Nationality and Borders Bill (Eighth sitting)

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:

Amendment 161, in clause 10, page 13, line 40, at end insert—

“(10) Nothing within the Act or this section authorises any treatment or action which is inconsistent with the UK’s obligations under the Refugee Convention.”

This amendment seeks to ensure consistency of clause 10 with the UK’s obligations under the Refugee Convention.

Clause stand part.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

The Opposition strongly oppose the clause. We believe that it contravenes the 1951 refugee convention, that it sets a dangerous precedent by creating a two-tiered system for refugees and that it is deeply inhumane. The clause seeks to dehumanise refugees in many insidious ways, and I believe that it threatens our very sense of who we are as a civilised nation. I will set out all the ways in which the clause does that, but before I begin, I would again like to thank the many organisations from across the refugee and asylum sector for their invaluable help in our scrutiny of the clause.

I will talk first about the differential treatment of refugees in groups 1 and 2. As all members of this Committee will know, at the heart of clause 10 is the creation of two tiers of refugee under UK law. Only those refugees who meet specific additional “requirements” will be considered group 1 refugees and benefit from the rights currently granted to all refugees by the refugee convention. Under clause 10 of the Bill, the requirements for group 1 refugees are that

“they have come to the United Kingdom directly from a country or territory where their life or freedom was threatened (in the sense of Article 1 of the Refugee Convention), and…they have presented themselves without delay to the authorities.”

The clause also states:

“Where a refugee has entered or is present in the United Kingdom unlawfully, the additional requirement is that they can show good cause for their unlawful entry or presence.”

Other refugees, who are not deemed to meet the criteria, will be designated as group 2 refugees. The Secretary of State will be empowered to draft rules discriminating against group 2 refugees with regard to the rights to which they are entitled under the refugee convention, as well as the fundamental human right to family unity.

To explain this differentiation between refugee groups further, clause 10 makes provision for different treatment of people recognised as refugees on the basis of how they travelled to the UK and the point at which they presented themselves to authorities. Those who travelled via a third country, do not have documents or did not claim asylum immediately would routinely be designated as group 2 refugees. The clause goes on to set out how the length of limited leave, access to indefinite leave, family reunion and access to public funds are likely to become areas for discriminating against group 2 refugees.

The Opposition strongly argue that such an approach is deeply flawed and fundamentally unfair. Furthermore, the attempt to create two different classes of recognised refugee is inconsistent with the refugee convention and has no basis in international law. The refugee convention contains a single, unitary definition of refugee, which is found in article 1A(2). That defines a refugee solely according to their need for international protection because of feared persecution on the grounds of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Anyone who meets that definition and is not excluded is a refugee and entitled to the protection of the refugee convention. We heard in evidence from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative to the UK that in her opinion this clause and the Bill were inconsistent with the UN convention and international law.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the UNHCR, which is the guardian of the refugee convention. Does he agree with me that on that basis, if we are to listen to anybody’s opinion about this issue, it would be the UNHCR and that should be therefore the final word on it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. It is not just the UNHCR. It is the custodian of the UN refugee convention, so we should listen to what it says, but many other commentators across the board have commented on how this clause and the Bill breach international law, and we need to heed what they say. I have yet to see the Government’s legal advice that says that they do comply with international law, but hopefully that will be available.

I will set out for the Committee the reasons why the distinction between groups of refugees is so unfair and inhumane. I will start by addressing the issue of distinguishing between refugees on the basis of how they arrived in the UK. By penalising refugees for how they were able to get to the UK, the Bill builds walls against people in need of protection and slams the door shut on many seeking a safe haven. Most refugees have absolutely no choice about how they travel, as people on all sides of the political divide understand.

Do the Government seriously intend to penalise refugees who may have found irregular routes out of Afghanistan? In fact, Government Ministers have been on national news programmes in recent weeks, urging such a course of action for those wishing to flee Afghanistan. Are the Government saying that people are less deserving of our support if they have had to take dangerous journeys? Is an interpreter from Afghanistan who took a dangerous journey to our shores less deserving than a refugee who was lucky enough to make it here on one of the flights out of the country?

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that those who fought alongside or were trained by UK forces, or who guarded our diplomatic personnel in Kabul, were betrayed in being left behind and are being doubly betrayed by the provisions in the Bill?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and he is absolutely right. People linked to my constituents are Chevening scholars who were told to go to Kabul airport. They got no assistance and are still stuck in Afghanistan, with no way to get out. It is deeply concerning, and they feel let down.

It clearly makes no sense to seek to penalise and, in some cases, even criminalise those who have been forced to take dangerous journeys. In our view, it is an insidious way of dehumanising a group of people who deserve our support—it is victim blaming of the most crass and immoral type. Penalising people for how they have arrived in the UK has particular implications for already vulnerable groups of refugees, such as women and those from LGBT communities. Women are often compelled to take irregular routes to reach safety, as we can see only too clearly in Afghanistan. There are simply no safe and legal routes that exist. Even the Government’s much-vaunted resettlement scheme relies on women escaping from a regime in which they are forbidden to walk around freely in the streets.

In many cases, even if the Government created new safe routes from dangerous parts of the world, they would simply not be available to all those in need of protection. Many women would not be able to safely reach an embassy or cross a border to access a resettlement programme, if those routes did indeed exist. Some women would be able to disclose their need for protection only once they reached a country that they considered safe. Under the proposed changes, however, women who arrive irregularly, including through a safe third country, would be penalised. Furthermore, a woman could be prosecuted, criminalised and imprisoned for one to four years. All these obstacles apply to those from LGBT communities as well. We simply ask the Government: how on earth does this draconian and inhumane treatment of vulnerable groups sit alongside British values of fairness?

Another huge flaw in this part of clause 10 is that many of the journeys facilitated by people smugglers are undoubtedly dangerous. Much attention has been directed by the Home Secretary and certain sectors of the press to the minority of people who enter the UK’s asylum system via boat crossings of the channel. However, that is far from the only dangerous journey that is made to enter the UK; the Home Secretary emphasised that when referring to the tragedy of the 39 Vietnamese people who lost their lives in a container found by Essex police in 2019.

