My Lords, I wish to speak briefly in support of the amendment, and I am very pleased that it has been tabled. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, have both talked about destitution. I was a member of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Asylum Support for Children and Young People. That was a slightly wider group than that on which this amendment is focused, but the point is the same. We said that:
“Although the inquiry’s focus was on those in receipt of asylum support, the panel was shocked to hear of instances where children were left destitute and homeless, entirely without institutional support and forced to rely on food parcels or charitable donations. Evidence received by the inquiry cited counts where children made up between 13-20% of the local destitute population”.
I find it shameful that we have anyone in the population who is destitute in a society as rich as ours. It is particularly shaming that people who have come to this country to seek refuge should be destitute, and that children should be destitute.
Perhaps I may reinforce what the noble Earl said by referring to a case study which has been provided by the Refugee Children’s Consortium. It states:
“Case study: Matthew—a young person from Iran. Matthew is a torture survivor who came to the UK from Iran when he was aged 17. He was refused asylum and wanted to appeal but his solicitor did not want to support his appeal so he went to court unrepresented. His appeal was rejected and children’s services stopped his support. He was made homeless for one year. He was seeing a psychologist while being supported by children’s services but once the support was cut off, the counselling stopped as well. While homeless Matthew’s health deteriorated”—
is that surprising?
“He couldn’t sleep at night. His hair was falling out. He experienced a lot of violence when he was sleeping on the streets. Sometimes he was able to work for his friend in exchange for accommodation. He was desperate to stay in the UK because he feared for his life if he were to return to Iran. With help from The Children’s Society he was able to get a new solicitor and put in a fresh claim”.
This really should not happen.
I was also involved in the launch of a report from Freedom From Torture about the poverty experienced by torture survivors. One of the strong messages in that report was how poverty undermines the rehabilitation of torture survivors. This is dreadful. Torture survivors, who are psychologically scarred, then have to go through further ordeals when they get to this country. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to say something rather more positive in response to this amendment than perhaps was the response to the previous amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Nash.