My Lords, I have tabled a regret Motion in this debate. Although I do not want to repeat everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, I do wish to make some comments.
As we know, under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, support is provided to asylum seekers who have made a claim for asylum, in the form of accommodation and/or cash. The Government first laid regulations introducing a flat rate of support for all asylum seekers of £36.95, regardless of age, in March this year. They reversed those regulations some two weeks later, on the final day of the last Session, as a result of what the then Government described as “reflection”. On 16 July, the Government laid the regulations again; and once again, they provided for changes in the amount of money that could be paid weekly to asylum seekers, and introduced a flat rate for all asylum seekers, regardless of age, of £36.95 per week.
Previously, children under 16 and asylum-seeking families received £53.96 per week, so the reduction represents a cut of—in round figures—about 30%. Yet it has been estimated that bringing up a child in Britain costs an additional £89 per week for the first child of a couple, and an additional £81 for a second child, excluding housing and childcare. Research by Refugee Action shows that 40% of people on asylum support interviewed said they could not afford to feed themselves or their children. Rates of support for asylum-seeking families have effectively been frozen since 2011. Given that asylum seekers are able to work only in exceptional circumstances, the reduction imposed by these regulations can hardly be said to be aimed at removing welfare dependency.
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Of course, the regulations are already in effect: they came into effect on 10 August. In addition to the cash allowances, which in respect of children under 16 have been considerably reduced, asylum seekers are provided with fully furnished and equipped accommodation, with no utility bills or council tax to pay, and free access to healthcare and education.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, the regulations were considered by your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. That committee decided to draw them to the special attention of the House on the grounds that explanatory material laid in support provides insufficient information to gain a clear understanding of the instruments, policy and intended implementation. The committee took the view when considering the initial statutory instrument that the change it brought about had been poorly managed, particularly given
the sudden change to claimants’ income as there were no transitional provisions. The committee was also concerned that there was no indication of how the change was to be communicated to those affected.
As I mentioned, the Home Office reversed the proposed changes on the final day of the last Session. In its second report of this Session, the committee criticised the Home Office for,
“another example of a correcting instrument being required due to a policy not having been properly thought through before the Regulations were made”.
The regulations we now consider were laid just before the Summer Recess and are identical to the original instrument, proposing the same reduction in payments by the introduction of a per capita rate. When the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee considered this further, identical instrument, it commented that although the Explanatory Memorandum had been rewritten in several places, it was disappointed that the new version made no reference to the concerns it raised in its earlier report about transitional provisions and how the decision was to be communicated to recipients. The committee also noted that the Explanatory Memorandum lacked the sort of information that it would regard as standard, such as cost-benefit analysis, the number of households that would be affected by the change and the definition of the key term “essential needs”.
As a result, the committee wrote to the relevant Minister in the Home Office for clarification. In that letter, it also pointed out that for many years it had made clear its view about the undesirability of laying controversial instruments such, it said, as this one on the cusp of a recess, leaving no time for debate in Parliament before the legislation came into effect. In the letter, the chairman of the committee went on to say that he had made that point clearly in a recent discussion with the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and asked for an explanation why the further instrument had not been laid earlier, particularly as no redrafting had been required.
In his response, the Home Officer Minister, James Brokenshire, says that it was not considered appropriate for the implementation of the rate change made by this statutory instrument to be the subject of transitional provisions in respect of existing recipients affected by it. Frankly, as to why the Government did not consider it appropriate, there is no explanation. The letter from the Minister is silent on that point. In other words, the reply says, “We have decided, and we do not accept that we must give a reason or explanation for our decision to anyone”—certainly not, apparently, to either Parliament or the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
The reason certainly cannot be that there was not time to consider the matter, since later in his reply the Home Office Minister tells us the reason for the second instrument, identical to the first, being laid on the cusp of a recess and leaving no time for a debate in Parliament was due to the full consideration that the Government had given to whether to make this change to the payment rate for asylum support, which the Minister says necessarily took some time to resolve.
I hope that the Minister will be able to say why, after fully considering and deciding to continue with the rate change, the Government did not even consider it appropriate for implementation to be the subject of transitional provisions. No doubt, the Minister will also be able to tell us the sum expected to be saved by the significant cuts provided for in this instrument, which is another area on which the Government have been less than forthcoming.
