Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, December 8, 2022

Official Report 1061KB pdf

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Asylum Seekers (Support)

The next item of business is a members’ business debate on S6M-05880, in the name of Bob Doris, on “How Will We Survive? Steps to preventing destitution in the asylum system”. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament notes the impact of the cost of living crisis on people seeking asylum in the Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn constituency, and across Scotland; further notes the research published by the British Red Cross and Refugee Survival Trust, How Will We Survive? Steps to preventing destitution in the asylum system; understands that the report was written by peer researchers with lived experience of the asylum system, through the Destitute Asylum Seeker Service; further understands that it outlines seven overarching recommendations, covering both the Home Office and Scottish Government, including that the Scottish Government should pilot a peer support system to ensure new arrivals through the asylum system can access support, guidance and friendship from people who have shared experiences of navigating the asylum system, that people with no recourse to public funds should have access to adequate support and increased access to health services, including mental health support, and that the Home Office should automatically grant people the right to work if they have been waiting for longer than six months for a decision on their initial asylum claim, or following the submission of further evidence, and that such a right should not be restricted to jobs on the shortage occupation list, and notes the view in the report that the Home Office should also offer an initial grant to asylum seekers to help them set up life in the UK, which it considers would lessen the likelihood of destitution.

12:51  

I thank parliamentary colleagues who have signed my motion. “How Will We Survive? Steps to preventing destitution in the asylum system” is a joint report that was prepared by the British Red Cross and the Refugee Survival Trust. The report is the conclusion of important work carried out by peer researchers, some of whom join us in the gallery. My particular thanks must go to peer researchers Ronald, Adnan, Tandy and Zainab. I extend my heartfelt thanks to you all.

Those researchers have drawn on their own lived experience and the testimony of others, as well as their great expertise and skill, in order to reach the important recommendations in the report, which have been made to both the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments. The research found that, during the first six months of a person’s time in the UK asylum system, there is a particularly high risk of destitution. That is a result of factors including delays or problems with receiving financial and other support, language barriers, asylum seekers being unaware of their rights, and difficulties with accessing effective support and advice networks. The report calls on the Home Office to offer an initial grant to asylum seekers in order to help them to set up their lives in the UK, which would considerably lessen the likelihood of destitution. Asylum seekers often arrive in the UK with little or nothing at all. The case for an initial grant is a powerful one.

The report says that people are still at risk of becoming destitute. That is partly because of the difficulty of having an allowance of just over £5 a day, which needs to stretch to cover essentials including food, clothes and payment of various other costs. Inflation is spiralling and people who are in the most precarious financial position are the most exposed to rising costs. That includes asylum seekers, who are on the front line of the cost of living crisis. The report recommends that the Home Office should review the weekly asylum support allowance to ensure that it reflects the real cost of living. That must happen.

Asylum seekers cannot strike for better income or improved conditions. Of course, many do not have the right to work in the first place, which must also change. The report recommends that the Home Office allows asylum seekers to work after they have been waiting for six months for a decision on their claim, and that right to work should not be restricted to the shortage occupation list.

Not only does a person have a right to work to support themselves and their family—it is a basic human right—but to deny asylum seekers that right is clearly an act of self-harm against the social and economic interests of Scotland and the UK. There are many skilled asylum seekers who are restricted in using their skills for the betterment of our country.

Week in, week out in this place, we hear about unfilled vacancies in health and social care in our country, and we have a willing and able workforce that is denied the right to work. Many have been driven into destitution rather than be permitted to make a contribution, which is just wrong. I praise all those who have raised their voices as part of the Lift the Ban campaign, which champions that right to work.

There are recommendations for the Scottish Government, and a key recommendation relates to peer support. The peer researchers believe that people seeking asylum should have access to good-quality information, advice and advocacy, and they are right to stress the benefit of a formal peer support network. The Scottish Government is called on to invest in and pilot a peer support system for people who are seeking asylum in Scotland. That would ensure that new arrivals, as well as those who are more vulnerable at any stage of the asylum process, are able to access support, guidance and friendship from people who have a shared experience of navigating the asylum system.

