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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the second time in two days, Sir David. No doubt there will be many future occasions as well.
I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) on securing today’s debate and opening it with such a thoughtful but also passionate speech. She has for a long time been a powerful and persuasive campaigner and advocate on these issues. The Government might not always agree completely with everything that she says, but on many occasions we do, and I am grateful to her for raising these issues in Parliament and for doing that in such a well considered and thoughtful manner. Cases are always much more persuasive when presented in the way that she has demonstrated today, and I am grateful to her for raising this important subject in the way she has.
As the spokesman for the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), said, I am extremely new in this role. I was appointed to the Home Office, in addition to the Ministry of Justice, only two or three weeks ago, so I am getting rapidly up to speed with these issues, and it has been very useful to hear everything that hon. Members have said today. However, I am a Member of Parliament who represents Croydon, and many hon. Members will know that one of the Home Office’s major centres for handling asylum applications is Lunar House in the London Borough of Croydon. In fact, Croydon has, along with Kent, I think, the highest number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. From my own constituency casework, therefore, I am very familiar with many of the issues that have been raised about asylum in general and UASCs in particular. Croydon was also the first borough to roll out universal credit fully, so I have had a lot of experience as a constituency Member of Parliament of that as well.
Let me talk a bit about asylum in general, before turning to some of the specific points raised today. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Bristol West, said that this country has a proud and long history of welcoming refugees to these shores. In particular, when the Syrian crisis occurred four or five years ago, we set up the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, which I think has worked extremely well. We set an ambition, an aim, a target of resettling 20,000 people, mostly from Syria or from camps on the borders of Syria, directly in the UK, and we are, I think, extremely close to reaching the 20,000 level; I expect we will reach it in a matter of a few weeks. That scheme designed to help the most vulnerable people imaginable—people who have suffered terrible atrocities in Syria—has worked very effectively.
In relation to asylum more generally, there were 34,000 claims for asylum last year. The number has been going up for the last few years. Last year we made just under 20,000—19,480—grants of asylum, humanitarian protection or other forms of long-term leave. More than half were for asylum. I think that 20,000 per year is a number that we can point to with pride as a country that wants to look after people who are fleeing persecution. The figure of 34,000—the number of people who claimed asylum last year—is not the highest in Europe, but is one of the highest in Europe; it is certainly in the top four numbers in Europe. The fact that people are coming here in such large numbers, often travelling first through other safe European countries such as France, Germany and Italy, shows quite a high level of confidence among those who choose to come here. That is not to be complacent or to dismiss any of the points raised, which I will come to, but in itself it does show that people seeking refugee status recognise that the UK is somewhere that takes its obligations very seriously indeed. That is why, as I said, they often travel through safe European countries to come here. Clearly, under the Dublin convention, people are supposed to claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach.
In relation to financial support for the asylum-seeking community, the cost of supporting asylum seekers is just under £1 billion—it is about £800 million—a year, and approximately 50,000 people are being supported, so I feel that from a financial perspective, quite a lot is being done to support this vulnerable community. They are vulnerable in the ways that hon. Members very eloquently described.
I hope that those remarks have set the scene for the United Kingdom’s very significant and profound commitment to supporting refugees. I shall turn now to the specific question about the 28 days. I would like to talk a bit about some of the things that we are doing to mitigate the impacts that have been described today and then discuss the 28 days versus 56 days.
I think that when my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) was Immigration Minister, there was a debate on this topic in which some of these issues were aired. Since then, quite a few practical steps have been taken to try to make things as easy as possible for refugees in the 28-day period following the grant of their status. Let me mention just a couple. First, the 28-day period is not necessarily triggered by the grant of status; it is started only when the biometric residence permit is issued. That is the document needed to establish the status and enable people to apply for benefits and so on without getting unduly delayed by bureaucratic error. I am told that if administrative errors occur, that resets the 28-day period. If hon. Members have encountered any individual cases in which administrative errors that are not the fault of the refugee have occurred and a reset has not happened, I encourage them to write to me with the particulars so that I can look into them. I would be very happy indeed to do that.
We also ensure that the individual’s national insurance number is on the permit, because experience suggests that one of the things that just generally speeds things up is the NI number being clearly displayed in a place where it is easy for people to see.
The question of access to bank accounts was raised by the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and others, and it is clearly essential that refugees have bank accounts, because pretty much everything these days—getting work and everything else—requires a bank account. A lot of work has been done, and is under way as we speak, with banks to speed that up, make things easier and remove some of the barriers that exist, but I undertake to write to my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who is the City Minister and responsible for financial service regulation, to get an update on where we are with ensuring that bank accounts are available to refugees, who are obviously completely entitled to live here and to work, as we all do, and make sure that that is functioning as it should. I will follow up that specific point.
Jim Shannon
I was also one of those who mentioned bank accounts. I am very keen to know that what the Minister is asking for means that there will be feedback for all of us who are here and all the regions of the United Kingdom, because we need to have that provision in Northern Ireland as well.
