Support for Asylum Seekers

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Davies. I commence, like the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a principal of the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

It is vital to put today’s debate into its context. The hostile environment and a move away from treating asylum seekers as simply part of the wider welfare system began in the early 2000s, as the Blair Government recognised the political toxicity of the public perception that people newly arrived in the UK would be able to potentially jump social housing waiting lists. True or not, that was a serious political concern that they faced at the time.

In the mid-2000s, Andy Burnham, then the Immigration Minister and now the Mayor of Greater Manchester, signed off on the implementation of dispersal, creating a new route for asylum seekers, whereby they were placed in parts of the country where local authorities, recognising that there was a surplus of housing locally, offered to accommodate them and to provide them with support in those local communities. Subsequently, the Home Office looked to economise on the cost of delivering those services, by delivering through a set of national contracts with private companies.

Hard as it is to believe for those of us in London constituencies and city constituencies with lengthy housing waiting lists, there are parts of the country, such as Stoke-on-Trent, that were proactive in seeking to be dispersal areas because they recognised the benefits to their communities of bringing in new people who could revitalise the schools and other public services on which their communities depended.

The other significant factor remains the distribution of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, which is not a matter for the Home Office but sits with the Department for Education, under the Children Act 1989. It means that local authorities that have ports of entry—airports or sea ports where people arrive into the UK—bear significant responsibilities. The Home Office’s national transfer scheme has been a step towards addressing that distribution.

The other big part of that picture is that refugees, once they are granted that status in the UK and have the right to asylum, often do not stay in the communities where they are placed through dispersal. That is why we see very large numbers of refugees living in London and the south-east of England, for example. They have not been placed there by the Home Office, but have moved there under their own volition.

It is very clear from my engagement with contractors who have administered the scheme that the new set of Home Office contracts has represented a significant improvement on what was there before. The funding that is available, the flexibility and the volunteering of new local authorities that are keen to be dispersal areas have all helped to ease some of the pressure.

However, we recognise that there are remaining issues with the system. In particular, as the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark alluded to, there is a very clear desire, first, to ensure that asylum seekers are not competing with local people to access social housing where that is in short supply; by definition, that means that people are being placed in parts of the country that do not already have a significant housing waiting list. Secondly, we need to ensure, given that around two thirds to three quarters of people who apply for asylum in the UK are granted it, that asylum is the start of a path to integration.

So, my ask today of the Minister is fairly simple—it is a shopping list of things that we need to do better and that we can consider as part of this wider consultation. First, we need to think about how dispersal is part of a path to integration, given those figures about people being granted asylum. Secondly, we must ensure, regarding things such as move-on period and the recognition that most people who come for asylum in the UK will remain, that we are realistic about how we support them to integrate. Thirdly and finally, and this is the most important point, there must be real consideration of how Departments work together. The challenge for local authorities and communities often arises because the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Education are not aligned with the Home Office. So, I ask the Minister: can we please ensure that the approach to this issue is joined up across Government so much better than it is today?

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

I now have to drop the time limit to three minutes.

Trespass

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. As we consider the important matter of illegal encampments and unauthorised access to land, may I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) for her eloquent and balanced introduction to the debate? It is important that I be clear from the outset that I and my constituents strongly support the introduction of tougher measures to protect land and property from trespass, whether it belongs to private individuals or the taxpayer in the form of central Government or local authorities.

I pay tribute to the work of Councillor John Warmisham, the Labour leader of the UK delegation at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in the Council of Europe, who has led work for many years at an international level to improve the way in which human rights law, as administered by local authorities and regional governments, treats Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. His work has been very important in informing my thinking on the subject and my approach to the petition today.

There seems to be no evidence that the proposed strengthened measures would deter anyone from lawful access to private land. Ramblers, walkers and riders do not see their legitimate and time-honoured access restricted by what the Government propose. It is very clear, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble said, that powers to prosecute are triggered only in circumstances where someone is present where they have no right to be, and when they refuse to leave when asked.

In my constituency, on the edge of London, we have many popular walking and rambling paths, mountain bike routes and bridleways. The users of these amenities, many of which are maintained by private landowners as part of the good husbandry of their holdings, should have no fear that they will be negatively impacted. It is also clear that the law in Scotland might offer a model to consider, and I know that the Government have been consulting on that. Trespass is a criminal offence, but legitimate use of the property is included. Other Members may disagree with that, but that is the legal interpretation that I saw in the briefing note. I look forward to being enlightened.

Many communities have suffered significant blight from unauthorised encampments for too long. I live opposite a green space owned and maintained by the London Borough of Hillingdon, and it was the subject of one such incursion. Like many people across the country, other residents and I were treated to the sight of people defecating publicly opposite our homes, with rubbish strewn around and extensive vandalism. Normal activities such as children’s football, outdoor exercise and dog walking all had to stop while the legal process was followed.

Once that notice was served, I watched alongside those other residents as campers gathered all the glass that they had accumulated during their stay, smashing it to fragments and scattering it across the whole area, to maximise the harm and inconvenience that their illegal incursion caused the community. When they finally departed, they left a massive clean-up job and, for that season, a bill in excess of £300,000 for council tax payers to meet. I speak from personal experience when I say that the measures are long overdue.

Some will argue that legitimate lifestyles are at risk of being criminalised. I wholly disagree. Not one moment of what I witnessed was legitimate. Both the settled and the temporary residents of local caravan sites, which are made available for public use, would agree, because they pay council tax to clear up that kind of mess, too. Breaking into other people’s property, causing misery and stress at a massive cost is simply unacceptable. It is not a lifestyle; it is straightforward criminality, and it must be robustly dealt with when it occurs.

Clearly, there is a balance to be struck. At the moment, the balance weighs too heavily against the landowner and the taxpayer, and in favour of the small minority of criminals who choose to exploit the fact. It is absolutely right that the Government take heed of the concerns of communities across London and the rest of the country, and enact the measures.