There are wonderful existing models of peer support. For instance, the Maryhill Integration Network, which I am privileged to have in my constituency, offers peer support and has done so for many years. Ahead of today’s debate, Pinar from MIN told me that it will officially introduce its peer support volunteering pilot in January. Although the MIN voices group operates on a peer support model, it wants to expand the process across MIN and train people to be peer support volunteers who provide information to new arrivals; attend meetings with people; and provide training in essential areas such as healthcare, current immigration rules and a variety of other matters. Therefore, I say to the cabinet secretary that much of the work to develop peer support models for asylum seekers has already been done by the communities themselves and their third sector partners. However, it needs to be resourced and formalised, and support needs to be offered to identify and address gaps in provision.

There has been positive movement on some of the recommendations in the report. The report states that the Scottish Government should take on board recommendations from groups including the Voices Network, to implement free bus travel for people in the asylum system. We are not there yet, but that is hopefully on course to be delivered.

I pay tribute to the Voices Network and others, and I acknowledge the cross-party approach in the Parliament to delivering that recommendation, particularly by me, Mark Ruskell and Paul Sweeney. Together, we have pushed for free bus travel for asylum seekers in the chamber and in constructive meetings with two ministers, Neil Gray and Jenny Gilruth. We understand that a pilot project is imminent and that the policy intent of the Scottish Government, within the powers that are currently available to this Parliament, is to seek to embed wider provision in the concessionary travel scheme in the longer term.

I am conscious that there are other powerful recommendations in the report on mental health and unsuitable temporary accommodation. I note that, across Scotland, up to 600 asylum seekers are currently staying in 10 hotels as institutional accommodation, and that they get just £1.18 a day to live on. I am sure that colleagues will pick up on the tragedy of the Park Inn incident, and there are powerful recommendations in the report on housing and who inspects that housing to ensure that it is of a suitable standard.

There are recommendations on the need for longer-term stable funding for those in the asylum system who need support at points of crisis, which could perhaps be done as part of a review of the Scottish welfare fund. That would build on the excellent partnership work between the Scottish Government and the British Red Cross, which currently administers the Scottish crisis fund project as part of the Scottish Government’s “Ending Destitution Together” strategy. The project provides grants to people who are facing destitution and who face additional barriers in accessing support. To date, it has supported more than 1,400 people and has provided more than £450,000 in cash payments.

As I draw to a close, I say let us work together on a cross-party basis to persuade the UK Government to deliver on those initial grants, on the right to work and on improving the dreadfully low level of financial support for asylum seekers, as well as on various other matters that I have not had time to mention. Those can be key drivers in reducing destitution.

Likewise, we should continue constructively to press our Government here in Scotland to address the recommendations that are aimed at it. Although the report recognises that the recommended measures are often mitigation measures, they are no less important. I would very much welcome a Government debate on those matters in the Scottish Parliament, which I think would be welcomed by many.

I close by thanking our peer researchers for their powerful recommendations. I look forward to working with others to address the very real concerns that have been raised by them, for the benefit of all.

13:00  

I acknowledge the vital work that organisations such as the British Red Cross and the Refugee Survival Trust do to support those in need and I thank them for producing the report, “How Will We Survive? Steps to preventing destitution in the asylum system”.

At a time when we face a cost of living crisis, it is important to note that the people who have the least, including those seeking asylum, are the most impacted by rising costs and that, with no right to work or to a bank account, people in the asylum system are dependent on the support that is available.

Over the past five years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of individuals who have been waiting for an initial decision on their asylum claim, which is leading to increased pressure on the limited resources available. More must be done in order to speed up the process, so as to reduce both the number of people waiting on an initial decision and the length of time that they are waiting for. I note that the Home Office also recognises that as a problem and has increased the number of caseworkers by 80 per cent to address it.

The UK Government has recently made a host of key reforms to the asylum system. Those include cracking down on the illegal people-smuggling networks and ensuring that those who are engaged in people smuggling should face tougher penalties. In doing so, the UK Government has pledged to free up the asylum system so that it can better support people in genuine need of asylum through safe and legal routes.

