Asylum Support (Children and Young People)
Debate between Mark Durkan and Virendra Sharma(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Virendra Sharma
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point about how the system operates. Does he agree that the present system and environment force many children, women and families into the undesirable field of racial abuse and sexual violence, as my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe has said?
Mark Durkan
My hon. Friend makes an important point. People are left vulnerable not just in a social and economic sense, but to all sorts of victimisation and alienation. That would be wrong in any instance, but particularly when we are dealing with vulnerable children. We should not visit such risks on people.
The regime is in relation not just to section 4, but to section 95, which provides for a cash support system. It makes no recognition whatever of disabled children or children who discharge caring duties for a parent with a disability or long-term condition. We would not tolerate that in any other area of benefits for any other of our constituents.
Although people complain about the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority about this, that and the other, we have made sure that there is provision even in the parliamentary allowance system for people with caring responsibilities or disabilities. One of the worst forms of inequality is to treat people in profoundly different circumstances as though they were the same. That is exactly what is happening in the situation that we are discussing.
Originally, section 95 support was pegged at 90% of income support levels. It was then moved by the previous Government to 70%, but that was never adhered to. The report brings that out. People might argue that in the current circumstances it is a relatively modest request to bring section 95 support to 70% of income support levels.
I hope that the Minister, when he addresses the issues, will take care to read all the points and experiences reflected in the report and listen to its sensible recommendations, which have come not just from the Children’s Society, which did much work to support the inquiry, but from many others, including the Law Centre and many other charities in Northern Ireland that work with asylum seekers and refugees.