Domestic Abuse Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC) [V]]

Diolch yn fawr Madam Ddirprwy Lefarydd. I, too, would be very grateful for the opportunity to pay tribute to Dame Cheryl Gillan. She was of course a former Secretary of State for Wales, and when I first arrived in the House in 2015 I personally found her very keen and very supportive of cross-party working. It was a pleasure and honour to work with her.

I am, of course, pleased that this vital legislation has nearly completed its passage through the House and the other place. It has been an extremely interesting learning experience over two general elections for me as well, with the Joint Committees working on this. The issue of domestic violence has come into sharp focus in the public mind following the deaths of Sarah Everard, Wenjing Lin and others, and it is right to acknowledge that the Bill represents a positive step forward in addressing the deep-rooted reality of domestic violence in society.

First, I want to welcome the Government’s support for a number of Lords amendments—including especially Lords amendment 32, which seeks to reduce coercive control and vexatious activities in the family courts. I am glad to say I was able to raise this issue in my Courts (Abuse of Process) Bill back in 2017.

As for the rest of the amendments, a key concern of mine and many others has already been mentioned today: the monitoring of offenders and the effectiveness of the multi-agency public protection arrangements. I tabled an early amendment for a domestic abuse register and am pleased that Lords amendment 42 follows in the same vein. As Baroness Brinton said in the other place about MAPPA, there is some very good practice but it is not consistent because the agencies are not being forced to work together. The impact that is having on victims is appalling.

The Government need to evidence how exactly their changes to MAPPA guidance will be qualitatively different from what came about before. These figures are important. At present, just 0.4% of cases fall into category 3 of MAPPA—that is, on average, just 330 offenders a year, and the numbers have fallen by 48% since 2010. MAPPA category 3 can cover domestic offenders, yet it does not, at present, does it? The optimistic statement that data sharing will wave a magic wand and make this fit for purpose, especially after 11 years of austerity justice, is quite difficult to credit on face value.

The Government have promised that changes in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will clarify and extend the information-sharing powers of agencies subject to MAPPA. It is crucial that these measures complement rather than run counter to Senedd legislation in Wales. For example, how will updated information-sharing powers interact with devolved services in education and housing—areas of policy that should play a key role in the prevention agenda?

The Home Secretary had previously hinted that a register could be implemented. Can the Minister commit to reporting back to this House with data about how stalking and domestic abuse offenders will be increasingly monitored through MAPPA, and also commit to evaluating the effectiveness of this route? We have all learned too much to trust implicitly a system that has failed so many victims so comprehensively in the past.

On domestic abuse protection orders, I echo Welsh Women’s Aid’s call for clarity on the delivery of DAPOs for Wales. Further clarity on resourcing and guidance for both devolved and non-devolved areas are important, as the jagged edge of justice in action in Wales needs greater scrutiny—until, of course, such matters are coherently devolved. How will DAPOs be resourced? What guidance on resourcing will there be for commissioners both devolved and non-devolved, and how will the UK Government work with the Welsh Government on the application of DAPOs?

I strongly support Lords amendments 40, 41 and 43, which offer protections for migrant women who have suffered domestic abuse, given that they face additional, complex, interlocking barriers that can shut them out of safety. The Government argue that the existing asylum system can offer support to migrant victims, but in reality this is not often the case, and the Home Secretary’s plans for changes to the asylum system will make it harder for migrant victims to access support and fair treatment if they arrive in the UK by non-official means.

This flies in the face of the Istanbul convention, which requires that survivors of violence against women and girls can access protection irrespective of their immigration status. My party wants Wales to be a nation of sanctuary for those fleeing abuse and persecution and for us to be party to implementing the Istanbul convention in full. Sadly, however, the Government’s position at present is a barrier to these ambitions.

I urge the Government to support the Lords amendments and enact the ambitious and transformational change needed to shift the focus and balance in favour of the needs and welfare of victims, so that we can consign domestic abuse to the history books across the UK.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) [V]]

I support this Bill because it is an opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of those affected by domestic abuse. We all recognise that enormous progress has been made in the way we treat victims and their families, and also perpetrators, and the Bill sets out positive steps and more progress that we plan to make. A lot of the debate about the amendments before the House reflects a desire for practical outcomes that Members want to see, yet I accept the Government’s position that many of these are often better achieved through non-legislative means.

The response to domestic abuse as experienced by victims, families and perpetrators comes from a local partnership typically led by our councils but involving the police and the NHS. It is through these organisations that we make the difference that we all want to see. Ensuring that we learn from their experience and that we resource them properly to do the job we expect of them is critical. I pay tribute to the work done by former Hillingdon councillor Mary O’Connor, serving Hillingdon councillors Jane Palmer and Janet Gardner, and former safeguarding board chair Stephen Ashley to improve the way in which domestic abuse is managed in my constituency. They led the way in training people to identify victims of modern slavery and in uncovering complex forms of abuse, including coercive control. They have created a situation for my constituents where there is a local safe space night-time economy, with more than 40 businesses and hundreds of staff in different organisations trained in identifying the signs of risk and knowing how to support people. Vitally, they have ensured that this learning is shared at a national level, to help other places transform their approach too.

Immigration and Nationality Application Fees

David Simmonds Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. My hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) made some very insightful comments in describing the impact that fees can have on individuals as they make their journey through the immigration system from newly arriving in our country to becoming full citizens. I am pleased to be able to highlight a couple of aspects of that, because it is important that, in the context of global Britain and a different approach to managing immigration, we consider the measures and steps that we need in both our border process and the way we manage citizenship in order to make it a better experience for all.

We should start by recognising that what is often referred to today as the “hostile environment” has developed under parties of all colours in Government, starting in the early 2000s, when people who were seeking asylum began to lose their entitlements to certain benefits. As the Home Office begins to move away from seeking to enforce caps on numbers, and towards a system that is designed to incentivise the right people who want to contribute to our economy to become citizens of the United Kingdom by taking up the offer of citizenship, we would expect to see a range of changes.

Charges for people to gain their citizenship are by no means unusual. In fact, if people wish to get into many other countries and receive a work permit—Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and indeed many European countries—such countries apply a similar system whereby they expect people to pay a contribution towards the costs. Certainly in my time in local government, when I used to see people coming to the town hall for the citizenship ceremony and to swear their oath, it was very clear that they saw this as something incredibly precious that they felt it was worth saving towards and that marked a landmark moment in their lives.