Maurice Golden is right to mention illegal networks. Denying asylum seekers the legal route and the right to work could push them, in destitution, to be exploited by illegal networks and, at a real crisis point, into really dire exploitation. Would Maurice Golden acknowledge that and does he think that perhaps we should look again at extending the right to work for asylum seekers?

I can give you the time back, Mr Golden.

That is something that should be looked at. I think that the member suggested allowing asylum seekers to seek work after six months, which seems to be something that should certainly be considered.

The report that today’s debate focuses on has, in turn, made a number of recommendations. Given the UK’s Government’s pledge to better support people in genuine need of asylum, I would encourage the UK Government and the Scottish Government to review those recommendations. Although the British Red Cross, the Refugee Survival Trust, the Scottish Government and the UK Government all have different approaches to and views on the way in which the asylum system should be designed and supported, there will undoubtedly be areas where common ground can be found. Those should be fully explored in order to improve the current system.

13:04  

I thank Bob Doris for his members’ business debate and pay tribute to him for the relentless campaigning that he has done, both as a constituency member and through his involvement with the social security system. I, too, have a long-standing interest in refugees and asylum seekers and feel quite passionately about the issue.

I hope that Bob Doris and the Presiding Officer will forgive me if I am not able to stay for all the speeches, although I will stay for as many as I can. It is simply because, as a dog lover, I would be really upset if I missed the dogs that are in Parliament. I hope that that is okay with everyone.

I begin by acknowledging the work that Baroness Helena Kennedy KC has done in the final report of the commission of inquiry into asylum provision in Scotland, and the overall conclusion of the panel in relation to the Park Inn incident in Glasgow in 2020, which Bob Doris mentioned. I remember the incident very well and am sure that he does, too. Helena Kennedy said that the incident was an “avoidable tragedy”; I believe that, as well. Not much—and not enough—has changed in two years since the Park Inn tragedy.

Today, between 500 and 600 people in the asylum system live in 10 hotels across eight local authorities in Scotland. I believe, as Bob Doris does, that those 600 or so people are seeking safety, refuge and a better life.

It is now clear that placing asylum-seekers in hotels might not be the best policy, because it removes them from communities and undermines their human dignity. It has caused unnecessary suffering, and we all know that there are serious consequences for their health and wellbeing. I have learned in my work with refugees and asylum seekers, and through work that I have done in other countries, that the core of human existence is that feeling of dignity—that is what drives being human. Stripping away that dignity from anyone who is already destitute leads to serious consequences, and not just for them. There are reactions to that.

As members have said, most asylum seekers are barred from working and rely on United Kingdom Government support—typically, £40 a week, or just £5.84 a day. Other refugees, who are not asylum seekers and stay in hotels, are given £8.24 a week or just over £1 a day.

I support the British Red Cross campaign to lift the ban, and acknowledge that to run a pilot would make sense, so that we could see how it would run in practice.

I welcome Maurice Golden’s suggestion about a six-month period. I have always supported the notion that we should give the people who are here the chance to do even limited work so that we protect their dignity and wellbeing, and give them some income.

Academics and policy makers have argued that destitution is designed into the UK’s asylum system as a form of deterrent and punishment. For reasons that I have outlined, that is a risky policy, through which already traumatised people are trapped with no money, information, agency or opportunity. I believe that the Scottish Government could think more long term about how people who are here to seek asylum could have more dignity in their daily lives.

I welcome the work that Bob Doris and my colleague Paul Sweeney have done. I cannot remember who else was working with the members, but I acknowledge the cross-party work on things such as free bus services—little things that can make a huge difference to people who seek asylum in the UK and Scotland.

People have been removed from communities where they had made friends and established neighbourly connections, and now live in hotels. We need longer-term thinking about how we will move away from that situation, with all the challenges and problems that it brings.

For too long, third sector organisations such as Refuweegee, Refugees for Justice, Safe in Scotland, the Scottish Refugee Council and the Refugee Survival Trust, to name but a few, have been tasked with those difficult challenges. I would like to see better funding for those organisations and recognition that they are dealing with some of the hardest cases on the front line.

