That this House has considered support for refugees after receiving an asylum decision.
The asylum process is anxiety-inducing and arduous, but for many the intense relief of being granted refugee status by the UK Government is only momentary. For new refugees—people who, let us remember, have escaped conflict and persecution—that is often just the beginning of another nightmare. That is caused by the so-called move-on period—the period after which the support they have been receiving from the Home Office will be terminated—which causes unnecessary problems and barriers to integration. I aim to lay out how those could be solved.
I thank Seb Klier at the Refugee Council and Jon Featonby at the British Red Cross for their regular detailed briefings and for nudging me regularly to table questions and seek debates such as this one. I pay tribute to them individually, and to the many individuals and community organisations in my constituency who do so much to welcome refugees and asylum seekers, to solve some of the problems I will explore, and to remove barriers.
Every week, the Red Cross in Bristol works with at least one new destitute refugee. Let us remember that “refugee” means a person who has received their status. I thank the Red Cross for that, but why is that happening? First, the move-on period is 28 days. In that time, a refugee must leave Home Office accommodation, move from asylum support to benefits or a job, obtain a national insurance number in order to do so, open a bank account, receive a biometric residence permit and find somewhere to live. I am in a good job, but I have to say that I would struggle with that. I think most of us would struggle.
To compound all that, refugees are often already traumatised and sometimes—although not always—struggle with English. Some are very isolated, and some are mentally unwell, either as the result of the initial trauma or, often, because of the complex and prolonged asylum process, during which they have not been able to work and have had little access to English classes. Often, they will have been confined by extreme poverty, living off just £37.75 per week. Then, suddenly, in the words of a refugee supported by Bristol Refugee Rights in my constituency,
“it is compulsory today to do everything that was forbidden yesterday”.
Back in 2014, the Red Cross became increasingly concerned about the number of destitute and new refugees requiring emergency care, partly as a result of that problem. It recommended extending the 28-day move-on period; we have been warned about this for many years. In 2017, I and colleagues in the Chamber launched the “Refugees welcome?” report, which was produced by the all-party parliamentary group on refugees following our inquiry the previous year. Among our many findings was a recommendation that the move-on period should be extended to 56 days. Thankfully, the Government took up some of our recommendations—I am grateful to them for that—but, unfortunately, not that one.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on the exceptional work she does in Parliament for refugees and asylum seekers. She is right to highlight the need for an extended move-on period, but does she not agree that the circumstances she describes show that we need a cross-Government approach, involving not just the Home Office but the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government? They must all come together to meet the needs of this vulnerable group.
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She, too, does an enormous amount on refugee policy, as do many colleagues in the Chamber. She is absolutely right that we need a cross-departmental approach. Funnily enough, that was recommended in our report three years ago. Actually, a former Tory MP—I cannot remember his name, but it will come to me—recommended to his Government not only that there should be a cross-departmental approach but that there should be a Minister for refugees to help co-ordinate it.
The Home Office recently took some steps to provide more support for refugees. I welcome that, but their benefit is limited without a longer move-on period. The London School of Economics and the British Red Cross found that extending it to 56 days could save up to £7 million of taxpayers’ money each year. Of course, the consequences of destitution are extra costs to the public purse due to homelessness and impacts on health and employability.
What is the justification for 56 days? First, since refugees mostly are not allowed to work while waiting for an asylum decision, most of them will need, at least initially, to apply for universal credit. There is the first problem: clearly, the inbuilt 35-day minimum wait before the first day of universal credit is incompatible, by seven crucial days, with the current move-on period after someone’s asylum is over and they are granted refugee status. As I said, I have a reasonably good job and I may be able to manage for seven days, but it would be a struggle. People are suddenly put in that position, with no money, perhaps no relatives to turn to—whereas I would have that—and probably no one else to call on. Those seven crucial days can be seven days without food.
In some instances, the delay in receiving benefits may be much longer. Mariam from Women for Refugee Women gave me permission to quote her. She said:
I am grateful for the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, and look forward to doing so again in future. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) on securing this important debate, which gives us an opportunity to speak up for those refugees who have received an asylum decision, because they are experiencing difficulties.
