HOUSING OF ASYLUM-SEEKERS AND THEIR DEPENDANTS (Hansard, 11 January 1993)

§ Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow)
I beg to move amendment No. 7, in page 3, line 42, at end insert— '(6) "Dependant" in this section or section 5 does not include a person who has leave to be in the United Kingdom other than as an asylum seeker or a person who has been granted political asylum, or who is a United Kingdom citizen.'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 33.

§ Mr. Gerrard
The amendment deals with the housing clauses and in particular the definition of who is a dependant of an asylum seeker. The housing clauses refer to not only asylum seekers but their dependants. I welcome the Government amendment which is similar to my amendment but I suggest that its scope is not as wide as that of my amendment. I shall return to that later.
It is important to clarify exactly who is to be treated as a dependant as such people will fall within the scope of the Bill. While it may be a minor point in terms of the scope of the Bill and it is certainly minor in terms of clauses 4 and 5, it is something that we need to clarify.
We still object in principle to clauses 4 and 5, which deal with housing and we believe that it is wrong to single out one group of people for inferior status and treatment when they apply for local authority housing. Harsher criteria will be applied to determining their applications. They will be eligible only for temporary housing and, once their asylum status is determined, they will have to reapply and be reassessed, which does not apply to other applicants. We argue that that is unnecessary and that it is based on, at best, a misunderstanding of the way in which the homelessness legislation works.
At the moment people have to overcome three hurdles and must prove: first that they are homeless; secondly that they are in priority need; and thirdly that they are not 696 intentionally homeless. The latter is particularly relevant to someone who comes to a local authority from another area.
As it stands, the legislation will deal with intentional homelessness. I believe, and I think that my hon. Friends would agree, that the housing provisions are based on the myth that homeless people, and asylum seekers and their dependants, are responsible for the present housing and homelessness crisis. However, that crisis is entirely due to lack of investment. Although resources may be short, at least local authorities are operating a system which does not discriminate against one type of applicant.
Local authorities should not have any part in asylum control and, inevitably, if they are drawn into it, people who apply as homeless at the housing department will be treated differently if their name is not English or if their face is black. Those people will be asked to produce passports and to prove that they are eligible for rehousing because they are homeless.
The removal of the reference to dependants will at least remove some people from the group that will receive inferior treatment. As the Bill is worded, it applies equally to asylum seekers or to anyone who is classed as a dependant of an asylum seeker. People who have permanent right of residence in this country may become dependants of asylum seekers. For example, it is conceivable that someone might marry an asylum seeker and thus become a dependant—they would certainly then be regarded as such by the Department of Social Security. The Government accept that asylum seekers may have been in this country legitimately for some years before applying for asylum and so it is feasible that that could happen. As the Bill is worded, anyone who becomes a dependant of an asylum seeker will lose his rights and we must safeguard against that.
Perhaps the Minister could clarify the point of Government amendment No. 33 and the differences between it and amendment No. 7. The Government amendment applies only to people who have neither a right of abode nor indefinite leave under the Immigration Act 1971 to enter or to remain in the United Kingdom. As a result, someone who might well have been in the country for some years and have been given exceptional leave to remain by the Government—exceptional leave which could be renewed in due course and which would often become indefinite leave—will not be covered by the Bill.
They may still be treated as a dependant even though they have been in the country for a number of years and have leave to remain. Amendment No. 33 is narrower than amendment No. 7, which seeks to limit the effects of the clause to deal with asylum seekers only.
Ideally, we should like the clauses relating to housing removed altogether, but at the very least it is important that people who have rights of residence—people who have had rights to housing—should not lose them simply because they become the dependant of an asylum seeker.

§ Mr. Charles Wardle
I should like to deal first with amendment No. 33 because that is the one on which the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) sought clarification. That amendment defines "dependant" of an asylum seeker for the purpose of the housing provisions of the Bill in the same way as amendment No. 32 defined "dependant" for the purposes of fingerprinting powers— 697 that is as a spouse or child under 18 who does not have the right of abode or indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom.
Amendment No. 7, which relates only to the housing provisions of the Bill, like amendment No. 33, would exclude from the definition of dependant anyone who had a limited leave, as well as those who have indefinite leave. In response to the question posed by the hon. Gentleman, the exclusion relating to those with limited leave would avoid the situation that could arise if, for example, a woman obtained leave to enter as a visitor and her husband then arrived to claim asylum. It is right that a person in that position should be treated as a dependant.
For those reasons I urge the House to support amendment No. 33 but to reject amendment No. 7.