Asylum Bill - gone but not forgotten
01 January 1991
Asylum Bill - gone but not forgotten
artdoc April=1992
The Asylum Bill was quietly abandoned in mid-February in the face
of strong cross-party opposition to most of its provisions, which
would have prevented its speedy disposal in time for the general
election. On 10 February, Home Secretary Kenneth Baker conceded
defeat on his plans to end `green form' legal aid for advice and
assistance on immigration and asylum matters, after a campaign
had exposed the injustices of the scheme. Baker had intended to
turn the Home Office-funded United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory
Service (UKIAS) into the sole provider of legal advice in the
field. But UKIAS itself voted against the proposal, and attempts
by the Home Office to force its hand by threats to its funding
had resulted in deep splits in the organisation. This, together
with findings of racial discrimination in the selection of staff,
made its choice a political impossibility, and there was no other
organisation which could carry out the monopoly provision of
immigration advice.
Just three days later came the news that the Asylum Bill was not
to proceed any further after its second reading in the Lords.
Opposition to the Bill centred on its provisions for finger-
printing of asylum-seekers, deportation of visitors and students
whose asylum claims were rejected, dilution of local authorities'
duties to house homeless asylum-seekers, and a right of appeal
hedged about with strict procedural and substantive restrictions.
The Bill is, however, likely to return after the General
Election. Although Roy Hattersley, Shadow Home Secretary has
called the Bill `despicable' in parliament, Labour's Home Affairs
spokesman, Alastair Darling, was quoted at the beginning of March
as saying that if the Home Office `meet the outstanding
objections made by us and the refugee groups, I do not see any
problem in getting the Bill on to the statute book'.
The European dimension
At its December 1991 meeting in Maastricht, the Ad Hoc Group of
Ministers responsible for immigration agreed on further measures
to harmonise the immigration and asylum laws and practices of the
EC member states. The Ad Hoc group, as its name suggests, is not
within EC competence, but works on an intergovernmental level
within the twelve. It has produced the Dublin Convention, signed
in 1990, which restricts asylum-seekers to one application in
Europe and denies them the right to choose the country they apply
to by making the first EC country they arrive in responsible for
determining their claim. Under the Convention, the RIO (`refugees
in orbit') phenomenon has grown, as refugees are shunted between
one European air or sea-port and another, and countries squabble
over their responsibility to take them. The Group has also
produced a draft Convention on the crossing of external borders,
which defines common visa policies and criteria, and proposes a
common list of `undesirables' who are to be refused entry to all
EC states.
The Ad Hoc Group's point of departure on refugees is that many,
if not most, are `bogus' - disguised economic refugees. It
recommends fingerprinting as an acceptable way of identifying
asylum-seekers. It also wants to see a `fast-track' procedure to
deal with `manifestly ill-founded' applications, and has set up
working groups to work out how to identify such claims. To the
Group, harmonisation of refugee laws and reception procedures is
vital to ensure that all EC countries are equally unattractive
to would-be asylum-seekers.
The `harmonisation' of a common policy is likely to lead to the
`lowest common denominator' approach to refugees throughout
Europe. If Germany has `collection camps' where refugees are
detained, so should the rest of Europe. If Germany fingerprints
refugees (it has done since 1990), so should the rest of Europe.
If Denmark and Italy and Germany and Britain fine airlines who
carry refugees without documents, so sh