Asylum and Migration

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Let me start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate.

I think we can all agree that it is an important and vital job for Parliament to scrutinise Government spending in general, and in this particular case the Home Office budget for the purposes of asylum and migration—an issue that I know every Member of the House cares about, and one that the public are rightly concerned about as well. Over the past five years, the Home Office’s asylum support, resettlement and accommodation budget has increased by 733%, which represents a quarter of the Department’s total expenditure.

It is, of course, the Home Office’s responsibility to enable scrutiny to take place with the timely provision of clear and transparent information, but the Home Affairs Committee has been repeatedly hamstrung by its refusal to disclose key details of its spending plans and commitments. We have had to ask for information repeatedly, and on several occasions we have worked with the Public Accounts Committee to obtain financial details which I believe should have been readily available to us.

As the House will know, the terms of reference for the Home Affairs Committee are to examine

“the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies.”

We do that, of course, on behalf of the House of Commons as a whole. Ministers should not need to be reminded that parliamentary scrutiny is not a disposable luxury. The Home Office says that it welcomes scrutiny, but unfortunately we have not found that to be the reality. I would argue that scrutiny is a basic necessity to ensure that public money is spent well, appropriately and wisely, but time and again our demands for financial transparency have been rebuffed by the Department, keeping Parliament and therefore the public in the dark about how it is spending billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Members of the House have therefore not been able to ask crucial questions about spending plans until long after the money has left the Government coffers. Today’s debate will shine a light on the position of the Home Office, and highlight the urgent need for Ministers to change their approach to being scrutinised.

I will set out the current position of the Home Office. It has requested £5.9 billion in additional funding through the supplementary estimates—£4 billion for asylum, £1.2 billion for the implementation of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the 10-point plan, and £0.5 billion for the Afghan resettlement schemes. I turn first to the Home Office’s spending on the asylum system. In publishing and setting out its plans on asylum for the year, the Department has not disclosed its spending plans and commitments in a timely manner, preventing full and proper parliamentary scrutiny. What seems to have happened is that the Home Office, in agreement with the Treasury, completely omitted a significant proportion of expected asylum expenditure from its main estimates. This means that Parliament will not get to scrutinise the Department’s spending plans until after the money has been spent.

The Department is now seeking retrospective approval at the supplementary estimates stage, which goes against the principles of the estimates approval process. Given all the sophisticated modelling that it has at its disposal, I question why the Home Office was not in a position to make available at least a notional figure to put into its budget, which would have needed to increase if necessary. It is wrong that nothing was put in the budget at the start. On 1 February this year, the Home Secretary requested an emergency drawdown of £2.6 billion from the reserves, because the Department had run out of money before the supplementary estimates had been approved.

Further, the level of detail provided on asylum spending in the supplementary estimates is inadequate. A much more detailed breakdown of the asylum budget is required to fully understand the cost drivers and to hold the Department to account for the decisions it is taking. Sadly, that is not what we have been given. Expenditure on asylum has increased rapidly over the past two years. We know that levels of migration have increased due to the number of small boat crossings, the war in Ukraine and the Afghan resettlement schemes, and the departmental settlement in the 2021 spending review was insufficient to cope with the growing pressures. As such, the Department has made large claims on the reserves, as well as extending its use of the official development assistance budget.

Some pressures on the Home Office’s budget are beyond the Department’s immediate control, but others are not. For example, it is down to the Department to decide how it delivers accommodation for asylum seekers. The Home Affairs Committee is very concerned that the former chief inspector of borders and immigration has said that the Home Office did not appear to have an asylum accommodation strategy. Of course, the use of hotel accommodation is due to the backlog—or, as the Home Secretary corrected me at the Home Affairs Committee, the “queue”. It is apparently not a backlog anymore, but a queue. The queue has been allowed to develop because of the failure of the Home Office to invest in processing asylum claims in an efficient way over a number of years. That has resulted in a much larger bill for accommodation, which we are now having to deal with.

We know that the Home Office is currently spending £8 million a day on accommodating asylum seekers in hotels, which amounts to £2.9 billion a year. Despite the Home Office spending a huge amount, it is not predominantly the Department’s money, because the first 12 months of an asylum seeker’s accommodation is funded through the official development assistance budget. Between 2021-22 and 2023-24, Home Office usage of the ODA budget increased by 226%, from £981 million to £3.2 billion. That forced the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to cease all non-essential programmes, as spending was redirected domestically. The implications have been heavily criticised by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and the International Development Committee.

