Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)

Mims Davies Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Rebecca Harris]

Poor decision making, slow decision making, labyrinthine—does anyone know of an exemplar European nation that does things well?

Karl Pike: There are so many different parts of it. To be fair to the Home Office, certainly the speed of decision making is potentially better than in some European countries. France is an obvious example. People often say that countries such as Sweden have better processes of return and support for asylum seekers, particularly for assisted voluntary return. It is a bit of a mixed bag.

Peter Grady: I agree. To credit the Home Office as well, here—from UNHCR’s perspective at least—the quality of asylum policy is generally of a high standard. As Karl has mentioned, it is certainly a mixed bag when looking at other national asylum systems—whether of pros or cons.

To give just one example, credibility assessment is something we have worked on with a number of states. It is absolutely fundamental to asylum decision making. There are positive aspects of how it is conducted here, in terms of some of the infrastructure and policy that I mentioned before, but there are still issues for us and we need to work with the Home Office to develop training and strengthen decision making in the area. It is not unique to the UK—credibility assessment is, across the board, in a number of different countries, a challenging area for asylum decision making. So it is a mixed bag and it is hard to pull out one state and say, “This is the perfect state for asylum decision making.”

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Q 278 Earlier today, we heard that cases are getting more complex—the rules are more complex. Does that really just affect the people who are caught up in the system having more complex issues? You have described people unable to get paperwork, because they are caught up in the politics between countries.

Karl Pike: Those are not new issues. Obviously, potentially we are going through a unique period in the movement of people, so the numbers of decisions that the Home Office is having to make are gradually increasing. It is not like the level of the early noughties, but it is certainly increasing. In a lot of these countries, sometimes the systems that they have clash with the systems that we have, and that seems to cause the Home Office difficulties.

I will just give you an example about a Syrian national which someone told me about a couple of days ago. It is a family reunion case, and they were trying to bring a child over. The Home Office wanted a birth certificate; the family did not have a birth certificate, so they had to go to a local civil organisation in Syria to get a new one, but the way in which they issue those in Syria means that they date them from the date of issuance, so the Home Office said it must be bogus, because it was dated 2015. Silly little cultural things such as that often get in the way, and that is what we mean by complexity, because that is just one example of one person from one country, and there are hundreds.

[Mims Davies]

Q 279 We heard earlier on from the director of Migrants’ Rights Network—I hope I quote him correctly. We talked about complexity and potential abuses in the system. He said that there are flaws with the system and people want to exploit that. Is it your experience that people are trying to exploit this lack of knowledge between countries and the complexity of laws and nations? Or is it really, as you say, that there is a significant change in the way in which people are living or trying to group together and that countries are trying to catch up with that?

Karl Pike: The only thing that I would say to that is, from my experience of meeting people in the system, it is not fun. It is an incredibly difficult experience to go through and being destitute is not fun, and it is a problem that is getting worse. I have not personally encountered anyone in the course of our work, or in previous work, who was obviously gaming the system.

Andrew Hewett: Operationally, we support more than 14,000 people a year through 56 towns and cities in the UK, offering information and support to asylum seekers and refugees. The vast majority do not exhibit behaviour that would lead us to be concerned that they were exploiting the system. They present with genuine needs, and there are real issues. If the cases are becoming more complex, it is possibly because conflict is becoming more complex. We are moving away from state declaring war on state to a much more complicated, multifaceted situation involving different factors and different factions within regions. It becomes much more difficult for asylum seekers to prove who is persecuting them, where they are being persecuted and whether or not they could be safely returned to a region of their country, because the situation is so complex and so rapidly changing. We are perhaps seeing an increase in the complexity of cases, but it is being driven by what is happening on the ground and it reflects the nature of those conflicts.

[Mims Davies]

Q 280 In terms of the Home Office, we have heard two different things. One is that it is catching up and doing quite a good job where it is able to make the right decisions with the right paperwork, and that things are speeding up. The other was a criticism this morning about templating. There was, perhaps, a perception that situations in certain countries were being stamped on other individuals from that country to make decisions easier. What do you think is the reality of the situation?

Andrew Hewett: My understanding is that the Home Office still looks at every case on a case-by-case basis. It looks at the evidence that that case presents, and it makes a decision based on that evidence. I echo Peter’s remarks. The Home Office has made great improvements in clearing the backlog of cases that it has historically been dealing with and making more effective decisions more quickly. The big challenge for us is what happens to people at the end of the asylum process, particularly if their cases are refused. There is a challenge to them returning to their home country, because the current legislation means that they are commonly left destitute and homeless. That leaves them with little option other than to go underground, because there is no official means for them to support themselves.