However, there are those for whom the costs are a significant barrier, and I particularly highlight the impact on children and the risk in respect of children who are in the care system, where clearly there is a possibility that this simply becomes a cost that is shoved on to the budgets of local authorities. Certainly in my experience as a councillor in a local authority with very large numbers of refugee children, it would almost invariably be in the best interests of those children to seek to gain citizenship for them. That was often challenging for bureaucratic reasons, especially when there was no documentation available to demonstrate who those individuals were in order to regularise their position, but it was made even more challenging if a local authority was expected to pay significant citizenship charges to achieve that status for them, which was an expectation laid down as a result of the laws of the United Kingdom. I would like to hear from the Home Office that, as we review the way we support refugee children in this country, given that the numbers arriving into the UK have on average doubled since 2015—we are talking about significant numbers of young people in the care of a very large number of local authorities—we will ensure that we do not impose additional costs on local authorities that are simply seeking to do the right thing by those young people.

Both the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn spelt out very clearly what the impact can be on families when a significant number of individuals all need to pay the fee. Similarly, when we consider the impact on children in that situation—mum or dad feel that it is simply too expensive and too difficult to save the money for the fee—we should think about how that might deter people who would make fantastic British citizens from doing it. Again, it would be good to hear that, as part of the consideration of what the future will be for our borders policy, we may have a system that recognises the value that families add, that supports them on their journey through the system and that ensures that the fees, although they are rightly high for something that is incredibly precious and costs a good deal of money to administer, are not a barrier to making sure that the full range of people who want to come to contribute to our life in the United Kingdom are able to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

There is absolute clarity about the benefits. I have mentioned things like the coronavirus job retention scheme already, and I have mentioned how people on family and human rights routes can get the NRPF condition lifted, but I did not mention the over £8 billion available via local authorities for NRPF-eligible migrants to apply for. In addition, the hon. Member asked about section 4: people on section 4 support do get accommodation provided by the Home Office. We currently now have, I think, about 61,000 people in accommodation. That is up from about 48,000 before the pandemic, precisely because we are looking after the people most in need.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

What plans her Department has to continue refugee resettlement after the conclusion of the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

The United Kingdom is a world leader in resettlement. My hon. Friend will know that, in the last five years, we have resettled nearly 30,000 people—more than any other country in Europe. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we will be completing the 20,000 people under the VPRS in the coming weeks, and after that we will be continuing to offer further resettlement places beyond that, as far as we are able to, given the current coronavirus circumstances. Beyond that, we will be making announcements—my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be making announcements—in the relatively near future about how we plan to continue resettlement beyond that.

[David Simmonds [V]]

My hon. Friend has rightly championed the record of this country and this Government in providing support to the most vulnerable people here and abroad, and it is clearly vital that safe and legal routes to refuge in the UK are available to disrupt smuggling and people trafficking. Is my hon. Friend confident that using the very successful current scheme as a template, the new UK resettlement scheme will have the necessary level of support and funding to resettle refugees effectively and in line with our aspirations?

[Chris Philp]

I can absolutely give that assurance. Of course, our resettlement work will have the financial support it requires. We intend to build upon, but also learn the lessons from, the previous resettlement scheme. There are going to be significant ways in which we can improve it. Not only was our resettlement scheme over the last five years the largest resettlement scheme of any country in Europe, but there is more we are doing. Our refugee family reunion provisions see 6,000 people a year or more come into this country, and just a short while ago our BNO—British national overseas—route opened up, allowing people being persecuted by the Chinese Communist party to seek refuge here as well.

Asylum Seekers and Permission to Work

David Simmonds Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Neil Coyle]

It is completely the opposite, I am afraid. Asylum seekers could make, and want to make, an economic contribution to this country, and that is to be welcomed. People are forced to use illegal measures to get into the country because of the delays and our terrible system. If we were more compassionate and stuck with the UK tradition of helping people, rather than turning a blind eye or crossing the road, we would be in a better position morally and economically.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I, too, need to draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a RAMP principal. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the introduction of safe and legal routes—we very much welcome the Government’s commitment to doing that—by which people can establish their claims is key to the United Kingdom’s ability to disrupt traffickers and those who bring people into the country in very high-risk ways, which are a matter of legitimate public concern?

Does the hon. Gentleman also agree that the introduction in 2002 of the ban on asylum seekers working reflected a prevailing concern, in the then Labour Government and in Parliament more widely, about the economic impact? At the time, the United Kingdom was preparing for the accession of further countries into the European Union. However, according to the research that RAMP has shared with us both, 67% of businesses believe that now is the time to lift the ban. Does he agree that we need to recognise that times have changed, and that safe and legal routes and the changing economic climate make a case for doing so that simply did not exist when the Labour Government introduced the ban in 2002?

[Neil Coyle]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution, and I completely agree that times have changed. These people, however, are often professionals; they have skillsets that we should be seeking to use to benefit our economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle]

I think that there is cross-party support for this, and I will come back to the subject of the broader public.

Before I leave the subject of occupations, the Government’s list of approved proficiencies includes classical ballet dancer or skilled orchestral musician—so those are okay, but for other professions, where we desperately need people, people are being delayed in getting into those jobs. I hope the Minister will commit to overhaul the shortage occupation list system; he will have public support for that. British Future found that 71% of the British public supports the right to work after six months—public opinion will be on the Government’s side should they introduce the policy.

I want to talk about the situation in Southwark. We have 189 dispersed asylum seekers housed across the borough, and the council has a commitment in its refreshed plan to making Southwark a borough of sanctuary, working with community groups and partners to help and support refugee and migrant asylum seekers in the borough, and campaigning to end the hostile environment, which the Government told us they wanted to end. They told us they were dismantling the hostile environment, and yet here it is alive and kicking and damaging people’s lives, leaving people destitute.

