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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) for securing this debate on the important subject of young people in the asylum system. I enjoyed reading his piece in dodonline today, which covered the issue. I am aware that he has long been interested in it and I therefore take his views particularly seriously. I welcome the opportunity to address some of the issues raised during this debate and I will do my best to cover as much as possible in the time available, but if I do not have time to cover them all, I will endeavour to ensure that he receives a written response.
It is a pleasure, Ms Dorries, to serve under your chairmanship. This is probably the first time I have done so in my present capacity, so it is a real treat.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the UK has a proud history of granting asylum to those who need it, and that all claims are carefully considered before decisions are made. The asylum system provides protection for those who are found to be genuinely in need of it in accordance with our commitments under international law, notably the 1951 refugee convention and the European convention on human rights. Protection needs are considered taking into account the individual’s circumstances, and against the background of published country information from a wide range of recognised and publicly disclosed sources.
The Government recognise that young asylum seekers may be particularly vulnerable children, and take very seriously their responsibility to safeguard and promote such cases. All staff who come into contact with young people in the asylum system have been trained to recognise their needs and to act in a way that protects and promotes their best interests in line with our obligations. The Government have a sustained track record of significant improvements in this area. We have transformed our approach to unaccompanied migrant children by ensuring that their best interests and human rights are fully protected while ensuring that legitimate immigration functions are not compromised.
The initiatives taken by this Government include the following. In December 2010, we published plans for ending the detention of children in a way that seeks to balance the protection of children with ensuring the departure of families who have no right to be in the UK. In the few cases in which families are held in pre-departure accommodation, we have worked with statutory and non-statutory corporate partners to ensure that the conditions in which they are held meet all their welfare needs. We have since gone further by giving legislative effect to the policy on detaining children.
I visited the Border Force team at Gatwick airport recently to see their work on identifying trafficked children in particular, but also asylum-seeking children, to ensure that they have the support they need. I cannot speak too highly of the way in which the team works with local social services. It has ensured that the rooms to which children are brought are child-friendly, with bean bags rather than nailed-down chairs. It respects the fact that these young and very vulnerable people need help and support when identifying whether they have been trafficked and ensuring that we can catch the traffickers and punish them. I have seen that with my own eyes and I assure the hon. Gentleman that the operation is very impressive.
Following the report, “Landing in Dover” in January 2012 by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England, we strengthened the arrival and screening process for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. When the asylum claim is made at their first point of contact with the Department, we allow up to four days for recuperation and to enable them to seek legal advice. In July 2012, we introduced new immigration rules to provide a framework for considering applications under article 8 of the European convention on human rights, which relates to family and private life. We have brought consideration of the best interests of children into the immigration rules in order to ensure that we consistently meet our obligations when considering family cases. There is now a clear route for applications for leave based on a child’s best interests.
In the Immigration Act 2014, we also set out clearly how we believe the interests of children should be balanced against the Government’s wider responsibilities for public safety and security and for the effective management of immigration. That has provided greater clarity and transparency on immigration decision making in what is a difficult and sensitive area.
Although the decision-making process in children’s asylum cases is essentially the same as that for adults, there are certain differences. For example, when children attend the asylum intake unit in Croydon—not far from Gatwick, of course—to submit their asylum application, they are often accompanied by social workers and an appointment line is used to minimise waiting times. If they attend alone, an urgent referral is made to local authority children’s services. We also take the fingerprints of all children over the age of five as soon as possible. That ensures that they can be identified if they are encountered at a later date, which is particularly important in potential trafficking cases.
We always make social services aware of a child’s arrival at the earliest opportunity. From that point onwards, a variety of professionals will have involvement with the welfare of the child. For consideration of their asylum application, children are interviewed by a specially trained decision maker. At the interview, the child will be accompanied by a responsible adult. A legal representative would normally be present for the interview, and an interpreter if appropriate. The decision maker will then consider the details of the case and make a decision on the application. If the decision is to refuse the child’s asylum application, the reception arrangements upon returning them to their country of origin must be considered.
The Home Office will not remove an unaccompanied child from the UK unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that safe and adequate reception arrangements are in place in the country to which the child is to be removed. In the event that it is not possible to put in place sufficient arrangements, specific leave is granted on that basis, for 30 months or until the child is 17 and a half years old—whichever is the shorter period. Grants of limited leave in these circumstances provide children with certainty that they will be allowed to stay in the UK until they are 18 years of age. Once they reach 18, we will seek to return them, unless they can establish a legitimate reason to remain in the UK as an adult.