Again, as the Home Secretary identified in her speech, the dangers are not limited to the journeys but are also a feature of the violent and exploitative treatment by people smugglers, traffickers and other abusers. Moreover, many of the people who make dangerous journeys to reach the UK from the continent will already have made dangerous journeys by land and sea, including across the Mediterranean.

The fallacy of the Government’s position in penalising people for making irregular routes to the UK is the same as the fallacy inherent in the stated objective of breaking the business model of people smugglers. Unless the Government can provide safe routes—they plainly have not done so in the case of Afghanistan and elsewhere—penalising people for making unsafe journeys is simply cruel. By not providing safe routes, the Government are also fuelling the business model of people smugglers and then penalising the victims they have a responsibility for creating. Do they not understand or are they simply willing to turn a blind eye? In America in the 1920s, prohibition drove the sale of alcohol underground, and a similar thing will happen here: more people smuggling will take place rather than less. The Government are fuelling the people smuggling business model.

It appears that Ministers and those advising them do not appreciate the compulsion to make these journeys, which is strange because they clearly acknowledge that the journeys are very dangerous and sometimes fatal. They are often highly traumatic, physically and mentally, and generally involve at some point extremely violent and cruelly exploitative people.

To give one example, it has long been documented that there is a practice among the women and girls seeking to cross the Mediterranean from Libya of taking contraceptive medication prior to the journey. That is because those women and girls anticipate that they will be raped. Do Ministers have any idea of the desperation involved in making the decision to take such medication? It is clear that although the women and girls fully understand the danger involved in the journeys, they are still compelled to make them, because the alternative of not doing so is even worse.

If people truly had a reason to believe that they were or would be safe where they are, they would not make the journeys. Simply making the journey more dangerous or the asylum system more unwelcoming will not change that. A salutary lesson ought to be taken from the example in 2014 when pressure from the EU, then including the UK, led to Italy’s decision to abandon its organised search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean. The immediate impact over several months before the Government relented was a huge increase in the number of people dead. The need for the journeys had not changed, so the journeys continued. The dangers of the journeys were greatly increased, so hundreds more people lost their lives. Discriminating against refugees obliged to arrive spontaneously will not prevent desperate people from making dangerous journeys. There is strong evidence that a policy focused on closing borders forces migrants and refugees to take more dangerous journeys and leaves them more vulnerable to traffickers.

That brings me to section 2(a) of the clause, which states that group 1 refugees must have

“come to the United Kingdom directly from a country or territory where their life or freedom was threatened”.

In other words, the Government are setting an expectation that to be a refugee who is supposedly deserving of the support usually afforded, the UK must be the first safe country in which they have sought asylum. I cannot state strongly enough how requiring refugees to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach would undermine the global, humanitarian and co-operative principles on which the refugee system is founded. The UK played a key role in developing those principles 70 years ago when it helped draft the refugee convention, and, together with the other members of the United Nations General Assembly, it recently reaffirmed them in the global compact on refugees.

The proposed clause designed around the maxim that asylum seekers should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach and can be penalised if they do not, including by being designated as group 2 refugees, will impact not only refugees but fellow host states and the ability to seek global, co-operative solutions to global challenges.

The expectation that refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach is also unworkable in practice. The Government are aware that there are 34.4 million refugees and asylum seekers worldwide, and the vast majority—73%—are already hosted in countries neighbouring their countries of origin. Some 86% are hosted in developing countries. Low-income countries already host 86% of the world’s refugees compared with the UK, which hosts just 0.5%. To insist that refugees claim asylum in the first safe country they reach would impose an even more disproportionate responsibility on the first safe countries both in Europe and further afield, and threaten the capacity and willingness of those countries to provide protection and long-term solutions. In turn, that would overwhelm the countries’ hosting capacity and encourage onward movement.

It is also worth noting that even within Europe most of the countries that refugees pass through on their way to the UK already host significantly more refugees and asylum seekers per population than the UK does. According to the Home Office’s own statistics, the UK is 17th in terms of the numbers it takes, measured per head of population.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that very few other countries resettle as many refugees as the United Kingdom or take as many through safe channels from United Nations camps in some of the most troubled parts of the world?

[Bambos Charalambous]

Since Dublin 3 ended, there are very few resettlement routes available. That is one of the problems. Unless there are safe resettlement routes, we are just fuelling dangerous journeys.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is repeatedly asserted that the UK has an exceptional record in terms of resettlement. It has a decent one; it is about mid-ranking in the European Union, in terms of the number it has taken per head of population over the years. Similarly, it is mid-ranking in terms of the number of asylum cases it assesses. It is good, but it is not exceptional and it is not a justification for the measures in this Bill.

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Unless safe routes are developed, all that will happen is that there will be an increase in dangerous crossings, because that will be the only way in which people can reach the UK.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

As we have already discussed, the majority of the people who come to our shores come from France. There is a safe route from France. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting we should give these people Eurostar tickets?

[Bambos Charalambous]

France takes three times more asylum seekers than the UK, as does Germany. As I mentioned, the UK is 17th by population in the number of asylum seekers it takes. The right hon. Gentleman is being slightly disingenuous. There are many other countries—Lebanon, for instance, has taken 1.9 million refugees from Syria. Jordan has taken 1 million over the last 10 years. Turkey has taken 4.3 million refugees. We are talking about a tiny fraction of those numbers. I think we need to stand up and take our share of the refugees. These countries will collapse if they are forced to take refugees because they neighbour countries where there is conflict.

[Neil Coyle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a bit of a dichotomy here? People talk up the tradition and reputation of the UK at the same time as presenting legislation that undermines that reputation. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that global Britain seems less compassionate, less generous and less Christian than the Great Britain that proudly helped draft the refugee convention?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The refugee convention was enshrined in UK law in 1954 when Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister. It was one of his beliefs, and that of the Government of the day, that it was a very important part of the UK’s global position in the world. We should not do anything that would trash our reputation, because we will all be diminished by that.

The clause makes no practical or moral sense at all. Global provision for refugees could not function if all refugees claimed asylum in the first safe country they came to. As Members across the political divide know, most refugees are hosted in developing countries and the UK receives fewer asylum applications than most other European countries. Furthermore, it is an important aim of the refugee convention that there should be no penalisation of refugees who arrive irregularly. It is very important to make that point and to repeat the point that the refugee convention does not state that refugees must claim asylum in the first safe country they come to; it permits refugees to cross borders irregularly to claim asylum.