I want to celebrate the work of the Southwark day centre for asylum seekers, which does a tremendous job and has very strong links to this House; the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) are both patrons of it. People from the centre tell me that the majority of the people they see do not have the right to work and are dependent on charities and faith groups. Churches and mosques are picking up the slack because we have an irresponsible Government leaving people without support. Some of the people they are supporting are not even covered by the asylum support scheme and live beyond destitution. They have confirmed that 40% of the asylum seekers they are helping wait longer than 12 months for a decision—40% of the people they see. I see these people in my casework and surgery sessions—not face-to-face at the moment, although I do make exceptions, so if anyone does need to see me, we can do in a covid-secure way in my constituency office.

[David Simmonds]

I promise to be super brief. I was reading a quote about how cash benefits have been regarded as

“a major pull factor that encourages fraudulent claims”—[Official Report, 14 June 1999; Vol. 333, c. 16.]

from asylum seekers. That was from Jack Straw, when he was overseeing this policy as Home Secretary. Does the hon. Member agree that one strength of recognising that times have changed and introducing the right to work is that it would prove to our constituents that asylum seekers are not scroungers, but people with skills valued by British businesses who are here to make a tax-paying contribution, rather than expecting to subsist off the taxpayer?

[Neil Coyle]

I agree 100% and that echoes the point made earlier that these are people who want to contribute, to make a difference and to improve our country as well as their own lives. I have two quick examples from constituency casework. One woman who applied for asylum in 2014, was initially refused, and reapplied in 2017 has still had no response and no decision. She fled Eritrea due to political repression and has physical injuries as a result of the beatings that she took there. Her current application has taken more than three years and remains undecided. The second is a man with post-traumatic stress disorder from his experience in Iran, where he was born, who received a refusal in 2019, after waiting more than a year initially. He submitted a fresh application, including more medical information, has still not received a response and is left destitute. This is an issue—the longer people wait and are out of work, the harder it is for them to contribute when permitted by the Government. Of course, there are also mental health issues and other implications for those left marginalised and isolated on the periphery of society. These are people who could be contributing, as other Members have mentioned.

It is estimated that the current policy costs the taxpayer almost £100 million a year—for an awful, inhumane and incompetent approach. The CBI and TUC back the Lift the Ban campaign. It would generate income and reduce bureaucracy, help raise additional income tax and national insurance, and cut emergency accommodation and other costs. Of course, there are stronger and long-term savings as people integrate and contribute more. Compared globally, we perform badly. Before people can work in France, Spain and the USA it is six months, in Germany it is three months, and in Italy two months. In Canada and Australia—Ministers often hold up the Australian immigration system—there is no wait. People can get into work as soon as they arrive. Why are we not using the Australian model? Why is the Minister still sustaining the damage of this policy to our economy and those people’s lives?

In conclusion, what the campaign asks for is a change and for the ban to be lifted to ensure a more humane approach that tackles this long-term isolation and marginalisation; one befitting the UK’s proud history of support and allowing people who face persecution and repression abroad to enter; and one that is in our economic interests, helping us to tackle covid so that people can protect themselves, the NHS and the wider community. Without that change the Home Office, the Department responsible for safety in this country, leaves those people and our whole community unsafe.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

As I have made some interventions already, I shall be brief. As a Conservative, I believe the case is now robustly made for a change in position. We can consider the history and accept that it is right that Government Departments should implement different policies to respond to the concerns that the public, voters, businesses, and everybody in the community has in a given period.

I was reflecting on an article published in The Guardian about how the wider issue of immigration and this point specifically had become so toxic over the years. It referred to the proposals put forward by a Labour Government, for example, that the children of asylum seekers should be taught separately because they were “swamping” the classrooms of this country. Barbara Roche, who was the Immigration Minister for a number of years at the time when the current legislation was established, talked about needing to be much tougher to deter people. That was probably a response to a prevailing concern with the accession of the Visegrad countries into the European Union and a lot of coverage in the media that said that that was going to lead to large numbers of people arriving in the country with the right to work. There was understandable concern in some communities about the impact that would have on their local areas. The Government wanted to demonstrate that they were concerned, and that they were going to be tough and take effective measures to make sure that impact was mitigated.

Of course, as we have heard from the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), we face a period in which covid, Brexit, and changes in legislation on borders and free movement all add up to a very different picture. The polling done by British Future identifies that many people in these communities have, over time, come to see that asylum seekers and refugees in their local area can bring valuable skills and should be able to use those skills in paid work, rather than subsisting for a long time on very meagre amounts paid for by the taxpayer.

It seems to me a very Conservative thing to expect people to pay their way. When people arrive and could be working in our hospitals, our care system or, frankly, in any kind of job that their skills and experience make them fit to do, we as Conservatives should enable them to do it, rather than having taxpayers pick up the tab for their costs while we make a decision on their long-term futures. That view seems to be gaining a high degree of traction.

Although I absolutely accept that there is a compassion argument at the heart of this issue, we need to recognise that that argument is not attached to any particular political viewpoint. Governments have to make decisions in the light of the circumstances that they face and in the wider interests of the country. It was, once upon a time, in the wider interests of the country to apply those restrictions to have a borders and immigration policy that commanded public confidence.

When so many businesses around the country say that they are struggling to recruit workers, particularly skilled workers for certain types of job—the farming industry was talking about that over the summer with preparations for harvesting, and for local authorities recruiting staff for social care is a major challenge, with significant upward pressure on wages—there is an opportunity to bring people with those skills in to make that contribution and become tax-paying, economically active members of our society, rather than subsisting on the taxpayer. That is why I think it is time to make the case for a change in that policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

Well, of course, people who come in through the family reunion route can work straightaway; people who come in under the resettlement programme—those 25,000 people, including the constituents of the hon. Member for Strangford—can work straight away. We need to speed up our asylum decision making; some fair points were made there. Clearly, the pandemic has made that considerably more difficult, but we need to work to speed up those decisions, which is in everybody’s interest. It is in the interest, clearly, of the person seeking asylum, so that they know where they stand; that is only fair. If they do get a positive decision, it means they can start working; that is only fair to the taxpayer as well.

