Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Yes, I totally concur with the noble Lord’s point.

I turn to the judgment on Napier, mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Neuberger, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. The judgment on Napier was reached on the basis of the conditions on site prior to the significant improvement works we carried out and the measures we put in place as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The court did not make any findings that the accommodation centres were unsuitable for providing support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute. Indeed, the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 specifically provides for this type of accommodation. The Napier site provides full-board facilities with meals and other essential items provided, as well as access to essential local services such as healthcare. I have been through the improvements that have been put in place. I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for reporting back on his visit there last week. He did not have me wandering around after him showing him the best bits; he was free to go in, report and make suggestions to me on the back of that visit.

I hope I have given a fulsome response to the Committee, for the reasons that I have outlined, about the need to ensure that we can support asylum seekers appropriately but also encourage—

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

The Minister is valiantly dealing seriatim with the qualms that so many of us have about accommodation centres, but I have not yet heard an answer to the fundamental question: why accommodation centres? What is the purpose of this? Why would it improve the asylum system? Is it cost savings? I hope it is not deterrence. Is it the advantages for the Executive of the concentration of cases in one particular place? If we are going to deal fairly with asylum seekers, surely the best thing to do is to speed up the process of hearing their cases and get more of the initial decisions right so that fewer go to appeal.

Surely the accommodation should be empty local authority housing. Why are 12,000 of the 16,000 August Afghans still in hotels? Is there some hold-up in the system which means that local authorities, some of which are quite keen to get some revenue from the presently empty accommodation, cannot deal with them? Is that not the answer, rather than building these concentration centres—or is there some reason that I have just completely missed that would make an accommodation centre the answer? What is the underlying rationale of the proposal?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for asking that question. When someone arrives in this country, they go first into initial accommodation and then into dispersed accommodation. Depending on whether their claim is allowed or denied, either they are welcomed here as an asylum seeker with their claim accepted or, if their claim is rejected, they might ultimately be asked to leave. These are initial accommodation centres; this is not move-on or follow-on accommodation. I hope that helps to explain the difference.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

As long as the queue is three, four or five years long, it is not really just a question of initial accommodation. This is pretty long term.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right, and this goes right back to the beginning of this discussion. We need to process claims quickly, grant asylum if the claims are valid, and ask people to leave if they are not. He is absolutely right and we agree with each other on this point: people’s claims need to be done expeditiously. Without making excuses, I say that the pandemic really held back the smooth running of our asylum system, as I am sure it did in other countries. I hope the noble Lord is satisfied. For the reasons I have outlined—so that we can both support asylum seekers appropriately and encourage that throughput that he was just talking about, by freeing up spaces in the asylum spaces— I hope noble Lords do not press their amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

In light of the above, I remain of the view that this is not a policy amendment that we can possibly support. We must focus our resources on fixing the broken asylum system—as noble Lords have acknowledged—reducing pull factors, speeding up asylum claims and ensuring that our policies do not encourage people to undercut the resident labour market or our economic migration visa routes. I hope on that basis that noble Lords will not press their amendments.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I support these amendments, because they are good economics and good social policy, but if the Government resist them and insist that those people may not work, we are under a duty to make sure that sufficient subsistence money is paid to them to keep them alive. We pay them about £40 a week. Could the Minister get by on £40 a week? I know that I could not. It is £39.63 today; it is going to go up to the princely sum of £40.85 a week, an increase of 17p a day. My elementary maths makes that an increase of just about 3%; inflation is running at about 5.5% to 6%. Why have we increased it by such a small sum?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is based on a calculation. I shall not try to bluster my way through what that calculation is, but I shall get the details to the noble Lord. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, people who are destitute will have things like council tax and utility bills paid for them by the Home Office.