We are not providing enough support to asylum seekers after they receive their decision, and the results can be disastrous. In particular, I will talk about the incompatibility of universal credit and the asylum support system. We know that, in its current form, universal credit is deeply flawed, especially in its ability to cope with applications from more vulnerable individuals. Whenever I have met refugees, whether in communities or detention centres in the UK, or overseas in my former role as shadow Secretary of State for International Development, I have always been struck by their sheer resilience. That should not blind us to the fact that they are among the most vulnerable people in the world. They have not only been uprooted from their lives and families but have often experienced extreme trauma.
My constituent Zeynep fled torture to claim asylum in the UK. After a long-drawn-out process, she was finally granted asylum in October last year. With the help of a charity, she applied for universal credit, but when her asylum support was withdrawn 28 days later, her claim was still pending. She was left with no support and quickly forced to rely on food banks and handouts to survive. The acceptance of her asylum application should have been a moment of celebration; instead, it became the moment she was pushed into absolute poverty.
Zeynep’s is not a case in which individual errors were made, leading to delay. The asylum support and universal credit systems worked exactly as they were supposed to. Universal credit claimants must wait a minimum of five weeks before receiving their first payment, which means there is a deliberate gap between the end of asylum support and that payment. In the best-case scenario, that means enduring weeks without money for basic necessities such as food, rent or heating. That is the best-case scenario. The reality of universal credit is: never expect the best-case scenario.
It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate with you in the Chair, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) on securing the debate, and on the characteristically powerful way in which she opened it and made the point so effectively. She is right, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), that gaining refugee status should be a moment for celebration, but that for too many it is a ticking clock towards homelessness and destitution.
Sheffield was the UK’s first city of sanctuary. We made a very positive statement that we wanted to welcome those fleeing persecution and war, and to give them a good reception in our city. I am proud that that movement has spread all over the country. We have some of the most organised and best co-ordinated support charities and organisations helping refugees and asylum seekers, but even in our position the 28-day move-on period is not sufficient to prevent homelessness and destitution.
In preparation for today’s debate, I spoke to two local charities about the issues that refugees in Sheffield face at the end of the move-on period: City of Sanctuary, which provides general support, and Nomad, a charity that particularly helps those who face homelessness and that tells me it has seen a steady increase in the number of refugees who are forced to become rough sleepers.
As my colleagues have indicated, there is much that could be done. City of Sanctuary has called for the Government’s urgent guide for refugees to be provided in a range of languages, because many of those granted refugee status are likely to face language barriers in accessing services. It is not on that the guide is currently available only in English.
Refugees also face barriers when opening bank accounts, which they need immediately for payment of wages or to gain access to social security. Banks do not provide interpreters, and many newly granted refugees do not have a support network of trusted English speakers who can help. City of Sanctuary also found that online forms and mobile banking apps do not recognise occupancy status, which is often the situation for those who have been living in asylum accommodation. I ask the Minister, will he commit to working with the banks to resolve those issues?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir David.
I will start by commenting on what has been said so eloquently by my hon. Friends about the idea that universal credit happens within five weeks, or that 28 days would be enough to get accommodation, if it were needed. If someone were to present themselves as homeless to Birmingham City Council, or just as needing housing, not necessarily as a priority need, it would probably take 18 months before they were given anywhere they could actually live. When my brother applied for universal credit, he decided to grow his beard for the time it took before he got a payment; he looked like Rasputin before he got any funding. That puts it into some perspective.
I want to talk specifically about the effect on refugee women, which I am sure will surprise absolutely no one, and to bring to the Minister’s attention the findings of the “Will I ever be safe?” report by Women for Refugee Women. I think it is vital that this element is included in this debate. The women featured in the report are here in the Gallery listening to our debate. The report details the cases of 106 asylum-seeking and refugee women. They left their countries for a variety of reasons, but around half the women said that they had experienced violence at the hands of the state authorities, 42% had been tortured and almost one third had been raped by soldiers, prisoners, guards or the police in their own country. More than one third of the women had been raped in the private sphere, with others fleeing forced marriage, forced prostitution and other forms of gender-based violence. More than one third of the destitute women were forced into unwanted relationships because of their destitution in this period that we are talking about.
When faced with an impossible situation, very often in those cases the women end up back in dangerous and violent relationships, or exploited as part of a pattern of street homelessness. Certainly, something that I have seen time and again while working with victims of human trafficking is how the constant merry-go-round of destitution for that group of women leaves them severely vulnerable to the people who come along and exploit them for sex. One quarter of the women who were spoken to in the report—bear in mind that suffering sexual violence was part of the reason they fled—were raped or sexually abused when sleeping outside or in other people’s homes.