Chris Philp
I will write to the hon. Member for Bristol West about that point on bank accounts. She can disseminate that as she sees fit to other hon. Members who take an interest and I will copy it to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), since he specifically raised that point.
The hon. Member for Strangford and others raised the important issue of English language lessons. As the Scottish National party spokesman said, properly integrating people, particularly into the workforce, is critical. We spoke about universal credit, which I will come on to address. That is clearly an important way of supporting people. Ultimately, for those granted refugee status, as for anyone else, the way out of poverty is through work rather than benefits. Being unable to speak English makes it very difficult to get into the workforce.
English language support is important. Investment in it is about £100 million per year through the adult education budget, which gives the money to various colleges and learning providers. They then decide how to meet the specific needs of their local communities. We have augmented that with an extra £10 million to support refugees who have come through the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, to ensure that they can access additional language training. On top of that, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is investing a further £4.5 million per year to support community-based language provision.
I completely accept the need for English language training. I would rather that we taught people to speak English than endlessly have to translate. Helping people to speak English is the best solution. I will keep that under review. If there is evidence that the level of provision is not adequate, I will happily follow up further.
Kate Green
I understand that the MHCLG funding for community-based language provision is due to come to an end and there is currently no news on that funding being renewed, despite our understanding a couple of years ago that the Government intended to renew it. If the Minister can do anything about that with his colleagues in that Department to raise the issue, we would all appreciate it.
Chris Philp
I will raise the issue with MHCLG colleagues and seek assurances that this funding line, which has happened in the past, will continue.
Fleur Anderson
I want to mention courses in English for speakers of other languages coming with a crèche. That is increasingly crucial the more those courses are provided by colleges and similar providers, instead of community-based providers. We are seeing that provision being cut across the country. Women with children are specifically disadvantaged by the cuts and they are not fair for all.
Chris Philp
The hon. Lady makes a good point. As a father of young children, I understand that childcare is important, whether for parents in work or further education, so her point is well made.
The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) made a related point about language. Notwithstanding my remarks a moment ago that teaching people to speak English is preferable to perpetually translating—for society and the individual concerned—I would like to make it clear that the welcome guide for refugees to England is available in multiple languages: Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, Kurdish, Farsi, Pashtu, Punjabi, Tigrinya and Urdu. Hopefully, that will be of use to speakers of those languages.
Regarding the 28-day period, we are working with the voluntary sector. Several hon. Members have referred to its excellent work. We are also working with other Departments, as was raised by several hon. Members. We are working with local authority asylum liaison officers in some of the main areas where asylum seekers are being accommodated. That is funded by MHCLG. The role of these liaison officers is to assist newly recognised refugees with move-on arrangements, particularly housing, to ensure that the transition from supported accommodation to wider society happens as smoothly as it can.
Our asylum accommodation providers, the people who provide the supported housing while the claim is being processed, are under a contractual duty, under their contracts with the Home Office, to notify the local authority and their liaison officers of the potential need to provide housing where a person in their accommodation is granted status. We are doing everything we can to try to make that work, between the Home Office-supported accommodation and the local authority’s housing services, supported by the liaison officer, as joined up as possible.
The central question is 28 days versus 56 days. I have read the Red Cross report, to which the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) referred. I have it here. There is clearly a financial cost to keeping people in supported accommodation for longer than they are currently kept there. The Red Cross report makes the case that the extra cost in the Home Office estate would be outweighed by savings in local authorities, due to less homelessness support. I will study the report. It has some costings of that equation. I will look at the numbers carefully and make my own assessment as to where that balance lies.
In addition to the purely financial consideration, there are practical capacity considerations. As we know, housing is quite difficult to come by. If we extended from 28 days to 56 days, we would increase the number of people in supported housing by a few thousand. We would then have to find those extra spaces. Even if one could make a compelling financial case—the Red Cross says that case can be made—one must think practically about where those places would come from. That must be borne in mind.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
Will the Minister commit to looking at how much would be contributed financially by tax payments, if asylum seekers were allowed to work after six months, as well as how much the Home Office would save, if it made fewer mistakes and had to pay claims as requested?
Chris Philp
Work is not the topic of this debate, and it is more than a financial consideration. We can all agree that we must be quicker at handling asylum claims. Whether they are successful, and we must integrate people into the community, or whether they are unsuccessful, and the person must be removed, doing it quicker is in everybody’s interest. As a matter of priority, as the new Minister, I will find ways of making this process quicker, which would mitigate a lot of the problems we have been discussing.
I have listened carefully to everything that has been said. The points have been made with sincerity and compassion. I will reflect carefully on what I have heard this afternoon. I will look at the case made in the Red Cross report and study those numbers. I thank the hon. Member for Bristol West for securing the debate and for making her case in such a balanced and considered way.