I welcome the information pack that is provided to new Scots about how they can go about surviving in Scotland. In the face of a hostile environment for refugees and asylum seekers who seek shelter and long-term accommodation, we can do better to restore dignity and humanity to people who, for the most part, are among the most vulnerable in our society.

13:09  

I thank Bob Doris for securing the debate this afternoon. I apologise to Parliament—if the debate is still going at half past one, I am afraid that I will have to leave at that time. I thank the Presiding Officer for the permission to do so.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Glasgow’s refugee Councillor Roza Salih, whom the BBC named one of the most influential women of 2022. Roza was one of the Glasgow girls who campaigned against deportation and dawn raids, and who were influential in campaigning for the right to further and higher education for the children of asylum seekers, as well as children who arrive in Scotland alone but meet the residency criteria. She has acknowledged how important her being named is. She has said:

“The list ... reflects the role of women at the heart of conflict around the world in 2022—from the protesters bravely demanding change in Iran, to the female faces of conflict and resistance in Ukraine and Russia.”

It is important to note Roza Salih’s immense achievement of having been nominated for the list.

Roza Salih acknowledges that Scotland does things differently, although there is always more that we can do. The fact that the Scottish Government has committed to developing policies for refugee children, under its devolved responsibilities, to reflect the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, should be acknowledged.

I was taught by a Chilean refugee, Dr Jose Menoz, who fled from Pinochet with his wife, who was a paediatrician. I remember the influence that that had on my life, and I remember him telling me how frustrating it was for him and his wife not to be able to work in their professions when they first came to the UK, before their asylum-seeker status was completed. We must recognise that this is about people’s talents, experience and education and what they bring to Scotland, as new Scots. We should be able to embrace that in all its forms and welcome people. The right to work is so clearly an area in which we could make the situation better for people. I recognise that element in Bob Doris’s motion.

I want to talk a little bit about the work that the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, of which I am convener, has been doing on settlement of temporarily displaced Ukrainians who have come to Scotland. There was one thing in the British Red Cross report that I found disturbing. It said that inappropriate use by the Scottish Government of ships in Glasgow and Edinburgh should be stopped. I emphasise that members of our committee visited one of the ships. It is not a permanent solution—such temporary accommodation should never become a permanent solution for asylum seekers—but a staging post. As an MSP who has in her constituency a new block of flats that is dedicated to looking after Ukrainian displaced people—it houses up to 80 families—I linked the group on the ship with the group in my constituency so that they can talk and provide peer support to people who might be thinking about coming to live in North Lanarkshire.

Daria Bondarenko, who is from the Ukrainian Freedom Ballet, gave evidence to the committee and said that peer-to-peer work is supported by the Scottish Government, and that

“the crew of the ship were a big help, but it is more about our own initiative”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 3 November 2022; c 10.]

in relation to support for the children who are on the ship.

The use of the ships is not normal or ideal, but we have to take some positives from the great work that is being done there to bring people to Scotland: 18,500 people is obviously a lot, given that we initially said that we would take about 3,500.

13:13  

I am very grateful to Bob Doris for lodging his motion, securing the debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss how we can better support some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We should view people who are in the asylum system as being part of our society—Scotland can and should be a welcoming place. It is right that we provide sanctuary to people who are fleeing unimaginable horrors: war, environmental catastrophe, threats to their personal safety because of any aspect of their identity, or any other risks. We would want others to support us if we were in such need.

If we were in the position of seeking asylum in a foreign country, perhaps without any connection or tie such as language, culture or anything familiar, the last thing that we would want to face is destitution. As defined under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999,

“a person is destitute if”

they do

“not have adequate accommodation or any means of obtaining it (whether or not ... other essential living needs are met); or”

they have

“adequate accommodation or the means of obtaining it, but cannot meet ... other essential living needs.”

