My Lords, Amendment 66 is also in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Jones of
Moulsecoomb, whom I thank. I speak at the risk of being called a Stakhanovite by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti.
The aim of the amendment is to extend from 28 to 56 days what is called the moving-on period, which sets a deadline by which those recognised as refugees are required to move on from asylum support to mainstream social security support and housing. As I said the other day, it feels like Groundhog Day, because I think it was six years ago that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and I first raised the difficulties created by the moving-on period during the passage of what became the Immigration Act 2016. I have lost count of how many times I have raised it since but have certainly had at least one meeting with the Minister about it. I pay tribute to the British Red Cross for continuing to press the issue with us.
The case for the change rests on the fact that it is extremely difficult for newly recognised refugees to make the transition to mainstream support in 28 days. Not only do they have to sort out all sorts of complex administrative issues that would try any of us at the best of times, and not only does research by the BRC and others show that it is virtually impossible to achieve within 28 days, but there is also a basic incompatibility between a moving-on period of 28 days and the 56 days that local authorities usually have to support those at risk of homelessness and the 35 days it takes from application to receipt of a first universal credit payment. In case the Minister has been briefed to respond to this issue, I point out that an advance payment that has to be repaid out of basic benefit is not an inviting prospect for someone already on the breadline.
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The upshot is that the end of the moving-on period creates a cliff edge and if someone falls off the cliff because they cannot make the transition in time, they can find themselves destitute and/or homeless. What should have been a time of joy for those who receive refugee status can turn into a time of misery and purgatory. It can also impede their integration, as we have already talked about. According to a cost-benefit analysis conducted for BRC by CASE at the London School of Economics, this contributes to an overall financial cost of the policy—a cost partly borne by local authorities, the NHS and other public bodies, but a cost nevertheless. To the Government’s credit, they effectively suspended the policy during the height of the pandemic with, it would seem, positive results. What evaluation has the Home Office made of the impact of that suspension and what lessons if any has it taken from it?
In Committee in the Commons, the Minister there referred to the administrative steps the Government have taken to speed up the transition to mainstream support and appeared to suggest that they had effectively minimised the problems. Among those steps, he seemed to be referring to an evaluation of the Post Grant Appointment Service established jointly by the Home Office and DWP. But this found that fewer than three in five refugees were successfully contacted by the service, which is now four to five years’ old. The service has been replaced by Migrant Help which, to
my knowledge, has not been evaluated and, according to the BRC, does not really work. For all the welcome administrative improvements, there is still a problem, largely stemming from the basic incompatibility between the moving-on period and the rules governing UC and homelessness support, which I mentioned earlier. If the problem had been sorted, the British Red Cross would not need to be coming back to us yet again to try to solve it.
To the extent that he acknowledged that there is still a problem, the Minister in the Commons suggested that refugees could apply for an integration loan. But this requires a bank account, which will probably take more than 28 days to set up, and such a loan is unlikely to be sufficient to secure accommodation in any case. His final argument was a variant on the bed-blocking argument: if refugees spent longer in asylum accommodation, there would be less space for those entering the asylum system. This argument ignores the extent to which other statutory services are having to pick up the tab. Rather than blame the victim, I think we all agree that the Home Office should do more to speed up asylum decision-making, as argued strongly in the recent JCHR report on the Bill. Indeed, the UNHCR and others have offered to advise the Government on how to do that.
I am not totally clear what impact the current Bill will have on the numbers who have to negotiate the moving-on period. Have the Government made an estimate of likely overall numbers and of the proportion of those who are condemned to group 2 refugee status if the Bill is passed in its current form? As regards the current situation, has the Home Office made an assessment the proportion of newly recognised refugees who receive a UC payment and accommodation within the 28-day period allowed, leaving aside the period when the policy was effectively suspended?
This is a very modest amendment and I find it depressing that the Home Office continues to resist it, but hope springs eternal, so I beg to move.