Also, the Illegal Migration Act, if implemented in full, will restrict the Home Office’s ability to use the official development assistance budget for asylum seekers, as migrants arriving irregularly will no longer be able to seek asylum.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The right hon. Lady is making an important point about the use of ODA. Does she agree that nothing is forcing the Government to spend ODA in that way? Even if the expenditure has to be counted as ODA, they could make up for it in the FCDO budget. The Government have made a choice to take money away from the FCDO and spend it via the Home Office.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that this is a Government choice. Does the Minister think that spending £3.2 billion on asylum accommodation in the UK is an appropriate use of the ODA budget? What does he say about the FCDO having to cease all its non-essential programmes, which could be important to ensuring that people stay in their home country, rather than feeling that they have to become a migrant? Does he have a plan for how the Home Office will fund asylum accommodation if it can no longer take money from the ODA budget?

One of the Home Office’s alternative approaches to accommodating some asylum seekers—a maximum of around 500 at a time—is the Bibby Stockholm barge. In January 2024, the Home Office’s permanent secretary informed the Home Affairs Committee that it costs £120 a night to accommodate a man on the Bibby Stockholm, as compared with £140 a night in a hotel. That figure is based on full occupancy, but the barge was not fully occupied when we visited in January, and we were led to believe that it will never reach its full capacity of 500. We are also aware that the initial figure did not include the barge’s set-up costs, which amounted to around £22 million. The permanent secretary assured us that when set-up costs were included,

“there is a total-life saving from use of the Bibby Stockholm of £800,000.”

However, we understand that the contract for the barge is for only 18 months. Can the Minister say over what period the total-life saving is calculated? At what level of occupancy does the Bibby Stockholm cease to be value for money? What figures has the average cost per person per night fluctuated between over the past year?

We put all these questions to the permanent secretary, and I am aware that the National Audit Office is conducting a value-for-money audit of asylum accommodation, which will not be published until 22 March. In recent oral evidence sessions with Ministers, the Home Affairs Committee has repeatedly asked about the finances of the Bibby Stockholm and other asylum accommodation sites, but sadly with few meaningful replies.

What specifically is driving the capital budget increase in asylum costs? In the Home Office’s proposal, the capital departmental expenditure limit budget will go up to £1,399,800,000—an increase of £468.5 million. That is a more than 50% increase on the initial budget of £931.3 million. Is that due to the Prime Minister’s announcement in June 2023 that two other barges had been procured, in addition to the Bibby Stockholm—there is no explicit reference to that in the estimates memorandum —or is it for the additional detention facilities required under the Illegal Migration Act?

Secondly, why did the cost of processing an asylum claim go from £9,000 in 2019 to £21,000 in 2022-23? That is a real-terms increase of 109%.

Again, Home Office spending on the UK-Rwanda partnership is a familiar story. The Home Affairs Committee has finally been able to glean that large sums of money have been committed to this scheme, but largely via retrospective disclosures and an accidental leak in an International Monetary Fund board paper in Rwanda. The Committee has, once again, had to join forces with the Public Accounts Committee to ask the National Audit Office to find out the costings of the scheme. I reiterate that it is very unsatisfactory that when we have been holding our normal scrutiny sessions with Ministers and officials to try to get detail on spending and any further commitments, we have repeatedly been met with silence from Ministers and been told to wait until the accounts for the Department are published at the end of the financial year.

Let us be clear: the failure to respond to our requests is not because anyone behind the scenes has judged the value-for-money test of this policy to be so overwhelmingly watertight that disclosures to Parliament are completely unnecessary, unsatisfactory as that would be. On the contrary, the permanent secretary required a ministerial direction in April 2022 to start implementation of the Rwanda partnership, because he judged that there was insufficient evidence of the deterrent effect that had been suggested, and therefore of the scheme being value for money. That ministerial direction has not been revoked, and it is in force today, with even more money being committed to this scheme. As the Institute for Government points out, permanent secretaries have a duty to seek a ministerial direction if they think a spending proposal breaches the value-for-money criteria—that is,

“if something else, or doing nothing, would be cheaper and better”.

That makes it even more important that Parliament can scrutinise this scheme and have the full costs available.

Less than two weeks ago, we learned, via the National Audit Office investigation that the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and I had sought, that the UK Government have committed to making payments to cover asylum processing and operational costs, and an integration package, for each individual relocated to Rwanda, and that these payments can last for five years and total £150,874 per person. Ministers had previously indicated that the per-person payments in the Rwanda scheme would be similar to the per-person cost of processing claims in the UK. Asked at the Home Affairs Committee what the UK processing cost was, the then Minister responsible for illegal migration said that it was £12,000, although we now know that it is £21,000.

