Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)

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Q Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the Red Cross would view itself as a close partner of the Home Office and in a trusted relationship to deliver on the ambitions of whatever Government are in power in relation to asylum. In that context, I guess that you are regularly consulted by and engage with the Home Office on issues of policy. The thinking behind the Bill is clearly predicated on the assumption that there will be a significant opportunity to develop safe and legal routes into the UK. Have you had any discussion with the Home Office about the shape of those future routes?

Jon Featonby: The start of your question was a very good point, and yet as the Red Cross we are an auxiliary to Government for humanitarian purposes, as other national societies are to their Governments around the world. Regarding the things I have said today, Home Office officials have heard them from me several times before. We enjoy a good relationship with them and I hope they would reflect similarly back to us as well. We use the expertise from supporting people across the UK to reflect back what we see and to help the Home Office to meet some of the challenges it faces.

The precursor to the Bill was the new plan for immigration and the consultation on that. We took part in the formal consultation process and in some conversations with officials around that process. We also take part in frequent stakeholder meetings with the Home Office on a number of different areas, as well as having private dialogue.

Family reunion is one of the key areas for us. When the new plan for immigration was published, we welcomed the commitment to look at changing the rules around family reunion, to allow adults who had arrived through a safe route to sponsor their adult dependent children. We were disappointed then to see in the consultation response that that proposal has not been taken forward, but we continue to have dialogue with the Home Office around it, as well as on a report that we published towards the end of last year, which looked at the family reunion process itself and the safety of it for the family members outside the UK. We welcome the commitment within the consultation response to continue working with us in considering how those recommendations can be followed through.

Also, around the issue of the resettlement programme, we welcome the Afghan scheme, as I said, but we believe that there is more that can be done there and on family reunion, to make sure that more people are able to access safe routes rather than putting their lives at risk by taking desperate journeys.

Paul Blomfield

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Q But from your discussions, you have had no sense of what schemes the Home Office might have in mind beyond that? I ask that because it is a fairly fundamental issue on which the Bill is predicated.

Jon Featonby: At the moment, there is the Afghan resettlement scheme and the global resettlement scheme, which has an unset number. Family reunion may be potentially negatively impacted by the Bill.

Within the new plan, there is the commitment for the Home Secretary to be able to use an almost ad hoc discretionary power to be able to provide a safe route for people, and we very much welcome that. However, we believe that the Bill is an opportunity to go further, both on existing safe and legal routes, and to explore something like humanitarian visas, which would enable people to apply for asylum from outside the UK as well, because it is obviously noteworthy that the only way that someone can enter the UK asylum system is by being on UK soil.

Paul Blomfield

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Q May I ask one further question on a different point? The Bill introduces a new element to the asylum system in the consideration of late evidence, and it requires a reduction in the weight of evidence that is submitted late and indeed the credibility of applicants who give it. Do you see any potential difficulties with that and, if so, could you share those with us?

Jon Featonby: On those elements, the view of the British Red Cross is that it will be quite hard to work out what the impact of some of those clauses will be without further detail about them becoming available. There is already a section 120 notice, which can be issued to people to make sure that they provide evidence as soon as possible within the asylum process, and there is a particular focus at appeal stage.

The Home Office has done great work over recent years in looking at some of the reasons why people do not necessarily provide all of their evidence early on in the process. There are particular groups that quite often will struggle to provide all of their evidence early on. For a woman who has been a victim of sexual, gender-based violence, for example, there are very good reasons and very strong evidence as to why she may not disclose all of the evidence very early on. When someone comes to make a decision on an individual’s asylum claim, a potential result of that individual not having disclosed some of the evidence is an impact on their credibility, and you could end up with people not being given protection even though they are really in need of it.