Let me give the Committee an example to illustrate why this part of the refugee convention is so vital. This is a real-life scenario that faced a refugee to the UK, who, in this situation, I am going to call Aaron.

Aaron is a refugee who travelled to the UK via other countries. He was a young teenager when he had to leave Eritrea without his family. His father had been conscripted into the country’s brutal military service and came home to see his family. When he left again, he told his family that he was going back to his base, but he never showed up there. The family did not know anything about his whereabouts. The military came to Aaron’s house looking for his father and told Aaron’s mother that they would take her children, including Aaron, if they could not find his father. Aaron had no choice but to leave. He says:

“People really suffer. They don’t want to leave their country but their country forces them because military service in Eritrea is the worst thing. You have to serve the military forever. There is no life, there is nothing.”

He left Eritrea and spent two years looking for safety before arriving in the UK. He travelled via Sudan and Libya, both of which were very dangerous. He then went to Italy, where he felt unsafe sleeping outside under bridges, and to France, where he ended up in the Calais jungle. He explained:

“They didn’t treat us like human beings”,

Aaron came to the UK in the back of a lorry. “I wasn’t expecting anything,” he remembers,

“I just escaped to keep my life, to be safe. That’s the most important thing.”

He was initially refused asylum and had to submit a fresh claim. He was in the UK asylum system for seven years before finally being recognised as a refuge—and as having been one all along. He now plans to study IT.

Under international law, the primary responsibility for identifying refugees and affording international protection rests with the state in which an asylum seeker arrives and seeks that protection. The idea of seeking asylum in the first safe country is unfair, unworkable and illegal in international law.

That brings me on to the suggested strictures on group 2 refugees in clause 10(6), which sets out a non-exhaustive list of ways in which refugees who arrive irregularly may be treated differently, with reduced leave to remain, more limited refugee family reunion rights, and limited access to welfare benefits. The explanatory notes for the Bill state:

“The purpose of this is to discourage asylum seekers from travelling to the UK other than via safe and legal routes. It aims to influence the choices that migrants may make when leaving their countries of origin—encouraging individuals to seek asylum in the first safe country they reach after fleeing persecution, avoiding dangerous journeys across Europe.”

However, the Government have provided no evidence to show that the stated aim will result from the policy.

Evidence from many refugee organisations suggests that refugees seek asylum in the UK for a range of reasons, such as proficiency in English, family links or a common heritage based on past colonial histories. Many sector organisations have told us that refugees do not cite the level of leave granted or other elements of the asylum system as decisive factors. In fact, it seems likely that those are not even details refugees would tend to be aware of.

However, the proposed strictures will certainly result in a refugee population who are less secure, because they have a shorter amount of leave and are less able to integrate because they have reduced access to refugee family reunion. They will punish those who have been recognised, through the legal system, as needing international protection—girls fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan, Christian converts fleeing theocracy in Iran or Uyghurs fleeing genocide in China.

These strictures are likely to retraumatise people who have already been subjected to horrific abuse. To take one example in more detail, clause 10(5) gives the Home Secretary broad discretion to set the length of any limited period of leave given to group 2 refugees, such that they may be indefinitely liable for removal. Both the new plan for immigration and the Bill’s explanatory notes confirm that group 2 refugees who have a well-founded fear of persecution will be given only temporary protection status—no more than 30 months, according to the new plan—after which they will be reassessed for return or removal. The extreme uncertainty that this will cause, along with the inability for people to move forward with their lives, is tantamount to inflicting mental cruelty.

The explanatory notes also state that 62% of asylum claims in the UK up until September 2019 were from people who entered irregularly. This means the policy intention is to impose strictures on the rights and entitlements of the majority of refugees coming to the UK, even though we take fewer than comparable countries, as has been noted.

Furthermore, these strictures would deny recognised refugees rights guaranteed to them under the refugee convention and international law. They would also create a series of significant civil and criminal penalties that would target the majority of refugees who will seek asylum in the UK. Those penalties would target not just those who had entered the UK irregularly or who had made dangerous journeys, but all those who have not come directly to the UK—regularly or irregularly—from a country or territory where their life or freedom was threatened; those who have delayed claiming asylum or overstayed; and even those who arrive in the UK without entry clearance and who claim asylum immediately.

In short, these strictures can only be seen as cruel and as a way to obstruct integration. Barriers to resettlement in the UK would force refugees to live under the perpetual threat of expulsion, denied a chance to rebuild their lives. Subjecting refugees to no recourse to public funds conditions would leave refugees vulnerable to destitution and exploitation. Meanwhile, reducing family reunion rights interferes with the right to family life, and is cruel. It constitutes a reduction of safe, managed routes for people seeking sanctuary.

I will now look in more depth at the practical consequences of the strictures of group 2 status that have just been outlined. It is worth stating that this clause envisions that group 2 status will be imposed on recognised refugees—people who are at risk of persecution, who have been forcibly separated from their homes, families and livelihoods, and who in many cases have suffered trauma. The mental health challenges they face are well documented, yet this clause will stigmatise them as unworthy and unwelcome, and if the intentions expressed in the explanatory notes were carried out, it would maintain them in a precarious status for 10 years, deny them access to public funds unless they were destitute, and restrict their access to family reunion. Multiple studies have shown that that precarious status itself is a barrier to integration and employment, yet despite these challenges, the Bill would specifically empower the Secretary of State to attach a no recourse to public funds condition to the grant of leave to group 2 refugees, and according to the explanatory notes their status

“may only allow recourse to public funds in cases of destitution.”

The adverse consequences of no recourse to public funds conditions will fall not only on the refugees themselves, but on their families, including children who travel with them, who are able to join them later or who are born in the UK. Those consequences have been documented in numerous studies, as well as in the context of litigation. They include difficulty accessing shelters for victims of domestic violence; denial of free school meals where those are linked to the parents’ benefit entitlement; and de facto exclusion from the job market for single parents, largely women, who have limited access to Government-subsidised childcare, as well as significant risks of food poverty, severe debt, substandard accommodation and homelessness. These consequences in turn hinder integration and increase the financial cost to local authorities, which in many cases have statutory obligations towards children and adults. The Home Office’s own indicators of integration framework identifies secured immigration status as a key outcome indicator for stability, which is

“necessary for sustainable engagement with employment or education and other services.”

