UK Asylum System and Asylum Seekers’ Mental Health

Debate between Holly Lynch and Charles Walker

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to speak with you in the Chair, Sir Charles. I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) on securing this important and timely debate. She made a number of really important points. Although we are limited in time this afternoon, as others have said, this debate is timely because we have had the Government’s policy statement and new plan for immigration, and there is no doubt that, during the passage of the sovereign borders Bill, we will have to return to some of the really important points that she made.

On the asylum system and the mental health of those seeking asylum, it is hard to know where to start in the time that we have. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said, we agree with the Government that the system is broken and is failing everybody, but I politely remind the Conservative Government that they have been in power for 11 years and are, I am afraid to say, the architects of that failure.

A number of really important points were made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), who raised the backlogs in the Home Office and made the powerful case for returning the right to work, as others did. That is a point that we will return to. The Minister will remember our exchanges and our support for that campaign during the passage of the immigration Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) spoke passionately about the importance of co-ordination and the need for quality dispersal accommodation. We will need to return to the inadmissibility rule changes, passed in December, which will only trap more people in the system for longer. The reference to reception centres in the new plan and policy statement only further blur the lines between detention and initial accommodation.

In the time that I have, I will focus my remarks on contingency asylum accommodation, in particular, and specifically the former MOD sites at Napier barracks and Penally camp, which represent a callousness in decision making that has been nothing short of inhumane. The Government initially claimed that the use of those barracks was due to the unprecedented pressures of the pandemic, yet the equality impact assessment that we have seen, conducted by the Home Office in September, revealed that the use of that particular type of accommodation was not borne out of necessity but was a political choice. It suggested that providing nothing but the absolute bare minimum to those seeking asylum is in the interest of community relations, but even the bare minimum should surely have meant safe. The Government’s reluctance to provide anything deemed to be beyond what is necessary has seen people, including those with leukaemia, diabetes and tuberculosis, housed 28 to a single dorm, sharing limited toilet facilities and communal areas that were cleaned only once a week during the pandemic.

We wrote to the Minister’s colleagues back in December 2020 calling on the Government to commission a review of covid safety in all establishments being used for asylum accommodation—a request that was ignored.

On 8 March 2021, in a report already referenced by others, the then independent chief inspector of borders and immigration published initial findings from site visits to Penally camp and Napier barracks in mid-February. They confirmed that, given the cramped communal conditions and unworkable cohorting at Napier, a large-scale outbreak of covid was virtually inevitable, which is exactly what happened: there were 197 positive cases of covid at Napier barracks between 1 January and late February.

The Kent and Medway clinical commissioning group’s infection prevention report undertaken at Napier, which we secured through a freedom of information request, also confirmed that the site does not facilitate effective social distancing.

The ICIBI report raised serious safeguarding concerns about those who were most vulnerable, stating that there was inadequate support for people who had self-harmed and that people at high risk of self-harm were located in a decrepit isolation block that was unfit for habitation. Even more distressing was a survey conducted by the inspectors that found that one resident in three at Napier barracks had felt suicidal during their time there. That clearly demonstrates the damaging psychological impact that our asylum system is having on vulnerable individuals who require specialist medical care and need to be housed in suitable and safe accommodation.

In evidence provided to the Home Affairs Committee last month, the Government claimed that they had been following guidance in every single way, but the CCG and ICIBI reports make it explicitly clear that at no time has that been true. The barracks are just one element of this system, which is failing everyone, but they represent the recklessness of this Government at their worst, putting their desire to be perceived as hard-line on immigration above what is right, fair and safe.

We know that dispersed accommodation, with local councils and communities working alongside Government to make much better choices, will be the way forward. We are part of a valley of sanctuary in Halifax where organisations such as St Augustine’s are instrumental in supporting those seeking asylum and refugees, and facilitate integration within communities.

Ordinarily, a political choice to use barracks as asylum accommodation would lack humanity and compassion, but in a pandemic it is unforgivable. There is an opportunity, with the upcoming legislative changes, to build a fairer and swifter asylum system that does not have a detrimental impact on a person’s health and wellbeing, but instead unlocks a person’s potential. However, that will require a significant shift away from some of the proposals outlined in the policy statement.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Minister, please leave two minutes at the end for the mover of the motion.