Immigration Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Starmer]

I beg to move amendment 222, in schedule 6, page 90, leave out lines 28 to 30 and insert—

‘(i) in subsection (2A) for “accommodation” each time it occurs substitute “support” and for “section 4” each time it occurs substitute “section 95A”, and

(ii) in subsections (6) and (7), for “section 4 or 95” substitute “section 95 or section 95A”’.

To provide a right of appeal against decisions of the Home Office to refuse or discontinue support under new section 95A for asylum seekers at the end of the process who are unable to leave the UK.

The amendment would provide a right of appeal against Home Office decisions to refuse or discontinue support, under new section 95A of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 as inserted by the schedule, for asylum seekers at the end of the process who are unable to leave the UK.

The right of appeal would be against decisions on support that are wrong. To give some context, Home Office decision making about support is particularly bad. We have heard statistics about Home Office decision making in general, but the success rate for challenges to support decisions is very high indeed. For example, from September 2014 to August 2015, the asylum support tribunal received 2,067 applications for appeals against Home Office refusal of asylum support. Of those, 44% were allowed by the tribunal, and 18% were remitted to the Home Office for a fresh decision or withdrawn because of an acknowledgment that the decision making was flawed. Together, that is a 62% success rate.

I caveat that figure, as I have in previous discussions about appeal rates, but it is an incredibly high success rate. It beggars belief that, when the statistics are of that order, there is to be no right of appeal in a simple case of a wrong decision on support. It is another example of removing the ability of people—often vulnerable people—to challenge a decision that is wrong and put it right. Therefore, we have tabled the amendment.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

We have heard from other Members about the serious impact on individuals and their children of losing all forms of support. The amendment would ensure that we did not leave people, including children, helpless and possibly destitute while awaiting removal from the UK.

If the schedule is not amended we will be treating refused asylum seekers with complete contempt. We will be saying to them that we do not care how they support themselves while awaiting removal. I ask Members this: if that bleak scenario were to become a reality, what advice would they give those people when they came to their surgeries? Would Members walk past them in the street when they needed our help? Would Members close their eyes, put their heads down and walk past children who had been affected and needed something to eat or a place to stay? I think not, but that is what the schedule allows for. I hope that Members see the stark reality that faces us if it is not amended.

Liberty has pointed out that the Government’s own document, “Reforming support for failed asylum seekers and other illegal migrants”, states that the removal of any support for failed asylum seekers should be seen in the context of the wider enforcement powers that the Government have at their disposal. I have to say that that way of looking at the issue is crude, verging on inhumane. Are we honestly at a stage now where we are telling people to go cold and hungry to enforce immigration measures?

Not only is the position inhumane, but removing a person’s support does not achieve the aim of deporting them from the country any sooner, as was highlighted by the 2005 pilot that has often been mentioned in our discussions. I accept that the Home Secretary may wish to have the power to discontinue support for refused asylum seekers, but an avenue of appeal should exist to allow those affected to explain their circumstances and have their bare minimum support—let us not forget that they will have been surviving on a pittance—reinstated. The right of appeal proposed in the amendment is essential to ensure that impoverished asylum seekers are able to access the support that they are entitled to and desperately need.

As I have said, routes of appeal exist for a reason—to correct a wrongful decision. On the evidence of appeals against decisions on loss of support taken by the Home Office, we would conclude that a power of appeal against wrongful decisions made by the Home Office is of the utmost importance. The Immigration Law Practitioners Association has produced a helpful briefing detailing statistics from the asylum support tribunal. According to ILPA, 62% of appeals received by the tribunal had a successful outcome. From September 2010 to August 2015, the tribunal received 2,067 applications for appeals against a refusal of asylum support, of which it allowed 44% and remitted 18%. Furthermore, research conducted by the Asylum Support Appeals Project found that the majority of support cases are overturned at the appeal level, with the number of successful appeals varying between 6w0% and 80%. A range of sources put forward the strong argument that the Home Office has a poor track record of decision making when it comes to removing support from an individual, and the consequences are of the utmost seriousness.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I hear what the hon. Lady says, but I have to say I find it slightly surprising, given the quantum of those bodies that came to give evidence during our witness sessions. Most of those organisations—indeed, the lion’s share—were clearly focused, on either a regional or national basis, on providing advice, help and support to people who were seeking to make an application. I am not doubting the veracity of what she says, but I would be rather surprised if the problem she mentioned was large scale. Clearly, even the individual to whom she referred was ultimately able to find professional advice and support, and the response that they were looking for.

The nub of the issue is this: the British taxpayer—the council tax payer and income tax payer—cannot be expected to keep signing blank cheques to continue to support people to reside in this country when all of the systems have been tried and tested and their right to remain has not been proved or accepted. Just a few months ago, I am sure all of us heard on the doorsteps—

[Gavin Newlands]

indicated dissent.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. There must be some very eccentric voters in his constituency. Every constituency will have had people—on the doorstep, in the market square or wherever—who will have said that this is a problem about which political correctness has become just a little too wayward.