Asylum Support (Amendment No. 3) Regulations 2015

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Lords Chamber

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.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

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.