[David Simmonds]

Will my hon. Friend the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

I have to just finish, because there is very little time remaining. I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me for concluding.

I also am concerned about the possibility of creating some measure of pull factor, because if people know that they are able to come here on, for example, a small boat or the back of a lorry, or on an aeroplane, without proper documentation and immediately, or very nearly immediately, start working, that will act as a further encouragement to come to the UK and add to the 35,000 asylum claims that we have already. Particularly in the case of people who are in safe countries such as France—pretty much all the small boat arrivals come from France—they are in a safe country where they could, if they wished, claim asylum.

I will just say that the shortage occupation list is rather wider than was represented. It does include nurses and medical practitioners. I commend that scheme to people with those skills who want to work.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

This Lords amendment should not be a point of party political disagreement. I agree with every word that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said. He is a fellow member of the Home Affairs Committee, and the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) is also a member of the Select Committee. We may disagree on many things, but on this we are in strong agreement, as we are with my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch).

When in the past we have helped child refugees, we have done so on a cross-party basis—be it, generations ago, with the Kindertransport or, in more recent years, with the Dubs amendment put forward by Lord Dubs, himself a child of the Kindertransport. We have done so with the investment through the aid budget supporting refugees across the regions, and with the resettlement scheme, which many of us called for and the Government rightly brought forward, to help many Syrian families restart their lives. The same principle should apply here as well.

We have always had cross-party agreement that we should do our bit to help children and teenagers who are alone with no one to look after them, and who have fled conflict and persecution but have family here in the UK who can care for them, put a roof over their head, try to make sure they get back into school, look after them and give them back a future. It is something that every one of us would want for our own families if we, for a moment, just think about walking in others’ shoes and about the awful plight of families in this situation, torn asunder by conflict or by persecution. I have teenage and adult children and, like so many of us, I would want them to be back together or to find others who could care for them from within our family if something terrible happened.

While the Government’s proposed review will, I hope, be important in looking at safe and legal routes to sanctuary, it is not an alternative to the Lords amendment. Reviews take time and consultation takes time. All of those things take time, and we do not know yet where it will end, but at the moment the rules change in January, and therefore it is not an alternative for the children and teenage refugees who may be in need of support to rejoin family now.

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham set out clearly why the current rules do not suffice to provide that support, but Safe Passage provided us with the reason why there is so much at stake when it described the case of a 14-year-old teenage boy on the streets of Paris, whose brother is here. Safe Passage had worked with him to get him off the streets into secure accommodation, to get him support from social services and to get him into the legal process to apply to rejoin his adult brother, who is in Scotland. However, the boy and his brother became deeply anxious that the rules were about to change at the end of December, and he has now left that accommodation. He has absconded, and nobody knows where he is. The message he left behind said, “I have heard that the law will change. What will happen to me?” The huge risk is that he may now end up in the arms of people smugglers or people traffickers, trying to make a really dangerous journey. We have seen the consequences of those awful, dangerous journeys in flimsy boats, with lives having been lost so recently—children’s lives have been lost as well.

I urge the Minister to think again and go with the spirit of the things he told us this morning about wanting to be compassionate towards child and teenage refugees. I urge him to keep these provisions in place, to accept the Lords amendment and to recognise our continuing obligation to reunite desperate families. If he wants to look at this again once his review is in place, he will have done no further harm to those families in the meantime.

For the sake of these teenagers and young people, whose safety and lives may otherwise be at risk, I urge the Minister to accept the Lords amendment.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I very much welcome the Minister’s restating of the commitment to safe and legal routes, which we all recognise are critical to tackling the risks of trafficking. I also very much welcome the commitment to existing family reunion routes.

One issue that has not received enough attention in the debate around child refugees is the humanitarian issue of what happens to them after they arrive in this country. It is important that I ask the Minister to consider some of those wider implications, because they are enormously significant in making a decision about the UK’s attitude to so many of these questions. They are vital to our care system, to local authorities and, of course, to local communities, because the children and young people we are talking about in the context of this specific amendment and debate are a very small proportion of the number the UK is involved in supporting. Indeed, from 2015, we saw around a doubling of the annual number of unaccompanied children and young people coming into the care of local authorities in the United Kingdom under the terms of the Children Act 1989, partly as a result of the Government’s commitments, but also in recognition of the fact that determining the narrow legal status of a child refugee before they arrive here and ensuring that is sustained after their arrival is something with which this debate and the legislation struggle.

One of the big challenges I have always found, having worked with the noble Lord Dubs on these issues for some time, is that the idea that Dubs created a very specific route that opens up an opportunity often turns into an illusion for these children once they arrive,. I have personally come across many examples of young people who have been lined up to come here to be reunited with a family member only for it to transpire that the family member is in no position to care for them, and that young person is, in fact, simply being lined up to be taken into the United Kingdom care system. That, of course, is the ultimate destination for many unaccompanied child refugees, because that is what our legislation requires.

Although I very much agree with the points raised by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), we need to consider not that Dubs is unique in and of itself but that, actually, it concerns a very small, flexible and variable number within a much larger number of child refugees who are coming into the care of the United Kingdom.

When the Minister looks at the wider capacity picture, he should speak to the 30 councils that have come forward and said they would like to take Dubs children. He should ask them why they are not willing to make those places available to the large numbers of existing asylum-seeking children who are in the care of local authorities while looking for openings under the national transfer scheme. That would enable many of these children, many of whom may turn out to be Dubs eligible anyway, to move into the care of a local authority in a different part of the country. That is a critical question.

In conclusion, I welcome much of what the Minister said. I simply ask him to provide in his response a commitment on the future of global resettlement. We all recognise that this is a very small part of that much bigger picture. A clear commitment from the Government about when the scheme will commence and what its resourcing will look like would provide assurance of what the future framework is for so many vulnerable people around the world and maintain the UK’s reputation as providing a safe and honourable route to a safe haven for those who genuinely need it.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). I have heard him speak on this matter in the past, and he does so with clarity and some experience and authority. Of course, he is right to bring these problems to the attention of the House. I would observe in passing, however, that the problems he highlights are, relative to the problems we will have if we remove the Dublin scheme, easy problems to have. The state, as we all know, is not a good parent. We have seen that not just in relation to refugees, but in relation to our own constituents. Frankly, however, those are problems that can be solved when you have used the safe legal route to get children here. That is really what is at stake here.

