UK Asylum System and Asylum Seekers’ Mental Health

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I am going to do something that I have never done before in this place. I am going to read a letter—it is such a good letter that it is worth quoting from. This would be easy but for the fact that I dropped my reading glasses outside my constituency office and a passing motorist drove over them. I hope colleagues will bear with me. The letter is from Christina Livesey who lives in Caithness. She says:

“While I appreciate that we must, as a nation, have a care for our own security when considering requests from people seeking asylum, this should not mean that Asylum Seekers are ‘Guilty until Proven Innocent’ and then treated far worse than convicted criminals in our gaols!

There have been reports from credible organisations such as Amnesty International, The Scottish Refugee Council, and Freedom From Torture that Asylum Seekers have while in the care of the British Government:

(a) been denied access to proper medical care, both for physical and mental health.

(b) have been driven to suicide by their circumstances and the lack of care they have experienced.

(c) have been housed in unsuitable places such as former Barracks, where they were unable to socially isolate (and where Covid-19 was spread).

(d) have been held in isolated locations where they had no access to legal advice or any other support services,

(e) have suffered immense trauma before arriving in the UK, and are often separated from their families, if indeed they have any family remaining alive.

This sounds more like the war torn, ravaged ‘Third World’ countries many of these refugees are fleeing from, rather than the civilised, proudly independent nation we claim to be!

I am aware that the Home Office are launching an online consultation of their new proposals (most of which have already been tried and which were later abandoned as unworkable) which will run until May 4th.

Among the measures proposed are to withhold or restrict appeal rights against a refusal of asylum if someone has entered the UK without prior permission. This is much like what Michael Howard did in 1999!

There is a proposal to build new asylum reception centres and withhold financial support from people on the basis of how they entered the country. David Blunkett’s first Immigration Act included each of these measures in 2002!

Britain is surely meant to be carving out NEW measures to build up the country and its people, not merely re-hashing outworn, unworkable policies from ages past. These are NOT policies we can be proud of.

We have an opportunity and an obligation to shape the future of all our citizens, as well as potential future citizens. Let us strive for better, not worse, conditions and for inclusive, not divisive, policies.”

Sir Charles, this is an uncompromising email. She does not mince her words, but she is exceedingly eloquent. I have spoken to her several times prior to deciding to read this letter here in the House of Commons. I often think that policy on this front—perhaps on all political fronts regardless of political colour—can sometimes be wrong. I do not doubt the good intentions and kindliness of people who attempt to do their best by refugees.

I will conclude with two points. First, I believe that the UK has a very proud tradition of accepting refugees. We generally agree that they very much better the nation. I am myself in part descended from Huguenot refugees who left persecution and found safety here in Great Britain. Secondly, in my constituency in the highlands of Scotland, there is a long tradition of strangers being welcomed, taken into the community, and we value the contribution that they make. I have probably said enough, though I have not taken up six minutes. I thank my colleagues for their forbearance in listening to me read an email rather badly, but I think it is worth considering what Christina Livesey said.