My Lords, I want to say a few words in support of the Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to annul the regulations which cut asylum support rates to children and which, according to the Children’s Society, will,
“force over 10,000 children seeking safety from war and persecution”,
to live in severe poverty. I should say that I am patron of Asylum Link Merseyside.
It is usually a pretty good test of the decency of any society to examine how it treats its most vulnerable. By anybody’s reckoning, you do not come much more vulnerable than children who are members of families seeking safety from persecution or war. Searing images of an 18-month-old baby wrenched to safety from the seas last weekend, or the corpse of a young boy washed ashore, not having made it, are a graphic reminder of the dangers facing families seeking refuge from the horrors being rained down upon them.
It is always sobering to imagine yourself in the place of a family forced to leave everything behind in countries such as Syria or Eritrea. Last week, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and I heard first-hand accounts from refugees who had escaped from Eritrea. Witnesses cited a United Nations report which concludes that the things that the Afwerki regime does to its population probably constitute crimes against humanity. We were told of deaths by torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, indefinite military conscription, forced labour and the persecution of religious believers. The country’s population is haemorrhaging, as those who are able to try to escape, seeking asylum in countries like ours if they are able to get here, but more often than not in transit countries such as Libya, facing further persecution. A group of Eritreans was recently beheaded by ISIS in Libya as they were fleeing to try to claim asylum.
Every month, up to 5,000 people leave Eritrea. More than 350,000 have done so so far, about 10% of the entire population. Some 46% of those who try to make the perilous Mediterranean crossing from Libya come from either Eritrea or Syria. The tragedy of those countries must of course be tackled at source, but in the mean time, we must respond with humanity and a sense of justice and compassion for those caught up in these appalling situations.
Eritrea is one country and one example, but I mention it to give some context to today’s debate. As we have heard, under Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, asylum seekers who reach the UK and would otherwise be destitute may access support while their protection claim is being considered. Those provisions were already set at 70% of income support, while separate provision would be made for asylum seekers’ accommodation and utility bills. The freezing of support rates, followed by a flat rate of £36.95 a week, regardless of age, has left asylum seekers in a state of destitution.
With a mere £5 a day, asylum seekers must pay for their food, clothing, toiletries, transport and other essential needs, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, reminded us. The effect on children, who since August have had their support cut by £16 a week, is draconian.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made that point eloquently in his remarks a few minutes ago. The Children’s Society says:
“The internationally recognised poverty threshold, or ‘poverty line’, is defined as living on less than 60% of the median UK household income”.
Families living on asylum support fall well below this level. For example, a couple with a child will now receive just under £111 per week, 60% below the poverty line of £279 per week.
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Every parent knows that bringing up children carries significant costs. Child Poverty Action estimates—as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has reminded us—that, after excluding housing and child care, the cost of bringing up a child in Britain adds £93.03 per week for the first child and £86.37 for a second child. Beyond food, shelter and clothing, additional resources are needed if a child is to grow, develop and learn effectively, but these regulations mean that children will be treated the same as adults, without any recognition of their additional needs. Charities working with asylum seekers and refugees say that there will be increased social isolation, as families are unable to afford public transport —ending trips, for instance, to libraries and child-centred facilities—along with the inability to pay for everything from children’s birthday parties to TV or school uniforms.
It is hard to see how this approach meets our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which we are a signatory, and which insists that every child has the right to a standard of living adequate for their physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development, as well as a right to play and to rehabilitation. Perhaps the Minister will tell us how this makes us compliant with our convention obligations as well as complying with our statutory duty under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 to safeguard and promote children’s welfare.
Asylum Link Merseyside is based in the neighbourhood that I represented, as a city councillor and Member of the House of Commons, for 25 years. Since its foundation in 2001 it has supported many destitute asylum seekers. It currently supports more than 40 destitute clients, housing 20 of those and supporting others with cash grants and food parcels. Over the past three years, it has seen more than 400 destitute clients, with two or three new referrals every week. ALM says:
“Most people living in Britain cannot believe that anyone here would be forced to live in absolute poverty, begging at churches for handouts and parcels of food, sleeping on the streets or worse being forced into prostitution to survive”.
But that is a reality.
Asylum Link Merseyside also says:
“This government policy of making asylum seekers destitute works on the assumption that by forcing people into extreme poverty they will choose to return to countries from which they have fled in fear of their lives”.
What they have found in Liverpool is that this assumption is wrongheaded, because 98% of failed asylum seekers choose to stay, surviving on handouts, sleeping on floors or sleeping rough. ALM says that, over the past three years, it has come into contact,
“with over 400 destitute asylum seekers out of which only 8 have chosen to return home voluntarily”.
Independent research has concluded that 70% of income support is the absolute minimum required to meet basic needs of asylum seekers, and that was before support levels for children were cut by £16 a week. In 2013, Refugee Action interviewed 40 clients who were in receipt of Section 95 support and found that 70% of interviewees were unable to buy either enough food to feed themselves, or fresh fruit and vegetables, or food that met their dietary, religious or cultural requirements. Refugee Action research indicated that asylum seekers usually had to sacrifice one essential item in order to meet another one. Again, that was before support levels for children were cut by £16 a week.
Perhaps the Minister will reflect again on the April 2014 High Court judgment to which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred, in which the judge found that the Government’s assessment of the amount needed by asylum seekers to avoid destitution was flawed. He ordered that the decision be taken again. That ruling required the Government to take account of essential items—such as non-prescription medication, nappies, formula milk and other requirements of new mothers—and to re-examine the errors in calculating the amount required to meet essential living needs. Although the Government responded to the judgment by reviewing their policy, I doubt that it had in mind that the Government should cut support levels for children by £16 a week. Surely that is the central point we are debating tonight.
The statistical basis on which the review was conducted failed to take into account fundamental issues, such as how asylum seekers often arrive with nothing and do not have a support network that they can rely on. In the context of how minors are treated, the Home Office reliance on Office for National Statistics data makes no provision for additional expenditure that may be required for children. To put it mildly, this is bizarre. According to Still Human Still Here,
“the net effect is that asylum seeking families with children are now living on rates that are some 60% below the poverty line and many of these families will spend a considerable period of time on this support”.
Of course, such families are totally prohibited from working to support themselves and are completely reliant on Section 95 support. Surely we should give some consideration to that issue.
Little wonder that the Royal College of Psychiatrists has concluded:
“The psychological health of refugees and asylum seekers currently worsens on contact with the UK asylum system”.
All too often for these desperate families it is a case of no money, no house, no permission to work. In the 21st century, in the fourth-richest country on earth, people are being reduced to absolute destitution, not by accident or personal tragedy but by deliberate act of policy—and we should therefore certainly reconsider these regulations today by supporting the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.