It is a great honour to serve under your guidance, Sir David. I pay tribute to all those who have spoken so far in the debate, and in particular to the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), who has led the debate so very well, and not only today.
It is important that we focus on that move-on period for migrants, because it is more than just an administrative wrinkle; it is a deep injustice. I am sure the Minister is now fully aware of that. It has a colossal impact on the lives of incredibly vulnerable people, such as those we have already heard about this afternoon. As asylum seekers arrive in Britain, often after long and harrowing journeys just to get here in the first place, they face a battle to gain refugee status, overcoming language barriers and confusing paperwork, and persevering through any delays and mishaps along the way.
Throughout all that, of course, they are denied the opportunity to work. That is not the principal purpose of this debate, but I would love the Minister to take seriously the point that it is not just morally wrong to deny those seeking asylum the right to work, but really foolish. To give people the right to work while they are seeking asylum is to give them the ability to integrate into the community, to improve their language skills, to provide for themselves and their families, and to be in a far better place to contribute fully once their claim is accepted.
At the moment, as the Minister knows, a tiny minority of those with very specialist skills—they pretty much have to be a brain surgeon—have the right to exercise their skills in this country. Why should not people who are seeking asylum have the right to earn, to work and to support themselves?
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is no evidence that those countries that offer the right to work to asylum seekers suffer from some perceived pull factor? People flee their home country because of danger and persecution; they do not flee their home country because they think they will get a better job when they are coming into a hostile asylum system. There is no evidence at all that those countries that allow a right to work receive flows of asylum seekers on a scale that other countries do not.
Absolutely spot on; I am grateful for that intervention, and I hope that the Minister will take the time just to check with his civil servants that that is absolutely true. There is no pull factor associated with those countries. The majority of civilised countries do exactly what we are asking for and allow people to work while they are seeking asylum. The issue we are talking about is the push factor, not the pull factor. Why do people leave in the first place?
Focusing on the purpose of this debate, we see that a successful verdict is given to many of those who seek asylum. As has already been said, they may have received formal refugee status, but the relief and celebration are cut short as they realise that their newly achieved status is actually a kind of 28-day ultimatum: 28 days until their asylum support is stopped, just 28 days of accommodation and 28 days of a weekly allowance. In a vast number of cases, this is 28 days’ countdown to destitution. Many of those whom we see sleeping on the streets of this city are people for whom that 28-day period has expired.
Imagine, Sir David, being given 28 days to find accommodation in a foreign country to which you have fled to escape war or persecution, not forgetting that you have not been allowed to work until this point, so therefore you also need to find a job during that time—either that, or apply for universal credit. Universal credit’s rules have made it almost inevitable that refugees will be left without support; an automatic 35-day wait to receive their first payment is completely incompatible with the 28 days that refugees have to access it. Then, of course, there will be the complexities of the paperwork and documentation required to gain access to universal credit in the first place.
The safeguards in the universal credit system to ensure that claimants are not left without support are often not accessed by refugees. Either they are unaware that they are eligible, or they do not even have a bank account to receive the support. Under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, local authorities are given a 56-day period to work with households at risk of homelessness. For refugees to receive support for only a pitiful 28 days is utterly ludicrous; it is almost designed to take desperate people, who ran to us for sanctuary and safety, and plunge them into bewildered misery as they are forced on charity or, increasingly, on to the streets.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) on securing this important debate. I am delighted to be able to contribute and stand up for the women, children and families whom I have supported recently. Up to December, I was running a refugee support project called Love to Learn in the borough of Wandsworth. I pay tribute to everyone working in the team and also to other local organisations: CARAS, the South London Refugee Association and Wandsworth Welcomes Refugees. I want to talk about community services and widen the debate to consider other ways in which we can support those who have been granted refugee status, but need more support to be able to live here.