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) was absolutely forensic and clinical in his dissection of the Government’s policy and response. It was an absolute masterclass that should be played to future generations of new Members. He is absolutely right. He laid bare the paucity of the position the Government have taken for reasons that I still fail to understand. The Minister said we would doubtless engage proactively with the consultation he referred to. Of course, he is absolutely right. We will do that. My colleagues and I will never pass up an opportunity to put the case for the creation of safe and legal routes. However, it is no substitute for the House now stepping up to the plate and meeting its obligations and responsibilities, moral and legal, in providing those safe and legal routes.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Select Committee, said that we should walk in the shoes of those who find themselves in this position. She is absolutely right about that. I do not know if I am the only person in the Chamber at the moment who has ever gone to sea in November in a gale. Having been born and brought up on Islay and representing Orkney and Shetland, it is just part of what you do. It is absolutely terrifying. Being at sea when a gale blows up is absolutely terrifying. I remember one occasion waiting on a pier to go on a ferry with my own children. I decided I would not take them. It was a modern ferry. It was well-equipped and would have had every rescue availability if something had gone wrong. It was a ferry that would only go to sea because it had a responsible captain who felt it was safe to do so. But I was not going to put my children through that, because they were young and they would have been terrified.

So how bad have things got to be before any parent would consider the possibility of going to sea at this time of year, knowing the possible consequences that we saw in the channel so very recently? That is what at stake here. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford is absolutely right. We should put ourselves in the position of those who find themselves in that position. If we do, the Dubs amendment looks like a very modest proposal indeed.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

It is difficult, in six minutes, to do justice to such an important piece of legislation, with such a diverse set of amendments. I want to speak primarily to Lords amendment 3—the old new clause 2 that I proposed on Report—and Lords amendment 4, which is the old new clause 29 on the Dublin replacement. However, I also support Lords amendment 6, previously proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and Lords amendment 9, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) spoke so eloquently about.

On Lords amendment 3, we had previous arguments about lots of children in care going under the radar. There are now just eight months to go until the end of the EU settlement scheme. The Home Office originally told us that it estimated that there were some 9,000 EU children in care and care leavers in this country, but now, after a survey completed by 90% of local authorities, it suggests that the figure is under 4,000. Why the drop? At a similar time, it estimated that the number of EU adults who would register to qualify for the EU settlement scheme would be 3 million, but it has turned out to be over 4 million. Why does the number for children in care go down and yet the number for adults has gone up?

These children are of course already in this country. Not a single additional child will be brought into this country under this legislation. It is about regularising status and giving those children safety and giving confirmation to children already in this country. That is why the amendment is still very important. We risk another Windrush scandal for a particularly vulnerable set of children growing up in care who inevitably have more chaotic lifestyles than most people.

Recent research by the charity Coram, “Children left out?”, highlighted the mixed practice among local authorities in identifying and supporting children in care through the EU settlement scheme, with fears that some authorities are making no attempt to identify children in their care who need to regularise their status. Of course, there is no incentive for authorities to regularise that status through citizenship when it costs £1,012, for every child, to do that.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is drawing attention to a very important issue. Does he agree that the crucial point is that a local authority may have the statutory duty as the corporate parent, but if the child does not have documentary evidence proving their nationality—not their residence, which the local authority can prove easily, but their nationality—the local authority is unable to take forward the application at all? I hope the Minister will be able to address that issue when he responds to the debate.

[Tim Loughton]

That is absolutely right. It is very difficult to replace documents, and many people come here without any documents. We are relying on the timescales of high commissions and embassies in various EU countries, and it is not exactly a priority of social workers, who are snowed under with all the other safeguarding work they have to do.

This is a really important amendment. Interestingly, there was a judgment by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman against Liverpool Council. A care leaver complained that the council had failed to regularise his immigration status and failed to secure him British citizenship and a passport, which meant he could not travel or work. That complaint was upheld. The Government did not vote against the amendment in the Lords, so what has changed between then and tonight? This is a great opportunity for the Government to show why such a provision is necessary, without adding a single additional person to the immigration figures, if that is what they are actually worried about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shaun Bailey]

I am really sorry, but I have not got the time. I am more than happy to pick up with the hon. Gentleman outside the Chamber if he wishes. [Laughter.] I am always open to a debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have been very open-minded in this place.

I am conscious of time, so I will turn to Lords amendment 5 on the IT system. It is important to have this discussion because one thing we have noticed during these times is the digital disconnect—the digital lockout. Hon. and right hon. Members on all sides of the House have pointed that out. I accept the arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Minister on the merits of using a digital system, but we need to be really careful that we do not lock a generation out.

I know from my area that there are many people who do not have access to computers and digital. There is a reliance more widely across Government on digital—obviously, we are going into the future and it is going to be there—but we cannot lock people out. From discussions with the Minister, I am heartened by the way in which the Department is open to being agile in that space, but we need to be mindful that we cannot lock out a generation.

I want to wrap up my comments, because I am conscious I have only 30 seconds left, but I will just say this. I stood on a manifesto in my constituency to get Brexit done. I stood on a manifesto to bring in a fair immigration system that my constituents felt ultimately stuck by that principle of fair play. I believe the Bill, unamended, does that. However, there are operational points, which I am sure the Minister will pick up in his winding-up speech, that we need to address. If we do that, we can be absolutely sure that we refine this and make it work for that sense of fair play that my constituents voted for.

[David Simmonds]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey), I am very much of the view that the Bill has the purpose of replacing the arrangements we had in the European Union. I will not be supporting the amendments this evening, because I feel very much that the issues highlighted are principally about matters of management and administration of the process, rather than operation of law. That said, I hope those on the Government Front Bench are paying close attention to what has been said across the House this evening about a number of particular points. The two I would especially like to draw attention to are: the circumstances of undocumented children in the care system, and the point about documentary evidence in the hands of those who are applying for settled status.