It is also worth noting that among the public relief measures defined as public funds in this context are those specifically intended to support children, such as child benefit, and the particularly vulnerable, such as carer’s allowance and personal independence payments. Moreover, children born to group 2 refugees in the UK normally have no right to British nationality for 10 years, or until their parents are granted settlement; given that refugees may put their status and perhaps their security at risk were they to approach the embassy of their country of origin to register their children, many would have no effective nationality at all. With the possibility of applying for family reunion foreclosed, more women and children are likely to attempt dangerous journeys, either at the same time as the men who might previously have sponsored them under current laws, or joining them afterwards. That risk has been recognised by the Council of Europe, among others, and has been borne out in Australia, where the abolition of family reunion rights for holders of temporary protection visas was followed by a threefold increase in the percentage of refugees trying to reach Australia who are women and children.

I will now turn in more detail to how clause 10 contravenes the refugee convention. As a party to the convention, the UK has a binding legal obligation towards all refugees under its jurisdiction that must be reflected in domestic law, regardless of the refugee’s mode of travel or the timing of their asylum claim. The obligations in the convention are set out in articles 3 to 34. They include, but are not limited to, the following obligations that are directly undermined by clause 10: providing refugees who are lawfully staying in the country with public relief on the same terms as nationals, which is article 23, and facilitating all refugees’ integration and naturalisation, which is article 34.

The Bill is inconsistent with those obligations in at least three significant ways. First, it targets group 2 refugees, not only for unlawful entry or presence but for their perceived failure to claim asylum elsewhere or to claim asylum promptly, even if they entered and are present in the UK lawfully. Secondly, it would empower the Secretary of State to impose a type of penalty for belonging to group 2 that is at variance with the refugee convention: namely, the denial of rights specifically and unambiguously guaranteed by the convention to recognise refugees. Thirdly, it would empower the Secretary of State to impose a penalty on group 2 refugees that would be inconsistent with international human rights law: namely, restrictions on their rights to family unity. There are many other ways in which the Bill as a whole contravenes the refugee convention in clauses other than clause 10, as we will discuss in later debates.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, once again, the Government will extend the number of people in the UK subject to no recourse to public funds conditions, requiring emergency support from councils and creating a new burden for local authorities of every political colour up and down the country, which will have to provide millions more pounds in support, when people could be supporting themselves and moving on with their lives?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The burden will fall on all local authorities looking after asylum seekers and their families; they will have no choice but to provide that service. The Government have stayed silent on what provisions they will make for local authorities. I am not sure how far they have even consulted local authorities as to whether they accept what has been proposed.

Clause 10(6) would give the Secretary of State the same power to discriminate against family members of group 2 refugees. At present, the Secretary of State’s powers in that regard are constrained by section 2 of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, which states:

“Nothing in the immigration rules (within the meaning of the 1971 Act) shall lay down any practice which would be contrary to the Convention”,

which would appear to preclude the adoption of some of the immigration rules set out in the explanatory notes.

It is worth restating that nothing in the refugee convention defines a refugee or their entitlements under the convention according to their route of travel, choice of country of asylum or the timing of their asylum claim. The Bill is based on the premise that

“people should claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in”.

That principle is not found in the refugee convention, and there is no history of it in the convention.

[Mike Wood]

The shadow Minister says that there is no history of distinguishing between refugees depending on their route into the country, but that was not the approach taken by the previous Labour Government with the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004. Baroness Scotland said:

“When a person leaves their country through fear, we consider that, as a general principle, such a person should seek protection in the first safe country where they have the chance to do so. It has been said that nowhere in international law is such a requirement imposed. There may not be such a law, but that does not dilute the argument that a person who is in genuine fear should seek shelter at the earliest opportunity.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 April 2004; Vol. 659, c. 1683.]

She was right, wasn’t she?

[Bambos Charalambous]

I do not know the context in which Baroness Scotland said that, but I disagree with her. I very much believe that that would have been breaching international law, as I have stated throughout my speech.

[Neil Coyle]

Perhaps Government Members would have greater standing on the issue if they were not betraying their own manifesto and cutting aid to countries where people might be able to seek support or stay longer if UK support was not retracted.

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

[Mr Goodwill]

Just for the record, did the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate just say that the last Labour Government was breaking international law?

[Bambos Charalambous]

Nice try. No, I did not say that.

The clause represents a fundamental change to the principle of refugee protection in the UK, introducing a two-tier system where any refugee reaching the country who has not benefited from a place on a resettlement programme may have their claim deemed inadmissible and be expelled to another country, or eventually granted temporary status with restricted rights to family reunification and financial support.

It is worth pointing out here that the UNHCR, the guardian of the 1951 refugee convention and the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees, tells us that the core principle is non-refoulement, which asserts that a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. That is now considered a rule of customary international law. Clause 10 therefore represents the shameful undoing of the commitment to the refugee convention and the British values that led to that commitment in the first place.

[Anne McLaughlin]

It is clear to all on the Opposition Benches that if this goes ahead, we will be breaching our international legal obligations. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that in doing so, the damage done both to the UK’s reputation as a global legal centre and to its trade strategy will be immense, at a time when we really need to find new trading partners?

[Bambos Charalambous]

I very much share those concerns. It is clear that some countries wishing to trade with the UK may also insist on certain measures in relation to visas and access, and in some of the new clauses tabled by the Government more recently there is a suggestion that they would be willing to withdraw visas to some countries. I do not know who they have discussed it with, but that seems contrary to the intention of trading with other nations.

There is no doubt, therefore, that the clause stands in clear contravention of the refugee convention—no small thing, given that the convention, sometimes known as the Geneva convention of 1951, anchors the status of refugees in international law. Around the most desperate and terrorised people on earth, the convention throws the shield of international protection. Since the horrors of the second world war, it has been an article of faith for every decent society, as required today as it was 70 years ago by all those fleeing war, torture and persecution of all kinds, and by all those women and girls who undertake their journey in the knowledge that they may well be raped en route to finding safety.