First, let us consider housing support for young people leaving care. Asylum seekers might have come here unaccompanied. When they leave care, they often fall into what has been described to me, by someone who came recently from Eritrea, as a dark hole. As was mentioned earlier, a cash grant is needed for the essentials in the accommodation that they might be provided with, from the most basic things such as sheets and a duvet to a cooker. I have had to drive to pick up and take basic goods over to help young people. Not having a bank account is one reason why they could not buy goods. Getting a bank account is really hard. There is also the issue of internet access. I have sat in local cafés with young people because I have a smartphone and am able to access the services that they need. After leaving care, no support at all is given.
The second area of concern is mental health support. According to the Refugee Council, 61% of asylum seekers experience serious mental distress, which does not change when they receive their status. Refugees are five times more likely to have mental health needs than those in the UK population. That is just an acknowledgement of the situation that many people have faced, and the reason why they have had to come here to ask for refuge. Mental health support especially fails young people who leave care and need support. I have heard that the threshold for needing support is not one suicide attempt, but more than one, which is absolutely shocking. People need to know how to access services and support.
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The same year, the Refugee Council published its report “Refugees without refuge”. None of the 54 respondents to its survey had secured accommodation within the 28-day move-on period. In 2018, the British Red Cross published its report “Still an ordeal”. The 26 refugees it surveyed had been left without food and shelter after receiving their status. There is not just an unacceptable high risk of extreme poverty; the move-on period creates inevitable destitution.
Just last month, Women for Refugee Women found that women left destitute are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. That is a further consequence of the move-on period. A third of the women interviewed were forced to stay in unwanted and abusive relationships. I thank Women for Refugee Women for its extraordinary hard work, but I am saddened by its findings.
Refugees, refugee organisations, local authorities, health organisations and us MPs—including Government Members—all know that the move-on period is failing to support refugees. My primary request is for the Minister to ask his colleagues to extend it from 28 to 56 days.
“The asylum support stopped in January, but my benefits didn’t start for nine months. I had no money, I was lucky to have a solicitor who gave me some cash. I also relied on charities for food. Being destitute after getting asylum isn’t something I had expected.”
I know that my colleagues in the Chamber have come across that too. A cash grant—just once, upon receipt of status—would help so much. That is something else I would like the Minister to consider. Charities such as Aid Box Convoy in my constituency do wonderful work finding things such as cookers, clothes, bedding and nappies—we probably all have charities like that in our constituencies—but one small cash grant could make such a difference.
A 56-day move-on period would also align with the time local authorities are given to work with house- holds at risk of homelessness under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. That is another example of the cross-departmental work that my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) called for. The Government could also encourage the establishment of a private rented sector scheme for refugees, to recognise not just the general problems that most people might face when suddenly plunged into the private rented sector, but the specific barriers faced by refugees.
Those changes might give new refugees the ability to move on rather than, as one refugee in Bristol described it to me, running from “pillar to post”. The complications of the system are compounded by a lack of Government funding and organisational capacity. Support agencies are often open only part time, and advice agencies are often full. During such a critical time, losing a week waiting to speak to the right person could make all the difference between someone being destitute and not.
That is the situation if there are minimal complications. If there is an error in someone’s biometric residence permit, which is their formal identification—even if there is an incorrect spelling, which happens—their 28 days are not automatically restarted. That is another really simple and, I would argue, cost-free change that the Minister could agree to: if a mistake is made by a Government agency, the refugee should not have to pay the price, and the 28 days should be automatically restarted.
As an example, K is a new refugee in Bristol. She fled both sectarian violence and domestic violence with her 15-year-old child. She was granted status—she is here legally—on 6 September 2019, but she contacted the Red Cross in Bristol shortly afterwards as there was a spelling mistake on her biometric residence permit. She failed to receive her updated permit by 7 October and she was at risk of homelessness. At that point, she met the homelessness prevention team at Bristol City Council, but without identification she was unable to open a bank account. The earliest she could receive an advance universal credit payment, intended to cope with such gaps, was 30 October, 54 days after receiving her refugee status. Hon. Members can see where I am going with this: 56 days would have meant she was not in destitution or at risk of destitution. Between 16 and 30 October, K and her child were destitute and, although they received support from the Red Cross, it could have been so easily avoided.
