UK Asylum System and Asylum Seekers’ Mental Health

Kate Osamor Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) on securing this important debate. The asylum system in this country is failing. In the year ending September 2020, the number of people waiting for an initial decision on their asylum claim reached 60,548, a record high, and 76% were waiting six months or more. That cannot be pinned solely on the covid-19 crisis: waiting times were already rising dramatically prior to March 2020, and the number of asylum applications actually fell by 80% during that year. I have a constituent, originally from Yemen, who claimed asylum in June 2019. He was told by the Home Office that he would be contacted about a substantive interview within six months. He is still waiting almost two years later and has had to forgo a PhD offer, which he is unable to accept while his application remains pending. That perpetual process can only be seen as a deliberate part of the wider hostile environment towards migration pursued by the Government.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there were 123,000 asylum seekers and refugees in the UK at the end of 2015. Asylum seekers and refugees face unique and complex challenges related to their mental health, and they are often at greater risk of developing mental health problems. Research commissioned by NHS Leeds has shown that 61% of asylum seekers will experience serious mental distress, and they are five times more likely than the general population to have mental health needs. They are less likely than the general population, however, to receive support. The conditions connected to the process of seeking refuge—whether it be a protracted, processed asylum claim or separation from the family, or other common concerns such as poor housing—lead to higher rates of depression, PTSD and other anxiety disorders.

The Government could and should take immediate steps that would have a significant impact on the positive wellbeing of asylum seekers in Britain: immediately ending detention in unsafe, overcrowded accommodation such as Napier barracks, which we all can see is one of the clearest expressions of the disdain with which asylum seekers are treated by them; giving asylum seekers the right to work; preventing them from being left in limbo while they wait for a decision that could take years; ending the conditions of no recourse to public funds; and increasing benefits support for asylum seekers from the current paltry sum of £39.63 a week. The Government also need to set out a strategy to clear the backlog of asylum cases, because the delays are adding to the existing trauma. Ultimately, it will be refugees who continue to suffer while the Government remain intent on stoking anti-migration sentiment as part of their wider culture war.