The Opposition are clear that accepting this clause would set a dangerous precedent by creating a two-tier system for refugees that is deeply inhumane. Furthermore, we hold that its consequences, intended or not, would undermine our binding legal obligations to all refugees. We oppose it because we believe the 1951 convention and all that goes with it speaks profoundly to the core values of the British people. Given the multiple, deeply negative consequences of the clause—mental ill health, poverty, debt, substandard accommodation and homelessness, to say nothing of the financial costs to local and national Government—it should be removed from the Bill.

In short, group 2 status is not only inconsistent with the refugee convention; it is a recipe for mental and physical ill health, social and economic marginalisation and exploitation. The human cost to refugees and their families, including their children, is obvious enough, and it should shame us that this Bill would actively cause harm if clause 10 is adopted. We will oppose clause 10 stand part.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate on his comprehensive critique of clause 10. I want to add only a few points on what is clearly at the heart of the Government’s approach in this Bill: seeking to create a hostile environment for refugees and splitting them into the two groups of which my hon. Friend spoke.

I was interested to hear the Minister talk earlier about the Bill as just one part of a multifaceted approach to tackling the problem, of which international diplomacy was at the core. I would welcome his reflections, when he comes to make his remarks, on how far he thinks our position in international diplomacy is strengthened by a Bill that the UNHCR, the guardian of the 1951 convention, denounces in clear terms as

“The creation of an unlawful two-tier system in which most refugees are denied rights guaranteed by the Refugee Convention and essential to their integration”.

I think that our position in terms of how we play our cards in international diplomacy will be weakened by setting ourselves against the international community. This proposal appals all organisations that have worked with those coming to our country to flee war, terror and persecution, and Labour shares their view. However, I appreciate that this Government, in contrast with previous Conservative Administrations, revel in setting themselves against the international consensus and are happy tearing up treaties to which they have been signatories.



We should examine the clause in the context of the Government’s own objectives. They say it is part of a deterrent to break the business model of people smugglers by dissuading those seeking asylum from taking what the Government consider to be irregular routes. We are all agreed on the objective of breaking the appalling business model of people smuggling and we all agree that we want to end the situation that leads people to take the most desperate journeys across the channel. As I said earlier, and clearly the Minister struggled to respond to that point, even the Government’s own impact assessment says,

“evidence supporting the effectiveness of this approach is limited.”

I know that he had a problem with evidence when we were talking about clause 9 under part 1.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Gentleman talked about the broken asylum system, but we actually have more people working in it and processing fewer cases. May Bulman, the journalist from The Independent, wrote an article recently in which she identified 399 people who have been waiting 10 years for their asylum claim to be processed. How can it be that the system employs more people but is processing fewer claims? How can it be allowed that people are waiting 10 years for their claims to be processed? That is the broken system. If it were a business, it would be bankrupt.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The issue is that we inherited a ruinous backlog from the Labour Government, and we have gone through a multitude of challenges recently—covid, for example, which brought the very challenging situation of working from home. I understand—I am a constituency MP like everyone else. We all do our bit and write to the Home Office. We get frustrated by the time that certain cases can take to process, but ultimately, we are trying to fix the system. That is one strand, and there are other parts of the Bill that we will examine, such as offshoring, which I support. There are other methods to help to deal with the backlog and speed up the processing of asylum claims.

I am more than happy to welcome genuine asylum seekers; what I am unhappy about is the illegal economic migrants continually crossing our channel, coming to our shores and costing millions of pounds to the British taxpayer, and the lawyers obsessed with taking money out of the British purse to stop people being deported. Let us not forget, there are convicted criminals dragged off the plane at the last minute, leaving the UK taxpayer to pick up the tab. They are criminals who should not be here and rightly should be deported. Sadly, I see too many Labour Members celebrating those lawyers’ work to prevent those people from being deported from our country. It is a very sad state of affairs to see those letters written to the Home Secretary. I hope clause 10 will stay as is and will be a part of a wider strategy to deter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

One thing that occurred to me throughout the debate was why any Member of this House would feel that it was necessary for anyone to get into a small boat on the French coastline in order to come to the United Kingdom. France is without doubt a safe country, and I like to think that we could recognise that across the House. Those journeys are completely unnecessary against that backdrop. I am staggered that that point is not recognised more widely. Based on some of the remarks we have heard, one might think that that was not the case. In my mind and those of my colleagues, there is absolutely no need for anyone to get into a small boat to try and cross the English channel or to take irregular journeys.

On the point about what this relates to, the principle is fundamental in the common European asylum system. Without enforcement of it, we simply encourage criminal gangs and smugglers to continue to exploit vulnerable people, and I make no apology for my determination, and that of the Home Secretary and the Government as a whole, to bring these evil criminal gangs to justice and to stop the dangerous channel crossings. We have to stop them, for the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North alluded to. We have a moral obligation to do that, and that is what the measures in the Bill, and the wider package of measures that we talk about very often in the House, are seeking to achieve.

[Bambos Charalambous]

The clause does no such thing. It actually encourages people to make unsafe journeys and to contact criminal gangs, because there are no safe routes. That is the crux of it. If safe routes were available, fewer people would make the journeys, but nothing that the Government have said creates any safe routes. Since Dublin III ended, there are no safe routes for people to come to the UK to claim asylum.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am afraid that I just do not accept that characterisation. As I have said on several occasions in Committee, we continue to resettle genuine refugees directly from regions of conflict and instability, which has protected 25,000 people in the last six years—more than any other European country. It is central to our policy that we advocate safe and legal routes and put them at the heart of our policy making. I have talked about several of them. Of course, this is something that we keep under constant review as the international situation evolves and as needs require. I have no doubt that that will continue to be the approach that we take—establishing routes that are appropriate to the circumstances that we find ourselves in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful, because that clarifies the issue. Amendment 104 is in the name of our Labour colleagues, but it has our full support. It makes the point that it is essential that accommodation centres are not de facto detention centres or prisons, in the way that Napier has been, with basic liberties and freedoms more theoretical than real. It raises a crucial question about how we can ensure that such places have accountability and oversight.

