Asylum Decisions (Support for Refugees)

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) on securing this important debate. I am delighted to be able to contribute and stand up for the women, children and families whom I have supported recently. Up to December, I was running a refugee support project called Love to Learn in the borough of Wandsworth. I pay tribute to everyone working in the team and also to other local organisations: CARAS, the South London Refugee Association and Wandsworth Welcomes Refugees. I want to talk about community services and widen the debate to consider other ways in which we can support those who have been granted refugee status, but need more support to be able to live here.

First, let us consider housing support for young people leaving care. Asylum seekers might have come here unaccompanied. When they leave care, they often fall into what has been described to me, by someone who came recently from Eritrea, as a dark hole. As was mentioned earlier, a cash grant is needed for the essentials in the accommodation that they might be provided with, from the most basic things such as sheets and a duvet to a cooker. I have had to drive to pick up and take basic goods over to help young people. Not having a bank account is one reason why they could not buy goods. Getting a bank account is really hard. There is also the issue of internet access. I have sat in local cafés with young people because I have a smartphone and am able to access the services that they need. After leaving care, no support at all is given.

The second area of concern is mental health support. According to the Refugee Council, 61% of asylum seekers experience serious mental distress, which does not change when they receive their status. Refugees are five times more likely to have mental health needs than those in the UK population. That is just an acknowledgement of the situation that many people have faced, and the reason why they have had to come here to ask for refuge. Mental health support especially fails young people who leave care and need support. I have heard that the threshold for needing support is not one suicide attempt, but more than one, which is absolutely shocking. People need to know how to access services and support.

Community services provide an important bridge between need and the people who can provide for those needs. For a start, we need to be joined up so that people do not need community support to access services. Also, we should support community projects that enable refugees to claim the things that they are entitled to.

The third area is education support. Many children from a refugee background, including the children of refugees, need additional support to be able to thrive in the education system. Many refugees have faced discrimination, housing issues, language problems, and trauma from the situation that they have faced, which also impedes their children’s ability to thrive. Education, health and care plans are only in English, which could be easily rectified. If they were provided across the country in different languages, such an easy change would make a big difference. There is no translation for children in need. There is a confusing system and refugees do not know how the English system works. They find that they need to fight for their rights, which other parents already understand. Community services such as Love to Learn can provide a bridge, but it would be even better if we did not need it.

The fourth area is English for speakers of other languages, especially ESOL services with a creche, which enables women to attend. Since 2009, Government funding for ESOL courses has been cut by 60%, and the wider adult skills budget, which people go on to—they have their ESOL and need to go on to the next thing—has been cut by 35%. In the Government’s integrated communities action plan, published in February 2019—I have a copy of it here—boosting English language skills is recognised as absolutely key to community integration. The plan states:

“Speaking and understanding English means you are less vulnerable to isolation, improves your work prospects, increases your chance of friendships with people from different backgrounds and allows you to feel more confident when accessing local services.”

So we have an action plan that, from my experience in Wandsworth, is not being funded or delivered. Will the Minister return to the plan and see whether it is being implemented, because it is absolutely fundamental for refugees?

I agree with the Members who spoke earlier about extending the move-on period to 56 days and giving refugees the right to work. I would add that support to community services such as those in my borough of Wandsworth, which already support refugees but could do much more with relatively little funding, is essential. We are fortunate in this country to be able to welcome new neighbours, colleagues and friends to our communities. It says a lot about us as a country that we can do that—we can take pride in it—and provide refuge to people who desperately need it. We must keep doing better, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is important and fundamental to building integrated, happy communities together.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.