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The Lord Bishop of Hereford: I rise to add a brief comment. I cannot say that this debate has conjured in my mind an image of Aeneas carrying his aged father out of the flames, but it has brought to mind those gaunt, forbidding buildings which one can still come across on country roads. They were provided as a result of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 to cater for those who somehow had to be helped. But the principle behind the Act was that the lives of those people should be less eligible than those of any other members of the community.
I believe that that is something which lies behind the inadequate provision made for asylum seekers. By fixing the level of support at 70 per cent of income support, then by definition those people must be regarded as less eligible. Again and again the Minister has tried to persuade the Committee that accommodation centres will be desirable places and will provide better for asylum seekers than will any other form of accommodation.
I believe that the matter of financial support is deeply serious. If we want this to be a country where asylum seekers are treated in a civilised manner, we should not set their income at a level that makes them in every way less eligible than is the lot of other people—in the sense of the 19th century legislation to which I have referred.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, has pointed out most eloquently the needs of people who arrive from very different climates and their lack of access to the Social Fund. I warmly support the amendment.
Lord Filkin: I was beginning to be encouraged by the economy with which the noble Earl, Lord Russell, advanced his own cause, indicated mine and gave a resolution of the two. On that basis we would make considerable progress.
He is substantially right in his conjecture as to what I shall say. Nevertheless, let me explain why I cannot accept Amendment No. 120. It would mean that the cash support that we provide to accommodation centre residents would have to be the same as the equivalent income support allowance. Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 established the principle of treating asylum support separately from the mainstream benefits system. Providing asylum seekers with cash to exactly the same value as income support would undermine that principle.
Concerns have been expressed about the value of NASS support. It is not correct to say that NASS support is worth only 70 per cent of income support. Taken as a package, NASS accommodation and support is broadly equivalent to what an asylum seeker would receive if he or she qualified for income support. The reason for this is, as the Committee knows, that NASS accommodation is fully furnished and includes
all utility bills—heating, lighting and hot water—kitchen utensils and equipment, crockery, cutlery, towels and bedding. These items would not normally be provided to a person in receipt of income support and housing benefit.We intend to take the same approach for accommodation centres, where of course utility bills will be paid centrally and items such as bed linen will be provided by the accommodation centre itself. It would therefore be unfair to provide accommodation centre residents with full income support because that would mean that the value of their support would be greater than that of a person settled in dispersed accommodation.
Our original intention was to provide accommodation centre residents with the majority of their support in kind with only a small cash allowance for incidental expenses. We set out this policy in the White Paper. However, as I indicated yesterday, we have reviewed this policy in the light of the response to the White Paper and what we know of European accommodation centres. We have decided that it is important to allow asylum seekers to cook for themselves, to provide a degree of autonomy over their day-to-day lives and to avoid encouraging institutionalisation. We shall therefore pay asylum seekers a subsistence allowance, in cash, to enable them to purchase food and other goods.
We are still considering precisely how much this cash allowance should be, but we intend that it should be in the region of full NASS subsistence support and certainly substantially more than the pocket money we originally planned. We will consider carefully the case for any variations in support between NASS and accommodation centres and will ensure that any variations are justified. It is important that the value of support in the two systems is broadly comparable.
For the reasons that I have given, I hope that noble Lords will understand why we cannot accept an amendment that would require us to pay accommodation centre residents full income support levels. Not only would they receive more than their counterparts supported by NASS but, because of the value of the in-kind support which centre residents will receive, they would be receiving total support worth more than the income support provided to people settled here. While my reply may not have surprised the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.
Earl Russell: I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford for his support. The Church is still the only institution represented in every parish in the country. It is therefore a valuable witness to the level of poverty and does a great deal of good which is very much appreciated.
The Minister's calculations about the equivalence of the NASS package to income support seem to have been, at some stage in their life, somewhere near the Treasury. I remember what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, had to say about the Treasury before the dinner adjournment. I agree with her. I also agree with
what my colleague Susan Kramer had to say about the Treasury—that is, that no self-respecting business would allow its finance department so much power.It is not only the social fund which is missing from this package but the whole range of access to passported benefits. I had hoped to table an amendment on this but I gather that it is still floating around the e-ether and has not yet reached me. The Minister can expect to see it on Report. I do not believe that the Minister is right about the package.
He is of course right about self-catering, which I welcomed yesterday. But, if one thinks about the problem that I raised then of buying tropical produce in Worcestershire, it is, if one can do it at all, likely to be rather expensive. If they are able to take advantage of the self-catering which is intended, many people will be buying things which are a good deal more expensive than in their country of origin—and if they cannot do that, what is the point of self-catering. So there will be a cost.
As to the amount of cash to be provided, in Standing Committee in the other place on 9th May, Angela Eagle said at col. 174 that the Government were thinking about a range of £5 to £14 but that no final decisions have yet been made. Not even a student is expected to undertake self-catering for that kind of cost. Nor, indeed, as these people will be placed in remote places, are they likely to be able to afford the journey on that amount.
When we had a debate on poverty in February 2000, I remember the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans drawing attention to someone who, with £60 a week of benefit, was spending a tenth of her benefit simply on going to the benefit office to claim it. That is a factor of putting accommodation centres in remote locations, which is likely to mean that almost the whole of the cash, if provided at that level, will be used to subsidise rural bus services. I have no objection to subsidising rural bus services, but I do not believe that we should rely on a supply of cheap asylum seekers to do it. There are better ways of doing that job.
The Minister is right to speculate that I intend to withdraw this amendment at this time of the day. However, it is a matter about which he can expect to hear more before the Bill is over. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Filkin moved Amendment No. 121:
- Page 13, line 26, leave out paragraph (b).
The noble Lord said: This amendment deletes subsection (2)(b) of Clause 26, in response to concerns raised in the other place.
Subsection (2)(b) would allow the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring the manager of an accommodation centre to determine the amount of money to be provided to a centre resident. We included it in the Bill because we believed that the flexibility to allow local decisions would be helpful. However, concerns were expressed about placing decisions
relating to the amount of money that asylum seekers receive into the hands of someone who is not a public servant. There were fears that that position might be abused, that arbitrary decisions might be made or that centre managers might have incentives to minimise the amount of cash handed out. We have listened to the concerns raised.Because a manager would have been able to take decisions only in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State, there were safeguards. However, we have reviewed the position and have concluded that it is not necessary to be able to take local decisions about the money that we give to centre residents. In practice, all decisions will be taken by the Secretary of State. Clause 26(2)(b) is therefore unnecessary, and we have decided to delete it. I beg to move.
Earl Russell: Without wasting words, I warmly welcome this amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Filkin moved Amendment No. 121A:
- Page 13, line 28, at end insert—
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