Karl Pike: The decision making goes directly to the appeals issue in the Bill, particularly asylum support appeals. If you look at the stats, there is bad decision making. Well over 60% of cases for asylum support are granted on appeal, or the Home Office changes its decision on the way to appeal.

[Mims Davies]

Q 281 But is that because more evidence comes to light, or is it because you are saying that there is bad decision making?

Andrew Hewett: We have plenty of examples where somebody applies for asylum support and their application is refused because the Home Office does not believe that they are destitute. What tends to happen is that that person will approach a charity and ask them to write a letter of support to say that, yes, they have seen this person and they can confirm that they are street homeless or destitute. That letter is normally enough to win the appeal. It does not make any sense; if that letter was available earlier on, the case might not have had to go to appeal. There is an awful lot of time and resources wasted in those cases. I urge the Home Office to undertake a deep-dive assessment of the cases that have gone to an asylum support tribunal and that have been overturned on appeal, and to look at the reasons why. Is there any opportunity to change or amend policy to prevent more similar cases from going to appeal? If 60% of cases are being overturned, or are being withdrawn by the Home Office, we cannot credibly sit here today and tell you the reasons why that may be, but it seems as though work has to be undertaken to enable us to understand that.

[Mims Davies]

Q 282 In that case, if this is a complex situation and is getting more complex, and people may or may not end up destitute, are you as an organisation making it clear to people that once they get into the process, they could end up on the wrong side of it? That is, if they can go home—if there are reasons why they should not be here—should there be some onus on all the groups supporting that situation to say, “This is not as easy as you think, and it may end up causing more harm to you and your family than good?” Can you explain that at that point?

Andrew Hewett: Absolutely. From our perspective, we do a great degree of what we call parallel planning. When we meet people who are in the asylum process, we work with them to ensure that they understand what could happen to them if they get a positive decision on their case, and what could happen to them if they get a negative decision. It becomes very hard for us to continue to engage with people after they get a negative decision if the policy makes them homeless and destitute. Ideally, we would want some time to go through it with them, because we may have built up an element of trust. We could perhaps do more to explain some of the difficult choices that people have, but it becomes increasingly difficult if a person becomes homeless. Maybe they have a friend who can put them up somewhere in a different town or city, and they end up sofa surfing. We tend to lose contact with them—the Home Office certainly loses contact with them—and that cannot be in anybody’s interest.

[Mims Davies]

Q 283 But we heard from some organisations yesterday that sometimes the first conversation about the fact that it can go wrong happens after it has gone wrong. That is why I am asking the question about such a good organisation as yours—to ensure that the whole round is explained to people.

Andrew Hewett: I can absolutely confirm that that is our position. I also believe that that is the position of most organisations in the sector.

[Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)]

Q 284 I have sat here for two days listening to people say that so many things are wrong with the system as it is at the moment, some of them picking faults with the Bill. I understand that UNHCR, for example, thinks that discontinuing support is unlikely to encourage people to go home. I do not know whether the panel shares that view. If you can justify that, I would like to hear your comments. Secondly, what therefore is the panacea for this?

Peter Grady: Sorry, what was the second part of that question?

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 312 Trust me, as a landlord, you have to be cautious anyway.

Saira Grant: I am sure you do.

[Mims Davies]

Q 313 I just wanted to pick up the line about entitlement, which is running through the conversation this afternoon—people feeling that they will get to a point at which they are entitled to be here. This question is for Ms Grant: does your organisation explain to people that there may be a point at which they feel they are entitled to be here, but they will not be? Do you go through the process of what could happen to them? We heard from the Red Cross earlier that it does that, but some organisations do not and it is adding complexity to complex cases.

Saira Grant: Absolutely. We run an irregular migrants helpline to give legal advice. The best advice we can often give is to say to somebody, “You have to leave the UK.” We spell out their entitlements, their rights and what the process is, and then we refer them to the voluntary returns scheme, to the Red Cross or to whichever organisation is appropriate. Absolutely, it is in nobody’s interest to have people who should not be here remaining here, and it is not in their interest either. The destitution we see is heartbreaking, but if they have come to the end of the legal process, we have to give them fair advice. We are a legal organisation.

[Mims Davies]

Q 314 So fairness on all sides. That is very helpful. This question is for Ms Robinson: we have heard this week from some sectors, such as hospitality, that in some areas, exploitation of illegal migrants does happen. Do you think that the Bill unfairly shines a light on exploitation of workers? I am confused about why you do not see that there are some areas where it is easier to exploit people than others.

Rachel Robinson: Are you asking whether some areas of the Bill—

[Mims Davies]

Q 315 You were saying that people do a “finger in the air” job and just turn up at restaurants, for example. However, we heard evidence on Tuesday that certain sectors, such as the building trade or hospitality, were more likely, in some cases—with bad employers—to find workers and exploit them. This Bill provides an opportunity to protect people, would you not agree?