The UK’s asylum system is hard-wired to produce destitution among people who seek sanctuary here. Indeed, the threat of destitution is used as a deterrent and, as part of the hostile environment, is an explicit policy choice by the UK Government. We cannot disagree that having less than £50 a week to cover all costs is not enough to enable people to meet their “essential living needs”.

As we have heard, destitution can occur at all points in the asylum system, but people are most vulnerable to it when asylum claims are refused or they are in their first six months after arrival in the UK. Of course, women and LGBTQIA+ people are disproportionately at risk.

The inhumane UK Government seeks to treat people who get to the UK via “irregular” routes—small boats, for example—worse than those who come via other routes. No one gets in a small boat to cross a dangerous body of water unless they have no option. Criminalising them or treating them as less than human is not the right response.

So, what should we do? As long as we do not have control over our immigration system, we need to keep campaigning against the UK’s hostile environment. We must keep pressure on the UK Government to grant asylum seekers the right to work, as other members have said. We know that we have a skills shortage in Scotland and that we have folk who are desperate to work here.

However, there are other things that we can and should do within devolved powers. We must ensure that our different approach to asylum, which is to offer genuine sanctuary, is backed up by the radical action that is needed to keep people safe. We should be testing the limits of the devolution settlement by doing such things. We cannot tolerate a UK Government that is forcing people into homelessness and poverty through blind ideology.

The Scottish Refugee Council recently presented its 10-point action plan for social inclusion of asylum seekers and refugees to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. That plan identifies where preventative action could not only result in savings compared with the cost of current approaches, but could deliver a more humane and just service for people in need. When the cabinet secretary closes the debate, I ask her to address particular points from that plan: that asylum seekers and refugees need to be explicit groups in the Scottish child poverty action plan; that guidance should be provided on what should be in the legal duty to prepare, review and implement local child poverty action plans; and that we close the data gap that exists around the number of people in Scotland who have no recourse to public funds.

Those anti-poverty recommendations are clearly within devolved competence. We must accept them and implement them as soon as we can. By doing so, we will make a material and positive difference to the lives of people in asylum and resettlement or relocation programmes.

I thank individuals, communities and organisations—which include, among so many others, the Scottish Refugee Council, the Red Cross, Crisis and Refugees for Justice—for the work that they do day in and day out to support asylum seekers and refugees, doing battle on their behalf. I am grateful to them.

13:18  

I thank Bob Doris for bringing this important and timely debate to the chamber. A number of thoughtful speeches have been made, and I thank members for that.

When the British Red Cross and the Refugee Survival Trust commissioned research on behalf of the destitute asylum seeker service in Glasgow, they knew that people seeking asylum were impacted by recurring issues of poverty and destitution. As members have noted, the “How will we survive?” report found that experiences of destitution were widespread among people seeking asylum. Sadly, that situation has not changed. Increasingly, people who have been forced to flee war, persecution and violence find that they must endure prolonged periods of uncertainty and destitution before they can feel properly safe and begin to rebuild their lives.

In speaking about the report, members have highlighted that the key causes of destitution for people seeking asylum include delays in receiving asylum support, the inadequacy of support when it is received and the long waiting times for asylum decisions. That tells us that the fundamental cause of asylum destitution is Home Office policy.

Home Office statistics show that more than 147,000 asylum applications were awaiting an initial decision at the end of September this year and that almost 100,000 of those had been waiting for more than six months. That is shocking. We should all be appalled that people who live in our communities have been waiting in limbo for years for a decision.

That significant backlog is a symptom of years of underinvestment in the fundamentals of the UK Government’s asylum system and a lack of recognition of the importance of our international obligations to recognise refugees. Changes must be made so that the UK has a fair and effective asylum system that protects people who seek safety. I have repeatedly called on the UK Government to make improvements to ensure that people are treated with dignity at all stages of the asylum process.

UK Government policy means that people who are seeking asylum have no recourse to public funds. That prevents them from accessing safety nets, such as the Scottish welfare fund, in times of crisis. Instead, if they would otherwise be destitute, the Home Office provides basic accommodation—increasingly, in a hotel or other institutional setting—and only £40.85 per week for food, clothing, travel and other essentials.