The Government will be using sections of the 2002 Act that are not yet in force to implement many of their policy goals, but there is still dubiety about precisely which ones. Section 33 of the Act would have created advisory groups for each accommodation centre, with powers to hear complaints from residents and report to the Home Office. Is that section to be commenced? If not, what alternatives do the Government propose to ensure that such centres are subject to appropriate oversight? I will leave it to the shadow Minister to flesh out that point.

Amendments 102 and 160 take us back to how the Home Office engages—or, rather, does not engage—with other tiers of Government. The Minister was perhaps asleep at the wheel earlier, because his answer was short on detail about engagement with local authorities, and in particular, the devolved Administrations. I accept that asylum is reserved, but these institutions touch on all sorts of powers and services that are the remit of devolved Governments and Parliaments or local authorities, including planning policy and the provision of health, social or other welfare services and education services. In particular, consistent with our championing of local government autonomy and the idea that local government should be seen as a partner rather than an assistant of the Home Office, amendment 102 demands that these centres not be built in a local authority’s territory without consent from that local authority.

The way in which local councils were treated in relation to both Napier and Penally was disgraceful. The Home Office did not even consult Folkestone & Hythe District Council and Kent County Council about the extension of planning permission at Napier because, it said, of urgency, and yet as the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee notes, it must have known for at least 12 months that planning permission would have expired. It had 12 months in which to carry out consultation, but that was still the excuse.

As I said at the outset, we pose all these questions with a view to ascertaining what precisely the Government intend and why there are not greater constraints in the Bill, but ultimately we believe that this is not the right direction of travel. We support community dispersal—improving that system, making it work better, and involving more councils. We hope that the Government come back to that view and make that system work instead.

[Bambos Charalambous]

I will speak to the three amendments that are in my name and the names of others, but I will start by speaking to amendment 104.

No one on this Committee can fail to have seen the extremely worrying track record of the Government when it comes to accommodation for asylum seekers. The appalling headlines in connection with Napier Barracks cannot have failed to reach anyone who takes any sort of interest in the news. We are deeply concerned, therefore, that in clause 11 there are provisions for creating asylum accommodation centres. The clause suggests a possible wide-scale replication of the type of accommodation seen at Napier Barracks. That is because clause 11 gives the Government powers to house different groups of asylum seekers in undefined accommodation centres. It seems that these centres will involve congregated living in hostel-type accommodation, which has been shown to be unsuitable to house people in the asylum system for long periods. Such a move away from housing in the community is likely to impede integration prospects and will make access to needed support and services more difficult.

Clause 11 also creates new powers to provide different types of housing—namely, accommodation centres—for those at different stages of their asylum claim, including those with “inadmissible” asylum claims. The rationale given in the explanatory notes to the Bill is that that will

“increase efficiencies within the system and increase compliance”,

although again no evidence is given to support that claim.

The term “accommodation centre” is not clearly defined, although the implication is that it will mean that more people seeking asylum will be living in large-scale congregated settings. It is important to state clearly that this represents a wholescale move away from the current dispersal system, whereby people live in homes in the community across the country.

There is therefore a clear indication that the Government are seeking to replicate the kind of inhumane accommodation that we have seen at Napier. As I will set out, this prison-like, isolated and dystopian accommodation provides an extremely poor environment for engaging with asylum claims. There is strong evidence that such accommodation is likely to retraumatise extremely vulnerable people and hinder future integration.

The Government may seek to deny that a punitive approach is part of their agenda, but such a denial would not tally with the actions of the Home Secretary in August, when she visited the notorious reception centre on the Greek island of Samos; campaigners have described it as “prison-like” and “inhumane”. It is shocking that, having visited the Greek reception centres in the summer, the Home Secretary appears to wish to emulate the system whereby more than 7,500 refugees, including 1,700 children, are being detained in refugee camps in unsanitary and inhumane conditions.

However, the evidence that that is indeed the intention seems clear, because in August the Home Secretary also published a prior information notice for the procurement of new accommodation centres, with initial submissions invited by the end of September 2021. The details of the tender are subject to commercial confidentiality and therefore the details are known only to potential contractors who have signed non-disclosure agreements. What is public is that the contract is to be delivered in accordance with part 2 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, and it is stated that it is for housing up to 8,000 people for periods of up to six months. The tender raises serious concerns about how that approach will interact with provisions set out in clause 11, given that contracts will be awarded before the Bill receives Royal Assent. There are also clear concerns about how accountability and standards can be maintained in asylum accommodation when there is no public access to these contracts.

It is also worth stating for the record that since April 2020, the Home Office has been using two large-scale accommodation centres for asylum-seeking men who have arrived in the UK by boat—Napier barracks in Kent, and the Penally camp in Wales, which is now closed. A report by the all-party parliamentary group on immigration detention noted that, although legally speaking, those are not detention centres, they none the less replicate

“many of the features found in detained settings—including visible security measures, shared living quarters, reduced levels of privacy, and isolation from the wider community”.

Our amendment would take away the detention element of those accommodation centres, as we feel that those de facto detention conditions are completely cruel and wholly inappropriate, and will hinder future integration.

[Neil Coyle]

It is not just the detention centres. The Government seem to have learned nothing from Napier. Most recently, they put 500 men in a 73-bed hostel in my constituency.

[Bambos Charalambous]

That is deeply concerning and shows that the Government have not learned any lessons from Napier.

Before I come to the specifics of the amendment, I will first set out exactly why the Government’s record on Napier barracks, alongside the provisions in clause 11, sets such alarm bells ringing. In doing so, I will demonstrate why the amendment is so necessary.

Organisations from the refugee sector that have worked with people held in Napier have identified and documented the following conditions:

“A pattern of spiralling mental health among people placed at Napier. Many people arrive already struggling with self-harm and/ or suicidal ideation, so this is a profoundly harmful context for them.

Chronic sleep deprivation among residents at Napier.

Conditions that are cold and dirty and afford no opportunity for privacy or social distancing.

An isolated and prison-like setting.

A total lack of mental health support onsite; very minimal healthcare onsite, and problems for residents in accessing healthcare in the community.

A sense among residents, in line with HMIP’s observation, of being trapped on site.

