UN Syrian Refugees Programme

Debate between Sarah Teather and Mark Harper

Monday 20th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman talks about refugees who previously lived in Syria. Of course, the help we are providing is not just to the neighbouring countries; a lot of it is for people who are internally displaced in Syria. We are working very hard with our diplomatic partners to secure humanitarian access in Syria, as well as supporting neighbouring countries. I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome that too.

[Sarah Teather (Brent Central) (LD)]

Before Christmas, I visited Jordan and the Zaatari refugee camp, as well as a number of organisations providing help for refugees living in host communities. I was particularly concerned about the plight of disabled children and children who have managed to travel on their own. The Minister is of course correct to say that most refugees just want to go back to Syria and do not want to come to Britain, but we are not asking for most refugees to come to Britain; we are asking only for those in exceptional need whom we could help to come to Britain. We should continue to make the arguments for Jordan and Lebanon to keep their borders open; otherwise, we really will have a catastrophe.

[Mr Harper]

As I think I said in response to the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), we are working closely with UNICEF in Syria and the region on providing support services and protection for 15,000 of the most vulnerable Syrian children and their carers, as well as for refugee children in neighbouring countries. We are providing that support, and we are able to help a significantly larger number of people than the numbers the hon. Lady talks about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Teather and Mark Harper

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I thought I would have a go this time. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State answered very well before, but I thought I would take a different tack, because it gives me an opportunity to say, as my right hon. Friend did, that we will bring forward proposals to ensure that landlords have to check the immigration status of tenants. I have had some good discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. We will be bringing those steps forward, and I am confident they will be sensible, proportionate and effective.

[Sarah Teather (Brent Central) (LD)]

T6. Have Ministers checked whether the family migration rules are compliant with our obligations under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child?

[Mr Harper]

Yes, we are confident that they are. Last week I met the chair of the all-party group on migration, the noble Baroness Hamwee, to discuss the report. The Government will consider the recommendations in that report, but my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set out clearly the objective of the family migration rules: to ensure that those who want to make their family life in the United Kingdom are able to support their families, rather than expecting the taxpayer to do so.

Asylum Support (Children and Young People)

Debate between Sarah Teather and Mark Harper

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Gentleman will recall that his hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe said that, under section 4, people cannot buy condoms.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

Yes they can.

[Chris Bryant]

That is perhaps a point for the Minister. I want to say to some religious organisations that it is time they understood the reality of the modern world and abandoned their views about procreation.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) on securing this debate. As she said, she and I met to discuss the report put together by her group of parliamentary colleagues, and I had the chance, both before and after that meeting, to consider it carefully. It will certainly go into the Government’s review specifically on asylum support rates. I thank her for her work and for the evidence. Two of the Members who took part in that work—the hon. Members for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin)—are here today. In the time available, I will deal with both her points and those made by other Members who spoke or intervened.

Let me first deal with the financial support. One point made by the hon. Lady today, and one of the key points in her report, is that the amount of money given to both asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers is very low and does not meet families’ essential living needs. It is worth setting out for the House exactly what is available. The legal test is whether it meets people’s essential needs, which are food, toiletries and clothing. A family of four receiving section 95 support, which is that given to those who have an asylum application that has not yet been decided, would get £178 a week to cover those essential costs. A family on section 4 support, which is where a decision has been made and they do not have a right to remain in the country, get £151 a week. It is worth remembering that they have furnished housing with no bills to pay. I accept that it is not generous, but I do not think it is ungenerous. It is lower than the income support equivalents, but people who are in asylum support accommodation do not have to pay any utility bills, buy furniture or meet some of the other costs associated with running a household.

The hon. Lady touched on the relationship between the section 95 support and income support levels, which is worth mentioning. For children, the rates are much higher than the 70% she talked about. For children, the rates range between 81% and 89% of the income support levels. It is true that the rates are less generous for adults. If we look at how we compare with other European countries on families—and therefore on children—we are rather more generous than most of our equivalent European neighbours.

[Sarah Teather]

The Minister will perhaps recognise that the rates vary according to the children’s age and tail off significantly at 16, where it would be expected that those children would be in full-time education, especially given the Government’s own policy to encourage everybody to be in education beyond 16. I have discussed the German constitutional court case with him in private. I do not know whether he has had a chance to look at it, but I am happy to send him the details. The support rates there were deemed to be inadequate to meet a family’s basic humane needs. It is difficult to compare our asylum support rates with those of other European countries, because they partly depend on how long someone is on them. It is worth noting that one of our neighbours has had to review its asylum support rates.

[Mr Harper]

I accept that point. It is worth making the point on the German case that our rates for families are rather more generous than the German rates. The hon. Lady is right that there was a court challenge and the Germans have had to make their rates more generous. Ours are significantly more generous. The point she makes about 16 and 17-year-olds is correct, but it is still worth noting that her report and, I think, others have referred to the rates being at least 70% of the income support rate. That is still the case for young people of 16 and 17, where it is 71%. It does fall below that for adults. She will be aware—she and I have discussed this—that we are in the process of reviewing the asylum support rates to confirm that they meet essential living needs. The initial work that we have done suggests that they do, but that work is under way. When we have completed it, we will make an announcement in due course.