The Government have also indicated that their decision to reduce the cash payments provided to destitute asylum seekers in family groups was communicated in writing to members of the National Asylum Stakeholder Forum. Was any response received, particularly since the Government were only advising the forum of a decision already made? If so, what was that response? Can the Minister also say what consultation there was with the forum before the Government made their decision and what responses were received?
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to the legal judgment last year and to some of the surveys calling into question the validity of the Government’s view as to how much financial support an asylum seeker needs to survive. I do not intend to take up the time of the House by repeating either the terms of that legal judgment or what is—or, more relevantly, what is not—included in the Home Office figures to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred. However, our firm view is that these regulations will have a detrimental effect on families and punish the children of those seeking asylum through the removal of the higher rates of allowance for child and adolescent asylum seekers. I suspect that there will be no meeting of the ways on this point and that the Minister will reiterate the figures that are no doubt in his brief and which were included in a letter from the Home Office to the members of the National Asylum Stakeholder Forum and in a letter from the Minister to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I hope, though, that Ministers have looked at their official figures and actually asked themselves whether £36.95 per week per head seems a credible amount on which people can live, based on their own knowledge of the cost of the weekly shop and travel and what might be regarded as necessary to spend without—can I put it this way?—living like a lord. I find it difficult to believe that they have, particularly in relation to the significant reductions for children under 16. These significantly reduced figures bear the hallmark of being strong on theory and living in something of a dream world when it comes to reality. This applies in respect of each item that makes up the list of essential living needs.
The cut in the support rate means that destitute asylum-seeking families with children are now living on rates that are some 60% below the poverty level. In addition, on the basis of the time taken to deal with claims and appeals, many asylum seekers will be on these reduced cash allowances for a considerable time. I understand that, as at the end of June this year, more than 3,600 asylum seekers had been waiting for more than six months for an initial decision on their applications. During this time and any subsequent appeal, asylum seekers are prohibited from working to support themselves and are totally reliant on this support.
As we know, the Government have lost control of our borders. That is one reason why the statement that they would bring net migration down to the tens of thousands has proved so embarrassing in the light of what has actually happened. However, it seems somewhat callous now to make destitute asylum seekers in family groups pay for the Government’s failure through a policy that is clearly designed to seek to reduce their numbers—and thus net migration—by pushing more of them further into destitution primarily by virtually eliminating additional expenditure that may be require for children under 16.
Having to get by on inadequate levels of support has an impact on mental and physical health by causing illness and complicating existing health problems. The British Medical Association—not, I accept, currently the Government’s favourite organisation—has noted that asylum seekers often have specific health problems, related to the effects of war and torture, and a higher incidence of illnesses such as tuberculosis and hepatitis. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has also stated that the psychological health of refugees and asylum seekers worsens on contact with the UK asylum system. The reductions in support rates, particularly for children, are hardly likely to improve the situation, to put it mildly. The Government ought to reconsider their decision, which has had the effect of reducing the payment made to a destitute asylum-seeking couple with two children from £178.44 per week to £147.80 per week, as from 10 August. It is no wonder that the Government wanted to make sure that the statutory instrument implementing the decision came into effect and could not be debated by Parliament before it did so—the exact opposite of being transparent. The Government’s explanation of why the instrument was laid so close to a recess did not fool the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which said that it found the explanation “unconvincing”, and commented that,
“both this instrument and its predecessor were laid on the cusp of a recess”.
We are aware that the issue of support for destitute asylum seekers will continue to be the subject of intense debate and discussion, because the Government intend further to reduce such payments in some situations under the terms of the Immigration Bill currently in the Commons. We cannot, though, support the fatal Motion moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, as it does not in our view meet the criteria for such Motions set out in the 2006 report of the Joint Committee on conventions between the two Houses. We have tabled our regret Motion to enable us to place squarely on the record our strong concern about the Government’s decision, in particular their decision to remove the higher rates of allowance for child and adolescent destitute asylum seekers, which is likely to have a serious adverse impact.
Although I do not hold out any great hope of a helpful response from the Government tonight, I will of course listen to their response with interest. The case for the Government changing their approach towards a group of highly vulnerable people is very strong. Whether they will do so is of course a totally different matter, but not doing so will certainly say a great deal about the attitude of this Government to
a group of people in our midst currently in real need and whose position over the past two and a half months has become significantly worse.