Profound vulnerabilities and histories of trauma among residents at Napier are not always obvious on the surface and can be difficult for individuals to disclose in general. Napier is then a very poor context for disclosure, as the prison-like setting is not conducive to building trust. We are therefore concerned that it is not possible to create a screening mechanism for Napier that would pick up all relevant vulnerabilities.

There is very little communication with residents about their asylum case.

Additionally, it is very difficult for individuals to access adequate legal advice, and they frequently go ahead with asylum interviews without having consulted a legal adviser. Virtually no one placed at Napier is able to access face to face meetings with legal advisers, and this seriously obstructs identification and disclosure of trauma.”

Residents of Napier and Penally who have given evidence to the APPG on immigration detention have described the Napier and Penally sites as feeling “prison-like”. Prison conditions have a traumatising effect on people who are already vulnerable as a result of previous experiences that have forced them to seek protection. Ministers must surely be aware that there are bound to be serious concerns about the potential use of such draconian accommodation centres for asylum-seeking men.

[Tom Pursglove]

I might be able to help the hon. Gentleman. The accommodation centres that we are proposing are not detention centres. Individuals can leave the centres at any time—they may have obtained accommodation with friends or family, for example.

[Bambos Charalambous]

I welcome the Minister’s comments, but it would have been helpful if that information had been provided beforehand, because we are still in the dark about what the accommodation centres will be like.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

While acknowledging the Minister’s point, Napier and Penally barracks may not have been detention centres, but a number of freedoms and rights were impeded at those sites, and that is why we need to press this point.

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She is absolutely right: even if rights are only restricted, that is not acceptable.

[Neil Coyle]

On a quick point of clarification, I said “500 men in a 73-bed hostel”, but that is certainly not what the Home Office has done in my constituency. They are 73-bed rooms.

The Minister has made a claim that is not the lived reality of the people the Home Office has placed in my constituency, including those 500 men. They have stewards, in effect, who have been telling those people not to leave hotel and hostel accommodation. They were not provided with interpreters; they were not provided with any means of accessing the internet; and the Government have prevented inspectors from going in, including Bishop Paul Butler and the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project, who were promised access to Napier barracks and other accommodation by Ministers. The Government have rescinded that commitment. Perhaps the Minister could tell us why bishops and others are being kept out? What are the Government trying to hide?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend is right about those conditions not being conducive to being able to make a claim with any confidence or certainty.

I was talking about asylum-seeking women. As we highlighted in the debate on clause 10, many such women are survivors of rape and other forms of gendered violence, and such large-scale accommodation is characterised by a lack of privacy. The APPG on immigration detention further notes that at Napier and Penally,

“The lack of private space was also forcing residents to hold sensitive discussions, for example with lawyers, within earshot of other residents and/or staff.”

For many asylum-seeking women who have experienced rape and other gender-based violence, disclosure of their previous experience can be very difficult as a result of the shame and stigma they feel. Accommodation centres lacking privacy is likely to have a specific impact on them, and make it particularly difficult for them to get their claims to protection recognised.

Coupled with that, the punitive detention-type elements of the centres as they are currently run are likely to be retraumatising. We are therefore deeply concerned that clause 11 seeks to expand inappropriate large-scale detention-style accommodation centres. In short, it seems like a way of actively inflicting increased harm on already vulnerable people. Our amendment seeks to ameliorate some of those centres’ worst aspects.

Given everything that has been outlined, it is hardly surprising that the High Court made a damning assessment of Napier barracks. Mr Justice Linden ruled on 3 June 2021 that the accommodation at Napier barracks was inadequate, in that it did not meet the minimum standards required by the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Both the process for selecting people to be sent to Napier barracks and the process for monitoring its ongoing suitability while those people were there were flawed and unlawful, and from 15 January 2021, the residents were given an order to not leave the site until they were permitted to do so. The claimants were unlawfully detained, both under common law and the European convention on human rights.

Similarly, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons’ report on Napier and Penally raised a number of serious concerns about Napier, including, inter alia, the following: the screening of potential residents for physical and mental health problems was “wholly inadequate”, with all of those interviewed at Napier reporting feeling depressed and a third feeling suicidal, and extremely poor communication with the people accommodated at Napier. Again, we argue that our amendment is necessary to ensure safeguards that will prevent similar future judgments.

Of course, we know why the Government are taking a more draconian approach to asylum accommodation: it is part of the continuing hostile environment ethos that takes a punitive, negative stance on all matters relating to asylum. Their approach is also clearly fuelled by the misguided idea that taking such a punitive stance will act as a deterrent to those seeking asylum. However, as we stated in the debate on clause 10, there is no evidence that that is the case. Desperate people who are determined to make dangerous journeys will not be deterred when their lives are at stake. The idea that the kind of accommodation awaiting them at the other end has any bearing on people seeking refuge is laughable. People escaping for their lives are not weighing up accommodation in the same way that Ministers might weigh up the merits of a Hilton hotel versus a Travelodge. The idea that making accommodation punitive could in any sense act as a deterrent shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why refugees are prepared to risk their lives to find safety.

However, the kind of accommodation that awaits refugees can do extreme damage if it hinders integration and retraumatises vulnerable people. When the accommodation provided—as in the case of Napier—dehumanises people, puts them in danger of covid-19 and is found to be unlawful, that corrodes the values that make us a civilised society, undermines our reputation as a tolerant and welcoming nation, and gives the nod to some of the most undesirable attitudes that would seek to demonise those in need.

[Neil Coyle]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about increased criminality by gangs targeting the accommodation to get people involved in criminal activity? That is a direct result of policy from the Department that is meant to oversee law and order.

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These are vulnerable people, and they are subject to being exploited if appropriate measures are not taken to prevent that from happening. Having them all in one place allows criminals to prey on them.

I come on to the specifics of amendment 104. As I have set out, we have the gravest doubts about the clause. I find it disturbing. Our amendment seeks to ameliorate some of the worst aspects. I will set out each of its aims in more detail.

Presently, persons held in barracks and hotel accommodation are sometimes prevented from entering or leaving their place of accommodation at certain times and some places of accommodation prevent visitors from entering. The amendment addresses this inappropriately draconian situation by inserting proposed new section 22B into the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. It would qualify that the measure—in new section 22A, which relates to accommodation provided under sections 95A and 98A of the 1999 Act—to allow for the provision of accommodation in an accommodation centre, must allow for persons to be supported to enter or leave the accommodation centre at any time.

