though it is, sufficient to meet some of these problems
which you think are specifically to do with section 4?
Mr Dunstan: It is not sufficient.
I think I gave the figures earlier, section 95 is £44.22
and section 4 is £35. The only reason I have been able to
unearth for that is that since people started getting cash or
voucher payments in 2002 or 2003 no-one in the Home Office has
thought to uprate the level of section 4 support in contrast to
section 95, which is pegged to income support levels and is uprated
automatically every April.
Ms Mushaka: Can I also share one
limitation I know about from our members on section 4 support.
It is the fact that it places a requirement on the claimant that
they must agree to go back home. It goes back to what I said at
the beginning, people will only agree to section 4 support if
they know their lives are not in danger, therefore they would
be willing to return home when the time came. That is a limitation.
A lot of people do not even give themselves up for the option
of section 4 support because it creates that limitation of wanting
you to go home at the end of the day.
Q66 Lord Plant of Highfield: Are
there any final comments you want to make? I think we have gone
through all the questions we need to ask.
Ms Daghlian: I would like to raise,
because it has not come up, the issue of people with special care
needs who are experiencing particularly distressing circumstances,
especially when they are living on section 4 support. We have
had a particular problem in Scotland because of the devolved legislation
and the Home Office not always recognising that the system is
different in Scotland, so NASS policy papers are based on English
systems in English legislation. We have had particular difficulties
in securing social work support for some clients who are deemed
to have needs greater than those which can be met by NASS. One
very tragic example of that recently was a section 4 client who
had been refused support and assistance by social work services
and tragically, and very publicly, committed suicide, jumping
from a tower block. Obviously that is very extreme, but I think
it illustrates the distress that many people are facing. When
on top of the distress and difficulty you experience trying to
eke out a living under section 4, you add to that physical or
mental health difficulties, then it leads people to increasingly
desperate courses of action. That is something all the advice
agencies in the UK are experiencing, that increasingly the people
who come to see us are in very, very desperate circumstances and
are very, very distressed.
Lord Plant of Highfield: Thank you very
much indeed.
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