I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his time and attention to the first issue relating to undocumented children. However, we heard Members across the House emphasise the vulnerability of those in the care system to finding themselves at risk of a future Windrush situation because of the retroactive nature of some elements of the applications for settled status. While it is welcome that the Home Office accepts that people will be able to apply in effect out of time—that is a positive thing—it does not address the fundamental problem that a local authority with care responsibilities, or indeed a family member with a special guardianship order for a young person, would face if they do not have the necessary documentation proving that young person’s nationality in obtaining settled status for them in the United Kingdom. Although I think we recognise that that group is a relatively small group, it is vital that their needs are addressed to ensure that we do not, in 10 or 15 years’ time, find ourselves regretting that we did not take more action on that tonight.

Another point which arises from that of course is the one raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), which is the significant cost of this. Local authorities paying that cost to the Home Office is simply a cost shunt from one taxpayer to another taxpayer, and I would urge the Home Office to give consideration to ensuring that, for children in care, those costs are either waived or substantially reduced to remove a final barrier.

I will finish on this point, time being tight. A number of Members have raised the issue of documentary evidence in the hands of the citizen. We have seen many examples in all different walks of life where we would have legitimate concerns about whether the digital record keeping, of all kinds of organisations and for all kinds of reasons, is sufficiently accurate. We all hear, as Members of this House, from our constituents about the issues that that causes them in their day-to-day life. For people who may be refugees, who may be facing a degree of digital exclusion or for whom English is not a first language, that is an even greater problem. I am reassured by the message from the Home Office that everybody who makes an application will receive a written response, with a number on it, that provides evidence of the status that has been granted, but I think it would be useful for all of us to hear a bit more in due course from the Home Office about how it proposes to ensure that that is something people appreciate the value of, and that it is kept and preserved so that the evidence is there for the future.

The UK has much to be proud of in the way that we respond to immigration. It is right that we keep this tight to the matters under consideration, but I trust that colleagues have heard the concerns across the House and that the Minister will address them in his summing up.

[Kevin Foster]

This has been an interesting and fascinating debate, which has mostly been reflective and reasonable. I hope colleagues will appreciate though that, in the seven and a half minutes I have, I will not be able to respond to every single point that has been raised.

I will start with the themes, and we have again had a lengthy debate on social care. I was pleased to hear the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), say he agreed with the MAC. He will recall the evidence that Brian Bell gave to the Public Bill Committee that considered this Bill, and I am glad to hear that he now agrees with that. I would say, however, that we are being clear again that the MAC has been free to make its own reviews and commissions, and to produce an annual report that can then be considered by this House. It will be able to do that independently, and it will almost certainly provide commentary on social care. To set up a body that is independent and free to make its own decisions, and then tell it all the reviews it needs to do does not make a great deal of sense. Similarly, we are keen that it is there, and it can be lobbied, including by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), about areas that it may wish to consider of importance. As we keep on saying, if the lesson people have taken from the last few months is that the solution to social care is to give employers an unlimited opportunity to recruit at the minimum wage, they have really taken the wrong lesson.

Moving on to the issues of modern slavery, we have again had some impassioned speeches and some very well-informed ones, particularly from my right hon. Friends the Members for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). Again, I would say that we have obviously made the changes to guidance. We will bring forward those changes to guidance and have them in place on 1 January. He will appreciate why we will not do it before then, because people will still have free movement rights and we should respect that. But certainly we are happy to engage more widely around the position on what we can do and where we can ensure that the support these victims need is available to them, particularly as we remove the distinction between EEA victims who have free movement rights and non-EEA victims who do not, subject to the caveat that we will of course always look to see if a victim of modern slavery is eligible for the European settlement scheme.

Turning to the issues of family reunion and resettlement, I again point out that there are provisions under the UK’s migration rules that, certainly under part 8, go wider than purely affecting parents with children. We are in negotiations with the European Union, and the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), is actively looking at what we can do. If we can get bilateral arrangements, then fantastic, but does it make sense in future to have a different set of rules for people in EEA countries versus those in the rest of the world? That is the core of this Bill, which is about free movement rights. If there is an agreement—a reciprocal arrangement—in place, then that would go beyond what we have as our baseline rules. Now that we have left the European Union, with the transition period and free movement coming to an end, whatever settlement we have in future—there is a debate to be had in this House about our asylum system, and we will have it at more length in the near future—it does not make sense to have a distinction between someone whose position is in the EEA and someone whose position is, for example, in Turkey, unless there are reciprocal arrangements that justify that difference of treatment.

The issue of children in care has rightly been a subject of some debate. I hear the point that has just been made about identification. Let me be clear: EUSS does not require a passport or an ID card; alternative measures can be used to prove entitlement through documentation. However, that issue is not particularly caused by EUSS because today you would need the same challenge to identify whether someone is a UK national, an EEA national or a rest-of-the-world national, given the impact that that has on free movement rights. However, we are happy to continue working with local authorities to see how we can help them to tackle these issues, and to work with high commissions to ensure that those who deserve their status receive it.

As we have said, there is a range of provisions around late applications and those who should make an application but do not. This is not just about children in care. We also include those under 18. If a parent does not make an application, and, at a later time, the child reaches the age of majority and they have to do a compliant environment check, for example, and discover that it has not been made, we would see that as a reasonable ground for a late application. As touched on, there is no specific time limit to that provision.

On detention, we have outlined our arguments. I am conscious that there are strong feelings on this in the House. We all want to see people swiftly moved out of detention and, if they have no right to be in this country, to be removed from it. We want detention to be used as a last resort. Its use has been declining over the past few years. That is partly because we cannot guarantee that a country in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, will issue us with travel documents for the person to be returned to it within the timeframe. In particular, we have to be clear that there is no ability to put someone in detention for no reason. We have to have a lawful basis for doing so, and that can only be where there is a reasonable prospect of removal or a threat to the public—although I accept that only a very small number of people are serious foreign national offenders.