Although some controls on entry may be required to prevent persons hostile to residents of accommodation centres from entering, we believe that those held in such centres should be allowed to invite their own visitors. They should also not be precluded from communication with the outside world. The amendment would therefore introduce the right for the supported person

“(b) to receive visitors of their choice at any time; or

(c) to use communications equipment such as telephones, computers or video equipment.”

People working with persons supported in accommodation centres report that some persons in accommodation centres are unaware of their conditions of bail and may not have been provided with the conditions of their bail in writing. That places them at risk of arrest and detention for unknowingly breaching those conditions, or being unable to evidence their identity. The amendment would therefore introduce the provision that persons supported in accommodation centres must be provided with a written document setting out any conditions of bail.

Where controls or restrictions on freedom of movement of supported persons or their visitors are in place, a process for submissions by way of a complaints procedure needs to be in place, and the amendment would introduce a complaints procedure relating to the conditions of the accommodation and a procedure for appealing any decisions that may restrict the person’s freedoms, which will not apply to their bail conditions.

As has been argued, legal action taken against the Government over the suitability of Napier barracks for certain vulnerable groups has shown that the existing system has failed to maintain appropriate safeguards. The possibly widespread expansion of the system that the clause seeks to implement is very alarming and should be deeply concerning to any Member of this House.

The move away from community-based housing is poorly defined. Accommodation centres will unquestionably lower living standards for those seeking asylum. That is not an accident—it is the very design of the Bill and the clause. By the same measure, they will impede integration and advance a more draconian, prison-like setting for asylum seekers, who are, by their very definition, already traumatised individuals. If we do not agree our amendment, asylum seekers will find themselves in cold, dirty, isolated conditions, with all but no support services.

Given the widespread denunciations of the Home Office’s decision to house asylum seekers in Napier barracks, not least by the High Court, it is remarkable that the Government now seek to replicate it elsewhere. It should be noted that Mr Justice Linden criticised what he called the “detention-like” setting for the men there. Our amendment seeks to take away the detention element of the accommodation centres. They are de facto detention centres with prison-like conditions, which are cruel, wholly inappropriate and damaging to the individuals concerned. They can do nothing but increase harm and stress on already marginalised and vulnerable people whom we are beholden to protect under our international treaty obligations.

To speak plainly, the Government have got the wrong end of the stick. Clause 11 helps no one. They will find themselves on the wrong side of history with their ever-more draconian and hostile approach to asylum accommodation and, unamended, this clause starkly highlights that point. Amendment 104 should be supported to rectify that situation and ensure safeguards for the future. It would be utterly shameful if the clause, as it stands, enabled a repetition of the appalling situation at Napier barracks.

Without amendment, clause 11 will undermine the UK’s duty to support and protect those making asylum claims. We believe that the current dispersal system, whereby people seeking asylum live in regular housing in the community, is much better for supporting future integration and ensuring that people seeking asylum are able to access services that they need. We would rather see safeguards in place than the kind of appalling situation seen at Napier.

[Anne McLaughlin]

We heard that the devolved Governments were prevented from taking part in the consultation because it took place during purdah in the run-up to their elections. However, Shona Robison MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government in the Scottish Government, wrote a comprehensive response last month, in which she stated:

“This Government is clear that people should be supported to integrate within our communities from day one of arrival in line with the key principle of our New Scots refugee integration strategy. We are committed to the principle of community based integration for refugees and people seeking asylum. The New Scots approach is not compatible with use of remote and institutionalised camps. Such asylum accommodation will also not fix the underlying issues causing shortages in the asylum estate, which include the fairness, quality and timeliness of the asylum application and decision process.”

The position of the Scottish Government is the complete opposite of that of the UK Government, but their hands are tied. We cannot do what we want to do in Scotland to support our asylum seekers. That cannot be right.

Shona Robison also said:

“The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report highlighted significant issues”,

as we have heard,

“with the management of Napier Barracks and Penally, their suitability, safety and the impact this type of accommodation had on people living there. The report also raised concerns about contingency of healthcare if people are moved around the asylum estate. I would add to this contingency of legal representation, essential services and support networks, which must be considered.”

However, we are not talking only about barracks; there are many other types of accommodation that people had to live in. People were taken out of their homes where they were settled and put into Glasgow hostels and hotels last year. The Minister says things like, “This is not our intention.” I do not imagine that it was anyone’s intention for the men I met in the hostel close to where I live to be living in dirty accommodation, but they were, because they had nothing to clean up after themselves with. What most upset them the day I first met them was that they had nothing to clean their toilets with. They were living in tiny rooms, and if they did their washing in the tiny sink in what we will call the en suite—the toilet was in the room—they had to leave their wet clothes on the bed to dry off. I can tell hon. Members that, in Glasgow, that does not happen quickly; our temperatures are slightly different. They said that they could not keep the toilets clean and that there was no support. They were not looking for people to clean up after them, but because their access to finance had been taken from them, they could not even go and buy a toilet brush and bleach. It was a pretty awful situation.

There is also the so-called mother and baby unit that Mears has set up on behalf of the Home Office in Glasgow. I spoke to women who, without any notice, got a visit and were told, “Pack your bags. You and the baby”—or the bump; some were pregnant, some had just given birth—“are moving”. They were settled in communities among friends, they knew where the GP and the shops were and they knew how much things cost, but they were taken out of those communities at almost no notice. Many of them were told that they could take two carrier bags’ worth of goods and no more. These people had babies. I do not know anybody with a baby who can leave the house with fewer than two bags, but they were told by agents acting on behalf of the Government that they could take two carrier bags of stuff.

One of them said, “I was living in Pollok”, on the south side of Glasgow, “and was surrounded by wonderful neighbours. It was my baby’s first Christmas and all the neighbours had come round with Christmas presents.” That is why we want community dispersal. We want people to be part of a community. It benefits not just asylum seekers but everybody in the community—and that community certainly supported that woman and her baby. They took round Christmas presents, but then she was told to leave them behind because there was no room for them in the mother and baby unit. She was devastated because those presents were a symbol of acceptance and love from her community.