We must also change the administrative barriers that delay new refugees from moving on. Recently, another constituent and his family were granted further leave to remain. Their 28 days began and they tried to apply for local authority housing. Unfortunately, they were not sent an eviction notice from their asylum accommodation, which must be done in the form of a letter, and without that letter they could not apply for housing. My caseworkers Michelle and Sheila, whom I thank from the bottom of my heart—what they do is extraordinary, and I am sure all hon. Members present speak highly of the work that caseworkers do in our name—did all they could to speed up the process, but even so the family received the letter with just eight days to go. Their ability to live had rested on those bureaucratic nightmares. That does not do us proud. As a country we should be proud, and we have a right to be proud, of our tradition in welcoming refugees. I know Government Ministers agree. We have that right to be proud, so why let those bureaucratic nightmares creep in when they are fixable?
By comparison, resettlement schemes are a measure that the Government and everyone else should be proud of. The vulnerable persons resettlement scheme offers a fantastic model and is on target to successfully resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees. I recently met Anne James, the commissioning manager on the Syrian resettlement programme at Bristol City Council, who spoke highly of the scheme and her interaction with Government. I was really impressed by the operation and support of the initiative. For resettled refugees under such schemes, the dedicated caseworker, who supports their needs, is a lifeline. We should look to that process as a best-practice approach.
As the APPG pointed out in its report three years ago—and, to be fair, as the sector pointed out years before—the gulf between our asylum process and the resettlement process makes for a two-tier system. There are asylum seekers who are granted refugee status and are here legally, and there are those who come via the resettlement route whose status is already granted, but the route a refugee takes does not make them more or less deserving of support. Rather than making them feel welcome, the asylum process leaves new refugees fighting to overcome what feel like impossible barriers. Those barriers could be removed, and the resettlement scheme shows us how we could do that.
There are other fantastic models open for adoption by the Home Office and the Government more widely. Colleagues could talk at length about the community sponsorship scheme, the city of sanctuary approach and other community and local initiatives that provide wonderful and welcome examples of how we can do this really well. My constituents want to welcome refugees who have a right to be here, and I am sure the Minister’s do, too. I am sure most of us also want to prevent, as far as possible, situations in which desperate people feel that they have to take dangerous journeys because they have no alternative, having been cramped in a refugee camp among millions of people in countries such as Lebanon, Greece or Turkey. They feel absolutely desperate, so it is no wonder that some make dangerous journeys to countries that they feel might welcome them. We should be proud that we are seen as a welcoming country, but we should make every effort to allow more of those safe and legal routes offered by resettlement.
As I draw my remarks to a close, I have a couple more requests of the Minister. The Government could change by regulation, and very quickly, the right for asylum seekers to work. At the moment, it is limited. After six months of applying for refugee status, some can apply for employment in certain categories, which unless I am very much mistaken still includes that of ballet dancer. To my not very certain knowledge, there are not many people setting out from Syria saying, “I want to be a ballet dancer.” These people have got skills and want to work from the moment they get status, but if they face prolonged delays in the asylum process, that weakens their skills.
Ministers have also talked to me about wanting people to be able to return home when conditions are safe. We could talk about refoulement, preventing further traumatisation and the damage of sending people home when it is not safe, but, if it is safe for people to return to their country of origin, we want them to have kept up their skills, not lost them through prolonged periods of unemployment. Alternatively, the Home Office could meet its own service standard of six months, and do so properly, efficiently, fairly and transparently. That would help. The Government could also establish the scheme I mentioned on private renting. They could provide cash grants and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston, there could be co-ordination between Departments.
The moment someone receives their refugee status should be one of celebration. It should be a time when refugees feel able to move on, if possible, from the horrors they have left and the difficulties they have had to face. Instead, all too often, the contradictions of Government policy and the cuts to various services—I have not even mentioned cuts to English language services—leave refugees facing new problems such as homelessness and destitution, and, as Women for Refugee Women has said, vulnerable to harms such as exploitation and abuse. We are and should always remain proud of being a welcoming country to people fleeing conflict, but we have a choice about how we treat people. We can choose to treat them with dignity or to put them at risk of destitution. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
A Salvation Army study published in 2018 found that only 14.5% of people who applied for universal credit did not have any problems. It found that a key barrier to claiming universal credit was an inability to apply digitally, and a lack of knowledge about how to claim.
People who have recently been granted asylum are particularly likely to experience those difficulties, and therefore have greater difficulty claiming universal credit. For many asylum seekers, having received a positive asylum decision, the first thing they need to do is claim universal credit. They need the essential support of basic funds while they look for work or if they fall ill, as well as for paying rent. If they have had to scrape by on the tiny amount provided through asylum support, they will urgently need more support, but they tell me and many of my colleagues that the system is not fit for purpose.
