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Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
3.6 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Filkin): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Filkin.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Ampthill) in the Chair.]
Clause 15 [Support for destitute asylum-seeker]:
Lord Bhatia moved Amendment No. 107A:
- Page 9, line 16, at end insert "and
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 107A, I shall speak also to Clauses 31 and 32. I want to focus on the issue of education for children. Perhaps I may relate to the Committee the experience that I, as an immigrant, have had when dealing with children.
The children who come with their families as immigrants are, in many cases, in a highly disturbed mental state. They have been asked to leave their homes without understanding why their families have suddenly decided to leave their country and to settle in a new one. Their minds are full of fear because of what they hear from their parents. They do not understand what is being said, but the fear stems from hearing their parents talking, in some cases, about prisons and police. One fine morning their family decides to leave their country, more often than not clandestinely and without a specific or normal form of transport.
Such children arrive in this country satisfied by the one notion which their parents are able to give them—that they are going to a country that is free and fair and to a home where they may be able to settle down without fear or isolation. Those are the children who arrive with their parents in this country. The impressions they carry from the past are those of repression, persecution, prison and so forth. Their expectations are of coming to a free country. They hope to find sanctuary, as their parents tell them.
On both those issues, the children are in a confused state, to say the least. My amendment deals with that situation. One of the things the children probably most understand is that they will attend school as soon as they reach England. If a child suddenly finds that he is being isolated from normal schools, which perhaps are just outside the centre, and that he is expected to attend a specially designed education centre within the accommodation centre, that could bring back images of isolation, persecution and all the other issues which are in the minds of children who arrive here.
Clauses 31 and 32 remove the duty on the local education authorities to provide education for children in accommodation centres. That means that children in the centres will no longer have the right to be educated in mainstream schools. My amendments would remove those clauses and require that families with children of school age may be placed in accommodation centres only if there are school places available locally.
The issue was not debated in the House of Commons. That is a great shame, given the depth and breadth of feeling about it. Indeed, over 140 MPs, over 100 of whom were Labour, signed a Motion calling on the Government to withdraw this part of the Bill. As a result of some of that pressure, the Home Secretary offered to ensure that after six months the education of
The Government have also sought to justify the proposal by saying that most asylum seekers who end up being recognised as refugees will remain in accommodation centres for only two months. But in the Standing Committee, in response to calls for a six-month time limit on a stay in an accommodation centre, Angela Eagle said that six months was "a tough call" in terms of processing claims.
Segregated education is regressive and discriminatory. Our education system should be freely available to all children living in this country, as was envisaged when it was created. To say that a child's refugee status should determine whether they can attend mainstream school is a dangerous and unprecedented attack on the principle of universal access to mainstream schools.
The concept of "separate but equal" was discredited decades ago. What is more, such an argument misses the point. Opposition to this proposal is grounded not on differing opinions on the nature of the quality of the education that will be provided, but on the fundamental principle that is at stake. That principle is simple: no group of schoolchildren should be compulsorily educated separately from other children on the basis of their immigration status.
It is interesting to note that some of the arguments used by the Government to defend this policy were also used to defend vouchers. We were told that vouchers would be equal to what other people receive, only different, and that they would be necessary for short periods, so the strong opposition was unwarranted. Vouchers were abolished and I believe that this discriminatory policy on education for children will fail, like all other discriminatory policies before it.
Children (like adults) and asylum seekers (like all of us) have fundamental human rights. Those are set out in detail in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK signed up in 1991. The convention makes clear that rights within it must apply to all children without discrimination. Furthermore, Article 28 sets out a child's right to be educated on the basis of equal opportunity and states that different forms of secondary education should be available and accessible to every child. It is difficult to see how refusing refugee children access to mainstream schools could not be in violation of Article 28.
Article 3 of the convention is also relevant. It states that in all actions concerning children,
I strongly contest any assertion that the best interests of the child are guiding this policy. The Government state that it will be better for children seeking asylum to be educated separately, but that flies in the face of what we are told by the charities and organisations which work with such children. On what evidence is the claim that the children will be better off
The list of experts and broad spectrum of organisations fiercely opposed to the education proposals on the basis that they are not in the interests of children and violate their rights includes: Save the Children; the Refugee Council; the T&G Union; the Children's Society; the National Union of Teachers; the National Society for the Protection of Children; the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association; Barnardo's; Oxfam, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers; UNICEF, and many others.
Children seeking asylum have deep concerns about the proposals. One child consulted by Save the Children said that they would feel as if they were in prison if they were not allowed to go to the local school from the accommodation centres. Another pointed out that they would learn English more quickly if they went to school. The Joint Committee on Human Rights recently issued its report on the Bill. In respect of education proposals the report stated in paragraph 62:
It is difficult to see how this disturbing policy squares with the Government's broader social inclusion agenda, particularly in terms of ensuring that the same opportunities are available to all children in the UK, whatever their circumstances. Elsewhere, the Government are making strenuous efforts to promote inclusion and integration. Those efforts will clearly be undermined by the ramifications of the segregated education system. The draft children's strategy published by the Children's and Young People's Unit at the end of 2001 states:
Proposals to provide services and to educate refugee children separately will have a long-term detrimental effect on their development and successful integration into society.
Save the Children works with children seeking asylum in this country and, based on its experience, believes that inclusion is a vital ingredient of rehabilitation. It has found that mainstream schools are the ideal starting point for refugee children to rebuild their lives and to enable the genuine inclusion of all children and their families in our communities. The structure and routine of a regular school day can help to provide a sense of normality and security in a child's life, which is vital to promoting their emotional, educational and social well being.
It is interesting—and disturbing—to consider what kind of messages we are sending to the public by not just sanctioning a system of segregated education but actually creating one. There is surely a danger that that kind of measure has the unintended but predictable consequence of giving oxygen to prejudice and signalling to the public that discriminatory treatment of asylum seekers is acceptable. It is a sad lesson to teach children that if you are different you are set apart.
The status of children seeking asylum as asylum seekers should always take second place to their status as children. Uppermost in our minds as we formulate policies that affect these vulnerable children should be a clear and a genuine desire to discharge our duties to protect and care for them and at all times to promote their best interests.
If Amendment No. 107A is accepted, Clauses 31 and 32 would be redundant as refugee children would be educated in mainstream schools. I beg to move.
( ) there is a place available in an appropriate maintained school for any dependant of school age"
"the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration".
"We understand the disquiet which has been expressed at the prospect of removing the children of destitute asylum-seekers residing in accommodation centres from mainstream schools, and educating them separately in accommodation centres. It gives rise to troubling echoes of historical educational regimes in some other countries where children were educated separately on the basis of race or colour, under the now discredited pretence that the separate provision was equal. Separate education on the basis of ethnicity or national origin breeds and entrenches social and educational inequality and inhibits or even deters integration".
"We believe that all policies and services for children and young people should be: Equitable and non-discriminatory. All children and young people should have access to, and be enabled to participate in, services that they need, when they need them, in a way which respects diversity and their individual needs."
It would be interesting to know how much the Home Office talked to colleagues in the Children's and Young People's Unit and in the DfES when this policy was formulated. It certainly does not inspire confidence in the Government's claim to be promoting joined-up thinking across departments. It is important to recognise that for children, integration cannot wait until a final positive decision has been made on their asylum claims. What may be a relatively short period for an adult can seem like a lifetime for a child and represents a significant part of childhood and development.
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