Is it not funny, Madam Deputy Speaker, that all afternoon Government Members have been saying, “Why are more council areas in Scotland not taking more asylum seekers?” We want to do that, but the Government do not fund it. If the Government funded it properly, we absolutely, certainly would take more. Sometimes it is not just about the money, but about people’s human rights.
I want to concentrate a little on congregated living—I do not know the term, but Members will know what I mean. Today, the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) mentioned Ireland. Yesterday, at the all-party group on refugees, we heard from the Irish Refugee Council, whose chief executive, Nick Henderson, described this as a “Sliding Doors” moment. Just as Ireland changes its immigration system, after a 19-year campaign, and sets out on a path to end congregated living for asylum seekers, we are embarking on the opposite journey, closing down community dispersal for those deemed to have arrived unlawfully by slinging them into degrading and inhumane detention centres—“Sliding Doors” indeed. I will say a bit more in a minute
about the Irish experience, but at that same meeting we also heard a Belarusian politician describe his experience of living as an asylum seeker in congregated settings in London. He was at pains to point out how grateful he was that the UK had taken in him and his wife, and he was very clear that, had it not done so, he would have been murdered. He is now settled, but he is worried about others. He knows the impact of congregated living for asylum seekers. None of us knows it, but he does, and he wants to warn the Government against going further down that route. He talked about the powder keg that is created when a melting pot of multiple cultures and languages lives in one space with always just one thing in common: trauma. The constant stress of that and the indignity of communal living left him feeling suicidal. Yes, I agree with those Conservative Members who say that we have a broken asylum system: we certainly do, but they are trying to fix it in the wrong way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) talked about the inquiry that the APPG on immigration detention has been doing. I attended some of those sessions and I was as sickened as she was when I heard people talking about the outbreak of scabies. How is that giving people dignity? She and I have both worked hard to try to close down the so-called mother and baby unit in Glasgow. There is a fantastic campaign called Freedom to Crawl. It is called that because in that mother and baby unit the rooms are so tiny that the babies and toddlers cannot crawl; they cannot move. That is inhumane.
I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about people who come here by very dangerous routes characterised as wealthy and selfish and just coming here for their own benefit because they want to make money.