The current system is failing refugees, just as it fails many other vulnerable groups. The acceptance of an asylum claim is often the end of a long and difficult journey, which we must acknowledge. Being recognised as a refugee, and being given the right to live and work in the UK, should be a moment of celebration, but the risk of poverty and homelessness faced by refugees following such a decision means that, for many, it is a moment of great risk and often hardship. I hope the Minister will agree with me that the current situation is untenable and must change.
We need to listen to those on the frontline, including experts such as the British Red Cross and others, when they tell us that asylum support must be extended to at least 56 days. We need to honour our international obligations not just to allow refugees in, but to ensure that they can survive, and access food and shelter. We are not currently doing that. Will the Minister agree to look again at the support provided to those granted asylum when they claim universal credit, and at removing the barriers they face when making those claims?
When we welcome refugees into this country, pointing them in the direction of a food bank must not be the first thing we do. We are one of the richest countries in the world. We can do better than that, and, for the sake of those who come to our country seeking a better life, we must do better.
Internet access is also a real issue. These days almost everything, including universal credit applications, has to be done online, but mobile internet access costs money. There are some places where free internet services are available, but newly recognised refugees may well not know about them.
There are other issues too, but many of the problems come down to the short move-on period. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West pointed out, asylum seekers have not had the right to work before being granted status, so they have not built up savings because they have not had an income to support themselves. There is cross-party concern about changing the right to work. In the last Parliament, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister, Caroline Spelman, led a debate in this Chamber about seeking to change the rules, so that the right to work was granted. The Minister should advocate for that in debates at the Home Office.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton pointed out, there is a real incompatibility between the length of the move-on period and the five-week wait for universal credit. The Red Cross found that 65% of refugees who were supported to apply for universal credit were left with no financial support; the proportion of those who were not supported would be even higher. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West pointed out, a simple measure, such as a cash grant at the point of being granted status, could make an enormous difference.
City of Sanctuary in Sheffield told me that even for those classed as a priority need, 28 days is not long enough, in many cases, for local authorities to find suitable accommodation. Refugee families have been required to stay in unsafe and unsuitable places. Nomad told me that because of that, some refugees who are placed in emergency accommodation decide that taking their chance on the street as rough sleepers is a better option. For those not classed as a priority need, the only option is private rented accommodation, which is difficult, if not impossible, to access without a universal credit payment and the means to put down a deposit, so we return to the same issues again.
City of Sanctuary found that some refugees have received penalty notices from the NHS, despite being in receipt of universal credit. I hope the Minister will consider taking that up with his colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care. That reflects a general point that the Home Office needs to work more closely with local authorities and with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that newly granted refugees start getting the support they need as soon as possible.
The key point that has come out of today’s debate is the pressing need to extend the move-on period for people granted refugee status from 28 days to 56 days.
When I used to work with asylum-seeking women, who at that time were largely from Sierra Leone, in Birmingham, it was often described as moving “from one hell to another”, and that also seems to be the case with this destitution gap. We see that one third of women raped in their home country are then raped again here in the UK. My hon. Friend highlighted the case of Mariam and how long it had taken her to gain access to benefits. That sounded much more realistic than the timeframes laid out, and much closer to my understanding, as a constituency Member of Parliament, of how long it takes to actually access benefits. She waited nine months to get her benefits.
I want to tell a tiny bit of Mariam’s story, so that she does not just become a person who had to wait a little while for benefits and so that we can feel who she is. I will read it in her words:
“I’m from Fumayu in Somalia and came to the UK in November 2008 after fleeing the war. I’m from a minority clan called Bajuni… I escaped the war in Somalia twice. The first time was in the early 1990s. Militiamen broke into our family home and raped me. They raped my daughter Amina as well. She was just 15. The men shot her dead after, and they killed my son too.”
She fled originally to Kenya and then eventually here to the UK. She applied for asylum the day after she arrived. She says:
“Because I had no money, the Home Office put me in a hostel where I got two meals a day.”
