Asylum Support (Prescribed Period) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 13th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the leader of the pack for introducing the Bill with her usual combination of passion and rigour. I support it. I know that my views on migration and asylum-seeking are not in complete alignment with that of every other Member of the House, but the Bill is about people who have been accepted as refugees, and I hope we all believe in efficiency and humanity. I hope none of us believes in punishing people for being refugees.

I welcome the 56-day pilot as part of progress towards a permanent change, not just in the time period, I hope, but in the overall process. I too hope that the Minister will use the opportunity to tell the House, and importantly the sector and the people affected, the details: who and where; how information will be captured; how the pilot will be evaluated; how the Home Office, and all relevant departments, will work with local authorities, NGOs, landlords, banks, employers and everyone with direct experience, which includes refugees themselves; and how evaluation of the ALMO project will be incorporated, so that it is a single exercise, into the development of wraparound support for people granted status.

Local authority funding is of course an issue. The integration tariff for people on the Homes for Ukraine and Afghan schemes does not apply to refugees who have arrived via an asylum route.

I saw the Home Office reported as referring to a “time-limited” exercise

“as we clear the asylum backlog and transition to eVisas”,

and being

“committed to ending the use of hotels as we ramp up returns of failed asylum seekers”.

I found part of that objective and the messaging—the words used—less than wholly encouraging.

It strikes me as an irony that so many of those who seek asylum are professionally qualified, skilled, energetic and, I am sure, well organised. What must they think—this is a rhetorical question—about information about moving on coming in a series of separate letters, with confusion around effective dates and processes? There are so many aspects, as the noble Baroness said: homelessness, priority need and rough sleeping; children’s education being disrupted by moving; the need for contractors to provide support, not only physical accommodation; access to universal credit; e-visas. I could go on, but this is a short debate. The pilot is a chance to iron out problems and bureaucratic confusions and inconsistencies. I have heard it described as “fudge-adjacent”; I hope it is much more than that.

Yesterday, I met someone from an organisation in an allied field who said that the most encouraging words they could hear from a Minister are, “I’d like you to talk to my officials”. I would like the Minister and his colleagues in government to express a willingness to listen to and work with not my officials—I have not got any—but those who can contribute their direct experience to make the pilot a success.