The hon. Lady and others, particularly the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall, referred to individuals who have higher living costs, especially those with disabilities or complicated medical problems, who might need particular extra care or equipment. The correct way that they are supposed to be supported is through local authorities using their powers and duties under both the National Assistance Act 1948 and the Children Act 2004 to provide that extra support. It sounds like the hon. Gentleman has encountered some cases in his surgeries with constituents, and there were also some in the evidence given to the panel producing the report, where that does not always happen. Obviously I am happy to look at specific cases, so that we can ensure that local authorities are following up on their legal obligations.

Once people have made an asylum claim, if that claim is accepted and they are given refugee status and are permitted to stay in the UK, they have access to the full range of public services and benefits on the same basis as a British citizen. There are some issues about the transition from asylum support to those mainstream benefits, and the UK Border Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions are looking at those to see whether we can smooth that move from asylum support to mainstream benefits for those who are granted refugee status.

It is worth mentioning at this point the speed of decision making, which is important both from a human perspective and to ensure that people do not use the asylum system as a method of economic migration. I agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant): both our parties have been clear when in government that there is a distinction between providing refuge for people fleeing persecution and for people who move, perfectly understandably, for economic reasons. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) alluded to that. We now make 50% of asylum decisions within 30 days and 63% are made within a year, and we continue to apply pressure to maintain that progress.

Several hon. Members talked about whether asylum seekers should be able to work. Our view is that they should not be able to, to keep that clear distinction. However, under our obligations under the relevant EU directives, if we take more than a year to make a decision, an asylum seeker is able to apply to work, and we will usually grant them the ability to do so.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman’s point would be correct if we were prohibiting people from working and not providing them with any support. While we say they cannot work, so as to maintain that important distinction, we do provide them with housing where the bills are paid and a basic level of subsistence to support them in the period before we make a decision.

In the four minutes I have remaining, I will say a little about the difference between asylum seekers and those who have failed in their claim. That is important and I have made this point to the hon. Lady. If we are to maintain the proud record that the United Kingdom has in giving people refuge from persecution, it is important that those who have gone through the appeal process through the tribunal system, where we will have looked at their cases carefully, and been found not to require that support leave the country. It is important to distinguish that those on section 4 support are those who have been found not to require our protection. They should be leaving the country. We support those cases where there is a temporary barrier to them doing so, but frankly they should not be here. I know that that is a difficult message for people sometimes, but we have looked carefully at their cases and they do not need our protection. They should return home.

[Sarah Teather]

I am aware that the Minister does not have much time, but does he recognise, particularly in the case of Zimbabwe, that people were left in a situation where the courts would not return them because it was unsafe, and for a prolonged period of time they were left on very tiny amounts of support?

[Mr Harper]

As I have said, if there are temporary barriers to their removal—I do not know the particular cases that the hon. Lady was talking about—we will support them, but if they are found not to require protection, it is right that they leave. That is why we have a different regime for those who have no right to be here from that for those seeking asylum.

We do not think that the Azure card is more expensive than administering cash payments. It can be used in major supermarkets, chemists, children’s and clothing retailers, and some charity shops, which deals with the point made by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe. The hon. Lady made a point about purchasing birth control or sanitary products with the Azure card, which she raised when we met. I have checked it, and there is no restriction on purchasing those products, although there are rightly restrictions on purchasing alcohol and tobacco. I agreed to look into those cases and have checked them, and there is no restriction on birth control or sanitary products, which is right.

I will deal with some of the points raised in the debate. On accommodation and people moving around, we have specific restrictions in our new Compass contracts on how many times people can be moved. People will normally go into initial accommodation when they first make a claim and then will be moved into their dispersal accommodation. They will be moved from that only if there is a good reason, such as if the property becomes unsuitable or if they request it. Under the contract, they are only allowed to be moved twice in an 18-month period. We should not see people being moved about frequently, because that raises a range of issues.

The hon. Lady also referenced the recent report by the Refugee Council about the dispersal of pregnant women. We changed our policies last August, which she acknowledged, and 19 of the report’s 20 case studies were prior to our policy change. That change should have dealt with some of the issues that have been raised. This has been a good debate, and I am sorry that I have not had time to deal with all the issues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Teather and Mark Harper

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather (Brent Central) (LD)]

22. When she expects to announce the asylum support rates for 2013-14.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

There are no current plans to change the asylum support rates, but we do of course keep the matter under constant review.

[Sarah Teather]

The Minister’s Department has not made a decision on the asylum support rates in this financial year. He has therefore frozen the rates by default, without coming to the House to announce that decision. I understand from an announcement made in another place that a review is ongoing, but does he accept that kicking the matter into the long grass for a further year simply will not do?