Asylum Support (Children and Young People)

David Simpson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Teather]

The inquiry specifically addressed children who are with their families and who are supported by section 95 and section 4, but there is another question about the vulnerability of unaccompanied asylum seekers and the fact that often all support ends at 18.

Many of us will remember, and those of us with children or nieces and nephews will recognise, that an 18-year-old is incredibly vulnerable if they have no family, which is why they are supposed to be treated as children leaving care. They have significant extra difficulties that need to be catered for and are not always addressed sympathetically by the Home Office’s decision making.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on obtaining this interesting debate. Will she tell us how education works for those young people?

[Sarah Teather]

Is the hon. Gentleman talking about unaccompanied asylum seekers?

[David Simpson]

Yes.

[Sarah Teather]

Education legislation is intended to be blind to a child’s immigration status—in fact, the Government are supposed to be blind to a child’s immigration status full stop. We are signed up to the UN convention on the rights of the child, and it seems to me that the UK Border Agency differentiates between children whose parents are currently in the system, or whose asylum case has failed, and children who have permanent residency.

The rules on education in the UN convention are absolutely clear: children must be provided with education regardless. However, the financial support for which they are eligible is an issue. Does it allow children to grow and flourish as the UNCRC expects? It is not adequate to provide children with barely enough to survive on; the UNCRC is clear that we must provide enough to allow them to develop to their best potential. I argue that the system is inadequate even to allow children’s bare survival. It certainly fails miserably to meet our duties under the UNCRC.

At the moment, a surprisingly large number of children live within the asylum support system. A significantly smaller number of those—probably only about 800—are supported under section 4, but the effects on that small number are disproportionate. We in Government know well what impact poverty has on a child’s life chances. All Ministers have accepted that child poverty significantly damages children’s potential for development, and that idea has cross-party support. That is why so much effort has been devoted to ensuring that we get the data right for counting child poverty, understand the indicators and focus on the causes and impacts of child poverty. I know that well from my time as a Minister at the Department for Education, where the issue was one focus of my work. However, we seem not to be able to take the issue as seriously for children whose asylum cases have not been decided.

The situation is significantly worse for those on section 4 rather than section 95 support. Section 4 support is intended to be short-term. It has been described by previous Ministers as an austere regime intended only for those whose applications have failed but who cannot currently return home. However, it is worth recognising that many children spend years on section 4 support. Although it might be intended for adults to live on for a matter of weeks, many children spend substantial portions of their lives on it—we met families whose children had spent almost all their lives on section 4 support. What makes section 4 support so difficult is not just that levels are significantly lower, but, more specifically, that it is cashless and highly restrictive about where the money can be spent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I commend the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) for initiating the debate. I commend not only the work reflected in her remarks today, but the work of the cross-party panel, which conducted such a compelling inquiry. The hon. Lady has also reflected many of the points and concerns that she has raised in a very cogent early-day motion, which I have also supported.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), who has responsibility for children, told the main Chamber on Monday, in the debate on the Children and Families Bill, that every child is our responsibility.

The report by the cross-party panel is a call to action and a call for change if we really do subscribe to the ethic that every child is our child, because it shows that, as a result of how the regime for asylum support is operating, children are being held in destitution. Their parents are being frustrated from discharging their most basic responsibility and from fulfilling the most cogent aspiration of any parent—to provide due and proper care and nurture for their children.

[David Simpson]

The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) mentioned briefly a young lady who had been trafficked. Did the evidence given to the panel contain much about young people being trafficked for sexual exploitation?

[Mark Durkan]

The evidence was there in terms of the risk that children were facing. We have a regime that does not work to the imperative of the protection of children and their rights. It is a system that, in many ways, possibly by ensuring the degree of destitution for parents and children, puts parents—mothers—at risk of ending up in undue transactional circumstances, including prostitution. It creates many degrees and levels of risk for children, which we should, of course, be at pains to prevent.

We have heard from the hon. Members for Brent Central, for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) that the system is unfair and cruel and creates inequity. I know that the Minister is a reasonable, sensible and sensitive person. He will see the inequity to which other hon. Members have referred, but if his officials cannot be moved by the inequity, will they not at least be moved by the inefficiency that has been brought out so strongly by the hon. Members and which is demonstrated so strongly in the panel’s report?

There seems to be a naive assumption that a cashless system, as in section 4, is somehow a costless system, but, as we can see in the report and as we have heard from the hon. Member for Brent Central and other hon. Members today, that system is not costless. It is an inefficient as well as a cruel system, because it denies people not just adequate means but the choice to make proper and cost-efficient provision for themselves. A cash system, with a fair application of section 95, would be much better.

There seems to be a mantra on the part of those making decisions in Government that there should be “No more for section 4,” but the mantra should actually be “No more of section 4”. It simply does not work in any way that is fair. It results in severe destitution for many people and intense risk exposure for very vulnerable families. It is the point about vulnerability that seems to be missing.

It seems to me that the system has a tendency to see suspects rather than the vulnerable. Its treating of families and children as suspect rather than vulnerable seems to be the root cause of the problem. We should move against section 4. It is supposed to provide a measure of short-term support to deal with short-term exigencies, but, as we know from parliamentary answers given only this month, more than half the people on section 4 support have been on it for more than two years. Some, as the hon. Member for Scunthorpe said, have been on it for much longer than that, so let us not pretend that section 4 does what the Government initially said it was intended to do. Let us recognise, as the report brings out, the serious problems with section 4 and move against it.

Of course, the lack of choice over disposable means is not the only problem with section 4. There is also—pardon the pun—the tethered living that comes with section 4, with people being denied any choice in relation to accommodation and being forced into UKBA accommodation. As well as that being restricted and unsuitable living, it can lead to intrusive situations—officials can just arrive and appear in the properties where people are living. That can lead to situations that are totally inappropriate in the context of family life. Families should not have to deal with that.

The hon. Member for Brent Central referred to the recent report “When maternity doesn’t matter”, by the Refugee Council and Maternity Action. I attended the event on Monday evening and listened to the accounts of the experiences of some people who have faced dispersal. Refugees, as well as facing the worst effects of displacement from their own country, their own families and the circumstances that they are fleeing, find themselves at risk of ongoing displacement here, whether that is through the policy of dispersal or through some of the other changes that can be visited on people, as was brought out very strongly by the hon. Lady.