News Shorts and Other Busyness

Asylum Bill - Cutting Benefits To Refugees

Squall 12, Spring 1996, pg. 7.

The Asylum And Immigration Bill became law in February. This latest Tory Titanic intends to relieve local authorities of their obligation to house asylum seekers (or even to offer them advice on their housing situation).

It comes hand-in glove with Peter Lilley’s Social Security Amendments which will mean that those people who seek asylum after they have entered the country (rather than at their port of arrival) lost the right to any benefits after February 8.

Currently about 70 per cent of those seeking asylum do so after they have arrived. Lilley’s proposals will also affect those whose initial asylum application has been refused, in effect the vast majority of applicants: refusal rates rocketed from 17 per cent in 1990 to 75 per cent in 1994.

The Bill and the Social Security Amendments have sent shudders down the backs of those who work for the welfare of refugees, immigrants and the homeless. Groups including the Refugee Council, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and Shelter are already working with those who have suffered intense hardship, sometimes torture and who, even with current entitlements, are often forced to live in appalling conditions when they reach this country.

Mark, who works for CHAR, the Campaign for the Single Homeless told Squall: “I find it appalling that these people are allowed to be in the country but they are not allowed to work or to claim benefits. What are they supposed to do? Die quietly on the streets?”

The Social Security Amendments which include the denial of rights to child benefits for asylum seekers have also raised questions as to how local authorities will be able to adhere to the new measures and meet their duties under the Childrens’ Act.

The social security measures were scheduled to become law on January 8 but amendments were made due to huge opposition (not least from Conservative ranks). Lilley announced that the 13,000 asylum seekers who have lodged asylum claims since October (whom it was initially feared would be made homeless immediately), can continue to claim benefits until their applications for asylum are refused.

In a speech to parliament in January, Lilley said: “These reforms will discourage bogus claimants and protect the taxpayer. They are both fair and necessary”. This statement is based on the Government’s assumption that the low recognition rate of asylum seekers as refugees by the Home Office is evidence of the extent of bogus claims. As the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) has stated: “these unsound assumptions are... frequently cited as justification for further restrictive measures.”

What the combination of these changes will actually mean is landlords refusing to take asylum seekers on as tenants because they will not get housing benefit (under the Asylum Bill) and a consequent rise in the numbers of homeless families. This is likely to completely seize up the country’s already overburdened short-term housing facility as temporary spaces are filled with people who have nowhere to move on to.

Nick Hardwick, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, believes that: “these measures... will now inevitably result in 2,000 asylum seekers every month losing benefit and facing destitution.”

The Asylum and Immigration Bill is due to receive Royal Assent in the summer and will include the tellingly named ‘white list’ of countries in which Michael Howard believes there is “in general no serious risk of persecution”. Despite an established UN resolution to the contrary the Bill will make it a criminal offence to attempt to enter the country illegally. Compelling individual circumstances such as the risk of imprisonment, death or torture will, because of the generalised nature of the legislation, not be taken into account.

The Government has also introduced a new fast-track decision-making process to deal with ‘in-country’ applicants. Under the pilot for this scheme 100 per cent of applicants, including people from Nigeria, Uganda and Romania, were refused asylum.

Continuing this Government’s impressive record for blatantly ignoring the advice of those who know, Lilley is determined to press ahead with these measures, despite warnings from the Social Security Advisory Committee who, in a report widely recognised as the most critical in its history, predict racial division and the almost guaranteed destitution of those ‘in-country’ applicants who apply after February 8. The report stated: “These proposals should not proceed.” Uniquely, according to the Refugee Council, the committee offered no secondary recommendations. Feebly attempting to justify the measures to the Commons Lilley said: “Other European nations have tightened up their procedures.” Of course they have Peter, it’s called international racism.