At this point, I would like to add something else from my personal experience. Recently, I visited Albania, which is one of the source countries for many of the unaccompanied children. There is a terrible industry in Albania of falsifying histories of blood feuds. Organised crime gangs are involved in it, and I have enormous sympathy for the children who end up in that dreadful situation: trafficked by somebody who is falsifying their life records in order to use them for labour and other exploitation in the UK. We are working with the Albanians and other authorities to stamp out the organised crime that enables that to take place. It is an absolute travesty that people are able to use and abuse these most vulnerable young people in that way, and we have to work across borders to stamp it out.
We are not complacent, but we believe that the Government have a good story to tell about how we manage asylum claims from children. Last year, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration inspected our management of claims from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. His report was largely positive and praised the Home Office for conducting interviews sensitively, for giving the benefit of the doubt and for having good safeguarding procedures in dealing with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Overall, the report was a fair assessment of our current performance in handling these claims. We welcome the fact that the ICI praised the Home Office for the cultural and customer-focused aspects of its work with young people, particularly its professional commitment to safeguarding and welfare and its close liaison with external partners such as local authority children’s services.
Our partnership with local authority children’s services is one of the cornerstones of our efforts to promote and ensure the welfare of children. The Home Office provides direct financial support to families, but unaccompanied children are the responsibility of local authority children’s services. Local authorities provide support to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, regardless of their immigration status, as they would to any other looked-after child. The immediate focus, especially where a child may have been trafficked, will be to ensure that the child is safe from harm, but local authorities will also plan to meet the health and education needs of the child. As for every looked-after child, the education plan will include securing the best education provision to meet that child’s needs. Health planning will include addressing both the physical and psychological needs the child may have as a consequence of their experiences before claiming asylum. It is worth reiterating the point that if a child is claiming asylum, they will have gone through some very difficult experiences and often suffered physical and almost certainly psychological damage. It is incredibly important that they be dealt with sensitively and that all children’s services are aware of that point.
Jim Sheridan
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but will she indicate when we can get to a decision time of six months? As I said, it has taken six, seven or eight years for these young people to get a decision. Are there any plans to bring that down to the six-month target?
Karen Bradley
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I hope to get to that shortly.
Local authorities already have a duty under the Children Act 1989 for planning the transition to adulthood of care leavers. For unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in care, that planning will include the different steps required in response to different immigration outcomes for the child. As part of that case planning, the guidance is clear that local authorities should work with dedicated case workers at the Home Office. The planning also includes a continued commitment to the education and well-being of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children leaving care while they remain in the UK, with support provided by a personal adviser. Any support will be tailored to individual need but, to take just one example, good practice might be working with apprenticeship schemes, so that those young people can develop meaningful skills while contributing to the local economy.
I turn to some of the hon. Gentleman’s specific points. On the asylum support given to children, it is absolutely clear that no child should be left destitute, and local authorities support unaccompanied children as they would any looked-after child born in the UK, regardless of their immigration status, nationality or documentation. Local authorities produce a care plan to ensure that everyone involved in providing the child’s care is aware of their needs. The plan will cover key stages in the child’s asylum claim, legal support, health—that includes psychological needs and any learning difficulties—and education, and the Home Office provides funding for that to local authorities.
If the children are in families, the families receive support direct from the Home Office to avoid destitution. That generally includes fully furnished accommodation with utility bills paid and a cash allowance to cover other essential living needs. The level of cash allowance varies according to the size of the household and how many children there are, but as an example, a couple with two children typically receives £170 to £180 a week. We do not believe that is ungenerous, but in light of the recent judicial review decision on the asylum support rate, we are carefully reviewing all the allowance levels to ensure that they are sufficient to cover essential living needs, and we expect to complete the review by mid-August. If a family asylum claim is refused and the family includes a child under 18, the family will continue to receive the same level of support as before in order to protect the welfare and best interests of the child.
We are endeavouring to decide all asylum cases older than six months by 1 April 2015. We have already made progress, and in March we cleared all straightforward pre-2011 asylum decisions. We cleared all straightforward pre-2012 decisions by the end of last month—June 2014—and we aim to clear all pre-2014 cases and ensure all new claims receive a decision within the six-month service standard by April 2015. Clearly, we inherited a backlog from the previous Government and that is a shame and a pity. We are now working to make sure we clear that backlog, and that by April 2015, all cases are dealt with in the six months that we endeavour to deal with them in.
The hon. Gentleman talked about uncertainty about age. He is absolutely right—as a publican’s daughter, I can vouch for how difficult it often is to see whether someone is a child or an adult when they come to the bar to get a drink. In the work on modern slavery, in many of the cases I have seen coming through the system, the age of the person involved is very uncertain, but it is not that people are being treated as an adult until proven to be a child. Where there is any doubt about whether someone is an adult or a child, we would immediately refer them to a local authority social services department for a careful, case-law-compliant assessment of their age, and we would treat them as a child until we have the outcome of their assessment.
I am conscious that we are about to reach the end of the time allotted for this debate. If there are any further points, I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman is written to, and I thank those in the Chamber for their time.