Here is what else we have learned: the Home Office has committed to pay the Rwandan Government £370 million under the economic transformation and integration fund. It will also pay an additional £20,000 per individual relocated, and a further £120 million once 300 people have been relocated. That is in addition to the £150,874 per person for asylum processing and operational costs. On top of that, we also have the direct costs incurred by the Home Office in managing and overseeing the scheme and transporting people to Rwanda. As of February 2024, the Home Office had incurred costs of £20 million, which it expects to rise to £28 million by the end of 2023-24. The Home Office estimates that it will incur further costs of approximately £1 million per year in staff costs and £11,000 per individual for flight costs. It would be helpful if the Minister could let the House know whether he now has an airline available to remove people to Rwanda, because that is another question to which we have not been able to get an answer.

The Home Office will also incur costs to escort individuals to Rwanda, including training costs of £12.6 million in 2024-2025 and £1 million per year thereafter in fixed costs, plus further escorting costs that are dependent on the number of flights required. That does not include the wider costs of implementing the Illegal Migration Act 2023, such as the cost of providing sufficient detention facilities to hold people before they are relocated. It would be helpful if the Minister could explain what arrangements are in place for that; that is linked to my question on capital costs.

Will the Minister comment on whether it was a mistake not to make the full set of costs I have just listed known to Members of this House, especially given that Members were legislating on this policy but did not have the information available on cost to make a judgment on value for money? Why did it require an investigation by the National Audit Office to get basic, factual information? Does the Minister think that the permanent secretary is wrong in his assessment that there is insufficient evidence

“to demonstrate that the policy will have a deterrent effect significant enough”

to justify its cost? Is the Minister also able to assist the House on the number of people who will be sent to Rwanda under the Illegal Migration Act after the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill is enacted?

In recent days, it has appeared that the Government will offer asylum seekers whose applications are unsuccessful £3,000 to relocate to Rwanda voluntarily, alongside those forcibly removed under the scheme, and that they too will be entitled to support for five years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I will certainly do my best, Madam Deputy Speaker. Of course, the debate might have expanded even further if any Labour Back Benchers other than the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee had turned up. We SNP Members are accused of disengaging from this place, but four of us have contributed to this debate, compared with only one Member from the official Opposition.

Estimates debates should be among the most important debates each year, as this is the process by which we approve billions of pounds of Government expenditure. Before us is nearly £8 billion set aside for the Home Office. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, many SNP Members take a great interest in the estimates, both the process and the substance. Not so long ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—he should be my right hon. Friend—was called to order and had to leave the Chamber for daring to try to debate the estimates on estimates day. We had been assured by the then Leader of the House that the estimates process is the way to make sure that Scotland’s voice is heard on questions of Government expenditure and Barnett consequentials, and that the English votes for English laws procedure would not stifle the votes or voices of Scottish Members. We may have been delivered from EVEL in this House, but if there is any positive legacy from those unlamented procedures, it is that estimates days are now set aside for the discussion of estimates, and we can debate and indeed vote on detailed aspects of Government expenditure.

That does not mean that the process is not still woefully lacking in effectiveness and the ability to propose substantive changes. In other legislatures, there can be line-by-line examination of a Government’s budget and spending plans, and Members can propose detailed amendments to direct funds to their priority policies or communities. That is not an option available to us, but I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and our estimable colleagues in the SNP Whips Office on their ingenuity in bringing forward the amendment before us today.

The spending of the Home Office, particularly on asylum and immigration, certainly does warrant scrutiny and amendment. When Ministers say that the sums are vast—indeed, the sums spent on asylum accommodation are too high—they are not wrong. But their solutions, their alternatives, are wrong—very wrong. As the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, the most straightforward and simplest—and also the most practical and dignified—solution to the question of asylum accommodation, is to give asylum seekers the right to work and allow them to pay for their own accommodation. Instead of costing the taxpayer money, let them become taxpayers. Let asylum seekers contribute to the Treasury, our economy and our communities. If Conservative Members are genuinely concerned about community cohesion and integration, surely the way to build that is not to ostracise and “other” asylum seekers, but to allow them to play an active, positive role in our society and economy. There are plenty of examples where immigration in that sense has worked, as we see if we look at the contribution that the Syrian community have made to life on Scotland’s islands since that resettlement scheme was introduced, at how Ukrainians have been welcomed into homes and families and schools and workplaces across the country through those schemes. Of course, we have spoken many times about the impact that Afghans have had in Glasgow, not least through the Glasgow Afghan United organisation, headed up by my good friend, Councillor Abdul Bostani. I invite the Minister to come to Glasgow to meet refugees and asylum seekers such as those supported by Glasgow Afghan United and the Maryhill Integration Network.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It was pointed out earlier that the number of asylum seekers, even those coming on small boats, would not be accommodated in Rwanda under the current plan, if that should go ahead. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many of those trying to cross from Calais—I have been there and met them—are desperate people, some of whom are victims of war, some of whom are victims of war in Afghanistan and some of whom are victims of war in Afghanistan because they have worked for the British forces there. Surely we need to have a slightly more humanitarian approach to what are desperate people.

