Refugee Resettlement (Hansard, 20 January 2003)

§ 3. Laura Moffatt (Crawley):
If he will make a statement on his plans to develop a refugee resettlement programme with the UNHCR. [91424]

§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Blunkett)
From the spring, we will begin a new programme, organised with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which will screen applicants for asylum in regions of the world where people are experiencing the threat of death or torture. We will initially take 500 refugees, rising to a larger number as we develop the programme—thereby preventing people having to present through the use of smugglers, traffickers and organised criminals.

§ Laura Moffatt
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the present system allows those with some money in refugee camps to take advantage of smugglers and ignores the fact that people with no money are left in desperate situations? Does he further agree that it is wrong to cause disturbances in our communities and constituencies by linking terrorism with such 5 programmes, attacking the Government and jumping on the bandwagon—which creates an enormous problem in all our communities?

§ Mr. Blunkett
I well understand the genuine worries and concerns that exist in many communities with regard to the terrorist threat, together with the concerns raised in the media about whether our screening process for persons entering his country— whether or not they are asylum seekers—is adequate. Screening people outside this country through the new UN programme and the moving of border controls from the Kent coast to France—and to Belgium and Holland in future—will secure our borders, protect our population and, I hope, assist in meeting genuine concerns while damping down the danger of the asylum issue being whipped up—which can do no good to race relations in this country.

§ Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey)
Does the Home Secretary agree that as we honour our international obligations to accept and deal with asylum seekers, paradoxically it is easier to deal with any who might be concerned with terrorism because of our right to refuse people with that background entry into this country—and to send them out of the country if they are a threat to national security under the Geneva convention and the treaties? To make sure that we continue to generate more light than heat, as I know the Home Secretary wants to do, will he look again at the proposal that I and others have made for a European refugee agency, to take decisions independently of government but most importantly, to make sure that responsibility is shared across the European Union in a proportionately fair manner for the refugees that come to us?

§ Mr. Blunkett
I am concerned to have a system that works, and the establishment of a European agency may not be the right way of achieving one. However, I am totally committed to European co-operation, burden sharing and a system that makes like-for-like comparisons. I am particularly keen to develop, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, a system outside this country—such as the new UN programme and border and security controls on the French, Belgian and Dutch coasts—that prevents traffickers getting people into this country and precludes persons from claiming asylum once they have reached our shores. However, it behoves us all to remember the difficulty that both Houses encountered in getting through new measures that allow us to turn around and remove from the country persons with a clearly unfounded claim. I hope that anyone who raised objections in whatever form to sending people back to their country of origin will not in this House or in what they write and speak about publicly commit the sin of having said one thing when we were legislating and quite another on the back of media campaigns.

§ Mr. Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
On refugees, will my right hon. Friend undertake a root and branch investigation into how the Coniston hotel in my constituency was selected by the National Asylum 6 Support Service as a reception centre, not least given that it was only acquired today but is due to open next Monday?

§ Mr. Blunkett
My hon. Friend the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration has made it clear today that the procedure and process by which this matter was handled was unsatisfactory and that she has undertaken immediately to put in place a review. She is examining the contractual arrangements and why the letter sent by the local authority chief executive on 3 October last was not replied to. All those matters display an incompetence about which our Administration are doing something, as I have explained in the House before, but, with the new director general of the immigration and nationality directorate, we require a step change in the way that that directorate relates to local communities, responds to local Members of Parliament and displays its competence in dealing with these sensitive issues.

§ Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet)
As the Government are to admit refugees under the new United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees gateway system—I have absolutely no objection to that—will the Home Secretary ensure that no refugee should come from any of the 44 countries of the Council of Europe? I say that for the simple reason that those countries subscribe to the European Court of Human Rights and, if they transgress any human right, the Government ought to take that up, through the ECHR, with the country concerned.