On physical documentation, we are moving towards more digital statuses. For example, we are looking to see where we can use public services to automatically check status. In recent months, we have seen the advantage of EU citizens who already have EUSS—although they are not yet required to have it—being able to share that online and digitally when doing a range of checks, at a time when a face-to-face meeting to do so may be a lot less desirable. As touched on, it will not just be EEA nationals with status under EUSS who will be using digital status—we also intend the route for British nationals overseas, who will also be moving to digital. As touched on, countries such as Australia have had a system like this in place for some time. It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) talk about the idea of digital passports. We are starting to look to the future where people may well travel on their biometrics and with digital identities rather than travelling purely on passports—although that is probably a few years away given that it would require technology being reciprocated in other nations.

I particularly enjoyed some of the speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) hit the nail on the head: this Bill is about delivering a manifesto commitment. This Bill is about ending free movement, as voted for in the general election and in the referendum back in 2016. It is not there to have the whole range of debate around immigration, but I respect the fact that people took the chance to do that. This Bill is about delivering a manifesto commitment, and that is why we should remove these amendments, which do not go to that core goal.

No Recourse to Public Funds

David Simmonds Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under a chairman with such experience of this issue. I know, Ms Nokes, that you have done a great deal of work on asylum migration in the United Kingdom over the years.

It was my pleasure to support the bid for this debate today. My experience with no recourse to public funds starts with recognising that it is an extremely complex issue. I have no dispute with the estimates, made by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, of 1.4 million people and up to 175,000 children living in households where there are adults with no recourse to public funds. For many of those households, that is not necessarily an issue of destitution, because for some time NRPF status has been used as a kind of migration amnesty. People are told that while there may be some question mark over their eligibility, they are able to remain in the United Kingdom provided they are not a charge on the funds of the state.

I am a constituent of the Prime Minister. One of the members of the household next door is a lady from India, who is married to a British man of Indian heritage and who has two children who were born in the United Kingdom. She has NRPF status. If the Prime Minister is not aware of that, I am certainly happy to bring it to his attention. It is evidence that in many households this condition has been imposed as a consequence of the person’s presence in the United Kingdom, but for many people that is not something that will cause them a problem in their day-to-day life.

Although there is a valid debate to be had about the morality of saying to people, “You can be in the UK but you are excluded from the British safety net,” I will focus on some of the practical issues that NRPF status creates for those families who find themselves getting into difficulty. I agree with what has been said about the numbers. One of the challenges in this debate is that because those numbers are not widely available, they are not easily analysed. Understanding what proportion of the estimated 1.4 million people find themselves in difficulty and require intervention is a major challenge.

Starting in 2005, the Government introduced, through the Home Office, a programme of asylum dispersal. I had the pleasure of giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, alongside the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. Part way into his evidence he said, “I have just realised that I was the Minister who signed this into law, in the mid-2000s, when we introduced this policy of dispersing people through this mechanism around the country.” A lot of the issues we see arising in local authorities are iterations of that policy, which exists to this day. The simple principle behind it is that people should be placed in parts of the country where accommodation is inexpensive and where they can be housed in a way that does not introduce competition with other local families that may be in need. It is a policy that has worked in different forms, with varying degrees of success, over the years.

The challenge seems to arise when the result of those people’s journeys through the asylum dispersal system is a decision that they are not supposed to be in the United Kingdom and that they do not have a future here. At that point the NRPF status is imposed on them and they find themselves at risk of destitution. That is where there is a major challenge for Governments of all parties, which is that NRPF is something of a myth, as a status. It is a list of things that are paid for out of central Government funds, which cannot be accessed, at which point the duties of local authorities, dating back to the National Assistance Act 1948 and the Children Act 1989, then come into effect.

What we see, in fact, is a cost shunt from central Government to local government. Those who understandably wish to see a robust policy in respect of migration, and in respect of those who do not have a right to be in our country, have the comfort of thinking, “At least we are not paying for the subsistence costs of those families,” but in fact local council tax payers are picking up the bill for that. I know that the Public Accounts Committee has given the matter some consideration over the years. When we look at the information provided by a number of different sources—I pay particular tribute to the No Recourse to Public Funds Network—we see that they identify that that costs the authorities responsible about £44 million per annum of council tax payers’ money. Some 82% of the households that are supported under those arrangements are on what is termed the exit pathway, so they are people whom the Home Office does not view as having any long-term future in the United Kingdom, and they are on their way to deportation or leaving under their own steam but have not yet left.

It seems to me that it is not justifiable to say that we have a tough and robust policy around migration, and that people who should not be here are required to leave, when in fact the consequence of our policy is that they are staying at a cost to local council tax payers. The underlying assumption is that NRPF will result in people who do not have the long-term right to be in the United Kingdom leaving. The reality is that, in many cases, that is not what happens, and families who do not have a long-term future in the United Kingdom none the less become a cost to local council tax payers.

I therefore urge consideration of this issue, not just from the perspective of compassion—I think that that is very important, and it is very much the perspective that we have heard already—but because, if we wish to develop and build confidence in our communities that, in practice, we have the robust and rigorous asylum, refugee and migration policies that we say we do, we need to demonstrate that the ambitions that are set out in policy are being fulfilled at local level. In my view, NRPF simply does not meet that test at the moment.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

As the hon. Gentleman has already heard throughout oral questions, the fact of the matter is that we are totally committed, and rightly so, to protecting the way in which those who seek asylum are treated in our system. He has already heard about strains and pressures, and it is right that we undertake all interviews in the right and proper phased way. That is exactly what we are doing, in a responsible manner.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

  Proportionately, the UK is not a major destination for asylum seekers, but those who have a legal claim here face a Catch-22 situation. Currently, someone must be in the UK to establish a claim, but what plans does my right hon. Friend, and her Department, have to create safe legal routes, so that we are able robustly to disrupt traffickers who are trying to bring people in illegally?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is right about the greater need for safe and legal routes, but it is right that as a Government we pursue those individuals who are facilitating criminality. Hon. Members have already heard the figures for arrests and numbers of convictions, and we will continue with that. We are working right now to look at new, safe and legal routes for the protection of those who need our help.