Rachel Robinson: Parts of the Bill are a movement in the right direction, such as the new director role, which is not something that we have briefed on, but other parts create cause for concern on this very issue. I am thinking in particular of the offence of illegal working. The Committee has already had lots of evidence, which we agree with, that this measure is likely to drive people underground and could strengthen the hand of rogue employers who have another sanction to hold over the head of employees. It could prevent victims of trafficking and exploitation from coming forward.

[Mims Davies]

Q 316 Finally, we heard this morning from the director of the Migrants’ Rights Network who said that there were flaws in the system that could be exploited. Are there any provisions in the Bill that you believe are the right ones in terms of not allowing people to be exploited?

Steve Symonds: In general, I would say that the Bill fails on that account. Perhaps it comes back to the earlier question that I was shy to answer, and we then moved on. I think legislation is not the way forward to address the concern about trying to get through to people who have no entitlement to be here, who often find themselves in miserable circumstances, who are at risk of exploitation and who perhaps do need to make that decision and leave. The answer to that is going to be that you have to have a more consistent, efficient system that ensures people feel they have a fair hearing. That includes making sure they have access to proper advice—the sort of advice that Saira has mentioned—and it includes access to legal aid.

I used to provide immigration advice to people. One of the first things you would do would be to talk through their options, and, if they had none, explain that to them. That is how you start to turn this around. That is going to take time, and if we are starting with the illusion that we will ever get to a world where there is nobody here who has no entitlement to be here, and we are always going to be legislating on the idea that somehow we can by law create the environment where there is no one here who should not be here, we will never get to that solution.

So we need to come back to management and supervision of policies that need to be clear, consistent, simple and readily understood by those who exercise them and by those who advise upon them, so that people understand what is their true position, feel that they do go through a fair process and can make a sensible decision at the end of it.

[Mims Davies]

Q 317 Do you think Amnesty gets that messaging right in terms of explaining to people that there is a fair system, but they may not feel at the end of the process that they get a fair outcome? Are you as a group telling people all the bad stories, the good stories and the realities? In essence, no system will ever get it completely right and you have to highlight when we do get it right. Are you spending your whole time explaining when we get it wrong?

Steve Symonds: I will say two things in relation to that. In relation to individuals, we do not provide any immigration advice at all. We are not regulated to do that, so we are not entitled to do so. We are not saying the sorts of things to individual people that JCWI through its advice work can do. In terms of the generality, we do point out the other side, perhaps not as much as some people would like, but we have to also accept and acknowledge that we see headlines in our newspapers regularly that we would feel are entirely critical and are not themselves balanced, so one of our jobs is clearly to ensure that there is some balance in the discussion. That means we have to more closely point the finger where things have gone wrong, and I think that it is perfectly appropriate and necessary for us to do so, and that is what we will do.

[Mims Davies]

Q 318 In terms of the view that the welfare group has, Ms Grant, do you think the same? Are you are able to tell the good and bad stories so that if people do come here they have a fair view that the system can be perceived to be kind to some people with a perceived entitlement and less kind to others? That could be down to what we heard earlier—because of the complexity of the cases. If you cannot get your documentation, it may seem that the system is unkind to you, but you may be caught up in a political issue locally rather than this being an unfair system.

Saira Grant: Sure. Yes, we try to be as candid as we can, but it is very hard, when you have legislation, media talk and a political environment that is constantly talking about hostile environments, to say to people, “This is a welcoming country that is very fair.” That makes our job very difficult, especially so when people have made valid, legitimate applications and there are delays in getting those applications processed. They are in limbo in the meantime. The system has delays within it, and then there might be a wrongful decision, a bad decision, as you have heard before.

[Mims Davies]

Q 319 Would you say the system is better than it was five years ago in terms of being timely?

Saira Grant: Decisions are faster, but the quality of decisions has not improved.

[Mims Davies]

Q 320 Is that because the cases are more complex?

Saira Grant: No, because the culture really has not changed at the Home Office. I know it is making strides to change, but I can see from the appeal determinations the percentages are pretty much the same. Overall, 40% of appeals are successful. It was 44% two years ago. So there is a slight shift—these are tribunal figures—but overall it has not changed. Decision making is faster, but within the tribunal system delays have increased in terms of appeals being listed. We have appeals being listed a year from today, so there is a long wait for people and that limbo creates a lot of uncertainty and a lot of problems.

[The Chair]

I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allocated to the Committee to ask questions. I thank the witnesses for coming and answering questions.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Charlie Elphicke.)