Mariam was rehoused in Middlesbrough. She was scared, and the interpreter brought in for her asylum interview spoke Swahili, not Kibajuni, which is the language she speaks. She was made to speak in a different language and found it difficult to explain herself. The Home Office refused her asylum claim. She was eventually granted her benefits, but, as has already been said, her asylum support stopped in January and her benefits did not start for nine months. The Home Office put Mariam in a dirty hotel. She had no money, and she was lucky that she had a solicitor who gave her some cash and that she was able to rely for some things on local charities.
That cannot be the system that the Minister hopes to see for a woman multiply raped, whose children have been killed in front of her. I ask him to consider all the things requested by my hon. Friend.
I am pretty sure we all agree that human beings deserve to be treated with dignity. We as a society, as a Government, as a country, have already accepted that people in such situations deserve protection under the refugee convention, yet the current system is a far cry from recognising that in practice.
Refugees are forced to sleep rough, work illegally or face appalling exploitation in order to meet their basic needs while jumping through bureaucratic hoops to access money, accommodation, employment, education and so on. Will the Minister commit to providing refugees in the UK with the respect and dignity they deserve from day one of being recognised as a refugee, and to giving them what they need to build their lives in a new place and flourish in and contribute to our society?
In many ways the solution is simple: extend the move-on period to at least 56 days, which would cover the break in support and give refugees the best chance of establishing a stable and productive life here. Extending the move-on period to 56 days would have a financial benefit of between £4 million and £7 million each year for the taxpayer. Local authorities would save £2.1 million through the decreased use of temporary accommodation and up to £3.2 million through reduced rough sleeping. Alongside that, we must remove the administrative barriers that newly recognised refugees face. They need to be able to open bank accounts and receive the right documentation, and they need support to help them navigate the move-on period, apply for universal credit and obtain secure accommodation.
I recognise that there are complexities around which Department the matter falls under, but that is no excuse. While more and more families find themselves destitute and desperate, unable to meet even their basic needs, we need decisive action to end the tragedy of refugee destitution. Will the Treasury and the Government take steps today to end the departmental deadlock and extend the 28-day waiting period to 56 days? That would reduce benefit claims and increase the productivity of refugees in this country. More importantly, it would enable them to live in safety and dignity. It will save them from further pain and trauma on top of all that they have experienced already. With a simple change in policy, we can prevent destitution and save money. It is blindingly, obviously, the right thing to do. Will the Government do it?
Community services provide an important bridge between need and the people who can provide for those needs. For a start, we need to be joined up so that people do not need community support to access services. Also, we should support community projects that enable refugees to claim the things that they are entitled to.
The third area is education support. Many children from a refugee background, including the children of refugees, need additional support to be able to thrive in the education system. Many refugees have faced discrimination, housing issues, language problems, and trauma from the situation that they have faced, which also impedes their children’s ability to thrive. Education, health and care plans are only in English, which could be easily rectified. If they were provided across the country in different languages, such an easy change would make a big difference. There is no translation for children in need. There is a confusing system and refugees do not know how the English system works. They find that they need to fight for their rights, which other parents already understand. Community services such as Love to Learn can provide a bridge, but it would be even better if we did not need it.
The fourth area is English for speakers of other languages, especially ESOL services with a creche, which enables women to attend. Since 2009, Government funding for ESOL courses has been cut by 60%, and the wider adult skills budget, which people go on to—they have their ESOL and need to go on to the next thing—has been cut by 35%. In the Government’s integrated communities action plan, published in February 2019—I have a copy of it here—boosting English language skills is recognised as absolutely key to community integration. The plan states:
“Speaking and understanding English means you are less vulnerable to isolation, improves your work prospects, increases your chance of friendships with people from different backgrounds and allows you to feel more confident when accessing local services.”
So we have an action plan that, from my experience in Wandsworth, is not being funded or delivered. Will the Minister return to the plan and see whether it is being implemented, because it is absolutely fundamental for refugees?
I agree with the Members who spoke earlier about extending the move-on period to 56 days and giving refugees the right to work. I would add that support to community services such as those in my borough of Wandsworth, which already support refugees but could do much more with relatively little funding, is essential. We are fortunate in this country to be able to welcome new neighbours, colleagues and friends to our communities. It says a lot about us as a country that we can do that—we can take pride in it—and provide refuge to people who desperately need it. We must keep doing better, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is important and fundamental to building integrated, happy communities together.