[Patrick Grady]

Yes, I agree entirely on that. The safe and legal routes that do exist for Ukrainians, Syrians and some Afghans are exceptions to the rule. They are the exceptions to the hostile environment, which starts when anybody gets off a plane and has to wait in interminable queues at the UK to get through passport control. It is a hostile environment that can end with the prospect of being deported to Rwanda if the Home Secretary does not like the cut of someone’s jib.

For the past nine years or so, asylum, immigration and visa cases have been at the very top of my constituency case load. Way back in 2105, a constituent of mine, literally a rocket scientist who wanted to contribute to world-class engineering projects at our universities, came to see me because the Home Office was attempting to refuse her a visa. I have lost track of the number of academics, musicians, artists, religious ministers and sometimes even just holidaymakers whose visits to the UK have been cancelled or curtailed by Home Office hostility and inefficiency. We have seen families whose reunion has been denied, small business owners who have given up and moved away, and funerals and weddings missed because the default position of the Home Office is suspicion and hostility towards anybody who wants to come here, unless they are stinking rich, in which case they are very welcome to come straight through the door, on a gold-plated visa.

Even as other parts of the Government proclaim that Britain is great, and say that we need and want skilled and talented entrepreneurs and graduates, the Home Office says, “No, Britain is closed.” I have visited British embassies and high commissions in parts of Africa that have been festooned with bunting and adverts for Chevening scholarships, and then gone to dinner that evening with young people who could not take up their scholarship because they had been denied a visa. I have visited the visa processing centre in Lilongwe, Malawi, and I was grateful for the time they gave me and for the efficiency with which they carry out their role. They take the biometrics and process the paperwork, and they do so quickly and effectively. But then the applications get stuck at the point of decision making, not in Malawi, not with input from our excellent high commission team, but at a remote centre in Pretoria, and that causes frustration, confusion and too often disappointment among the visa applicants. All of that speaks to inefficiencies, systemic and systematic failures within the Home Office.

I want to touch briefly on the question of the Rwanda scheme, as many have. According to the National Audit Office, the scheme will cost £1.8 million per person for the first 300 potential deportees. I had a look online the other day—a year’s full board in Disneyland Paris would cost £100,000 a year. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration have said that the reason they think Rwanda is a deterrent is because it is not the UK; well, Disneyland Paris is not the UK, so there is a quicker and cheaper way of deterring people. If that sounds absurd, it is because the whole scheme is absurd.

We have touched on the question of ODA. It would be interesting to know whether any of the funding under the UK-Rwanda migration and economic development partnership, or the treaty with Rwanda, will be classed as ODA. As I said to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, even if the UK Government have to count some of the money spent on supporting Ukrainian refugees as ODA, that should not be an excuse to minimise the amount of ODA being spent elsewhere by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The Government should never have abandoned the 0.7% target in the first place; they broke a cross-party consensus to do that.

In an independent Scotland, the 0.7% target would be a floor, not a ceiling, for our spending on supporting some of the poorest and most vulnerable people around the world. But then in an independent Scotland, many things will be different and in stark contrast to the decay and decline of Westminster under successive Governments of whatever hue. The Scottish Government have printed commendable papers explaining what a humane asylum, immigration and migration policy would look like. Of course, Brexit has only added to all these costs.

For generations, people have left Scotland to make their homes elsewhere in the world because they were cleared from their land to make way for sheep, because their crops failed, because they wanted to join friends and family who had gone before them, or because they had skills and talents that they wanted to put to use in an economy or society that could benefit from them. Today many people from elsewhere in the world want to make their homes in Scotland and the rest of the UK for precisely the same reasons, but the UK Government say no. They spend vast amounts of money saying no, and they refuse to allow the devolved Administrations to do anything different. So it seems that devolution is in fact the real separatism. With independence, we will rejoin the world and play our part as an open, welcoming, good global citizen.