Homelessness among Refugees

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

It is truly a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and others who have all made such great contributions. I will not repeat what others have said. I will move on to a specific aspect, which, I am afraid to say, is possibly outside the Minister’s area of responsibility. None the less, it is entirely relevant to the topic under discussion: the right to work.

First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is chair of the all-party group on migration, for securing this important debate and for working so closely with me as chair of the all-party group on refugees. We work closely together and I am very pleased about that.

I launched the “Refugees Welcome?” report just before the general election last year. The APPG on refugees produced it after an inquiry of many months. We took evidence from refugees, refugee organisations, local authorities and health organisations. There are copies available: my office has paper copies, but it is also online. We looked at various things, some of which the Government have now taken up. I am pleased about that and I thank them for doing so. For instance, the issue of national insurance numbers—my hon. Friend mentioned their inclusion in documents—was holding up many refugees needlessly and pointlessly, but that is supposed to have been sorted out now. I am still getting evidence that it is not completely fixed, but at least the intention is clear.

On the 28-day move-on period, we kept finding more and more egregious examples of how it ended up turning into destitution and homelessness. The impact of detention and the two-tier system between the resettlement scheme and refugees who come via the asylum route have also been mentioned. That is not directly relevant today, but some of the things we picked up had a specific impact on homelessness. As my hon. Friend has said, the 28 days turns from delirium to despair. The news that someone is being given refugee status should be a day of joy and celebration, but for many refugees it very quickly turns to despair when they realise that they will become either homeless or destitute—or both—within 28 days, for reasons that others have mentioned.

Our report recommended a move to 56 days, which would be coterminous with the universal credit timetable, so it makes sense. I urge the Minister to urge his colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions to reconsider the matter, because that would be most useful. I must thank Jon Featonby, previously of the Refugee Council but now of the Red Cross, for his help with the report, particularly the careful drafting.

On the right to work, I thank Forced Migration Review for its June 2018 edition on refugees and economies. Such a focus would really help to prevent refugee homeless. Even though the issue is a DWP competence, it is relevant to the Minister’s work at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I also refer him to the fact that the integration strategy—it is not a refugee integration strategy, which I would like—is part of MHCLG’s competence, and I want him to re-examine that strategy’s specific impact on refugees.

The 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees affords refugees the right to work. I want to be clear: our legal obligations require us to give refugees the right to work. When we give refugee status, they are able to work. However, there are problems with waiting until that point. Nearly half of the 145 states that are party to the convention declare reservations in applying the right to work. Even those that do apply the right to work usually impose conditions and limitations. There is very little consistency in implementing the right to work and there are significant variations among those countries.

We should consider some examples of good practice in order to help prevent refugee destitution and homelessness. Jordan, a non-signatory country, provides a quota of work permits. Turkey is not a particularly wealthy country, but it has 3.3 million refugees and they can apply for work permits after six months. In Chad and Uganda, refugees are allowed to settle in host communities and some are granted arable land for agricultural purposes. In Ethiopia, the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Government of Ethiopia collaborate on an out-of-camp policy, which relaxes conditions of residence and movement so that refugees can work. They can set up their own businesses both inside and outside camps.

In Kenya, community organisations help refugees with language classes and links to employment and support. In the UK, various businesses are active, including Starbucks, Ben and Jerry’s, IKEA and, I am sure, others. I declare an interest, because I hosted a dinner recently for Starbucks to discuss its refugee employment programmes. I urge right hon. and hon. Members to consider the role played by private industry. When private industry wants to take a responsible role, we should welcome that, and I do.

In Bristol, as in countries across the United Kingdom, volunteers and campaigning groups such as Bristol Refugee Rights, Borderlands, Bristol Hospitality Network and others do fantastic work to prevent refugee homelessness and to help refugees into work in order to prevent homelessness and destitution. Yet refugees and asylum seekers tell me of their frustrations at not being able to work sooner and of the gaps that that imposes on their CVs. They tell me of the limitations on volunteering.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

While people wait for a decision, after 12 months they can apply to work but only in jobs on the shortage occupation list. Is that not one of the barriers? Should not that stipulation be dropped?