It is also Home Office policy to restrict the right to work for people seeking asylum, which members have touched on during the debate. That policy prevents people from supporting themselves, using their skills and contributing to our economy. They are also prevented from accessing the opportunities for social networking, wellbeing and integration that are found in workplaces. As others have noted, there are skills shortages in many parts of Scotland’s economy, and people who come here with skills could contribute in that regard.

Unless the underlying causes of destitution are addressed, that will continue to be the reality for too many people in our communities. Through the new Scots refugee integration strategy and the ending destitution together strategy, the Scottish Government is working with partners to do what we can, within our devolved powers, to make a difference for people in our communities who are seeking asylum. I am always interested to hear more about peer support projects, because I recognise the benefits that those can bring people. The third sector provides fantastic initiatives including integration networks, refugee-led community groups and the Voices Network, all of which enable people to meet, share their experiences and support one another. Bob Doris mentioned the work of the Maryhill Integration Network, and others have pointed to other projects.

I am pleased to be able to inform members that, for the rest of this financial year, the Scottish Government will continue to fund two important projects that deliver on ending destitution. The diagnostic legal advice project, led by the Scottish Refugee Council as part of the fair way Scotland partnership, will continue to provide direct advocacy support and triage and will link people to qualified legal advice to ensure that they can resolve underlying status issues and make informed choices about their future. I am also pleased to be able to inform the Parliament that the Scottish Government will continue to fund the Scottish crisis fund project, which is delivered by the British Red Cross in collaboration with a number of third sector partners. That project will continue to provide crisis grants to people who are experiencing, or at risk of, destitution, including people who face challenges in accessing mainstream support and those who have no recourse to public funds.

The cabinet secretary has mentioned those who have no recourse to public funds. It was probably remiss of me not to mention in my speech the emerging concerns about pathways for young people who are in the asylum process, particularly those who leave secondary school and seek to go to university but are not able to take up places. The cross-party group on migration, of which I am deputy convener, is concerned about that. I would be very interested in meeting the relevant Scottish Government minister to discuss how we can ensure that we meet every aspiration of asylum seekers who have made their lives here in Scotland. We initially sought to fix the issue in 2007, when Fiona Hyslop was the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, but recent court rulings mean that we are not where we would like to be on that. I would welcome dialogue with the Government.

I will certainly ask my relevant colleague—it will probably be Shirley-Anne Somerville—to respond to Bob Doris on that important point.

I want to mention another issue that Bob Doris and other members have taken a keen interest in, which is concessionary travel. I understand that there was a constructive meeting with the Minister for Transport recently, and I hope that members found that useful. As was discussed at that meeting, work is now under way on a travel support pilot that will inform the work that is taking place in parallel on how we can provide travel support for people who are seeking asylum in the longer term.

We continue to press the Home Office on reserved issues that impact people who are living in our communities, and to push for positive change. Since I came into my role, I have written to Home Office ministers numerous times about many of the issues that have been highlighted in today’s debate, as my predecessors did. The UK Government must invest in the asylum system in order to increase the quality and speed of asylum decisions. That is the only way to uphold the UK’s international responsibilities to recognise and protect people who have been forced to flee persecution. It would reduce the uncertainty and the risk of destitution for people who just want and need to rebuild their lives in a place of safety, and it would also reduce the number of people the UK asylum system has to accommodate and support by allowing people to get on with their lives and play a full part in their communities.

The UK needs an effective and efficient asylum system that delivers for people who might be highly vulnerable, as well as our communities. We need a system that treats people with dignity and respect at all stages of the process and does not subject them to destitution.

I again thank Bob Doris and the other members who contributed to the debate for highlighting this important issue. Home Secretaries and Home Office ministers have repeatedly referred to the UK asylum system as being broken. It is clear that we all agree on that, as we heard in members’ contributions today, but there is no use in saying that it needs fixed and then not taking action. The UK Government must now fix its failed and inhumane system or provide this Parliament with the powers to do so. Meanwhile, of course, we will use our devolved powers to do what we can to support some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

13:27 Meeting suspended.  

14:30 On resuming—