§ Mr. Blunkett
We took the power in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 to ensure that we could list the countries that we believe to be safe. Initially, for those seeking access to the European Union from next year, I am prepared to widen that list, and I hope that I will have the support of whole House in doing so. I am deeply mindful of those who have signed up to the European convention on human rights being committed to human rights and being prepared to display their own commitment to them. I want to make it clear, however, that no EU country has derogated or withdrawn from article 3, because none could, nor has any country denounced the ECHR by leaving it altogether, and those newspapers and those reporters and commentators who have suggested otherwise are simply wrong.

§ Mr. Jim Marshall (Leicester, South)
The whole House hears what the Home Secretary has to say about refugees and asylum seekers—many of us would share those sentiments—but what hope can he give to those asylum seekers in this country who will now find themselves destitute as a consequence of the implementation of section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002?

§ Mr. Blunkett
My suggestion would be that people in those circumstances have completely failed in their claim, or failed to claim when they first entered the country. In both cases, they have a choice of leaving the country and going back home. If they had been refugees with an immediate and overriding asylum claim, if they had not got an income or other support or if they had 7 not entered the country on an alternative visa or visitor pass, of course they would be dealt with entirely differently, but those who have sustained themselves in another fashion and treated the asylum process as a social security benefits system will get short shrift.

§ Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset)
In the light of the Home Secretary's important and rational responses this afternoon, does he now accept what he seemed reluctant to accept a few days ago—that it is legitimate to raise the links between the terrorist threat and the deficiencies in our immigration and asylum system?

§ Mr. Blunkett
It is legitimate for people to raise the issue of the screening of those who come into this country and are resident in this country. Therefore, it is right to ensure that the warning index, which flags up the dangers in relation to particular individuals coming in, is strengthened. The other measures—the co-ordinator who started work last Monday on the range of border control services, the shifting of the border to France for immigration and security, and the introduction of technology both at those new borders and at our ports and airports to enable us to screen those coming in—are also right. What is not right is for people constantly to imply, sometimes behind their hands, that there is a major problem with asylum seekers as opposed to a major problem with those who threaten life and limb. Screening all those who pose a potential danger is therefore the issue with which we are dealing. Anyone who pretends that we can find a simple and easy answer, any more than other countries have done, not only deludes themselves and those around them but unnecessarily whips up scares that can do no good in terms of our security measures and every harm to our community and race relations, which are often fragile and could easily tip over into a situation that we could not control.

§ Mr. Letwin
I think I take that as a modified yes. Does the Home Secretary therefore also accept that it may be time to consider in a calm and rational fashion whether the UK should build on his idea of a UNHCR resettlement programme, which we welcome, and adopt a radically different approach to the handling of the whole refugee question?

§ Mr. Blunkett
The purpose of the whole Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which was fought through with considerable difficulty here and in another place, demonstrated that we wanted an end-to-end change in our approach. That is the reason for the change to the French, Belgian and Dutch borders, the setting up of induction and screening centres, the reporting facility, the new ID cards for asylum seekers, the change to the work permit visa system to allow people to come here to work legitimately and to be welcomed in doing so, and the increased screening to which I have referred for all those coming into the country. Until we have an entitlement or ID card for all those in our country we will not have a robust way of determining true identity or right to work. I hope that the House and my colleagues will be prepared to debate that in the months ahead.

§ Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North)
My right hon. Friend is aware that refugees 8 from Iraq form the largest proportion of asylum seekers in this country. As someone whose constituency has a large Iraqi population, I can tell him that security checks on a number of those applicants take at least a year and are extremely rigorous. Will he assure me that at the same time as cracking down on the minority who abuse the asylum system, he will send a strong message to the community that the vast majority of asylum seekers from Iraq are fleeing terror, not seeking to propagate it?

§ Mr. Blunkett
Yes, I will. I hope that it takes much less than a year to conduct screening, particularly of those who are on the warning index, which should he done immediately. I take the point in terms of thorough vetting, which is a prolonged and time-consuming process, and cannot just be dismissed by easy, glib headlines about what should and should not be done. I appeal to people—including those who write in our newspapers whose family arrived in this country fleeing persecution because of the open door that we had available at the time, and who have their well-being and freedom as a result—to pause before denying that right to others today.