UK: Asylum package: Revolt makes headway (feature)
01 January 1996
Campaigners against the government's package of anti-refugee and anti-immigrant measures celebrated some limited victories during the committee stage of the Bill, and in providing some checks to the social security regulations.
As reported in Statewatch, vol 5 no 6, the first part of the package is a new Asylum and Immigration Bill, which aims to deter asylum-seekers and clamp down on those helping them, as well as to criminalise employers. It also allows the removal of social housing and child benefit rights from "classes" of immigrant chosen by the Secretary of State. The second and interlocking part of the package is the new social security regulations which deny all benefits to asylum-seekers who claim asylum and to all whose claim is rejected and who appeal. Benefits are also denied to "sponsored immigrants", even after they become settled in Britain and even if their sponsor suffers redundancy or ill-health making continued support impossible.
Committee's advice
The regulations, announced by social security minister Peter Lilley at the Tory party conference in October, were referred to the Social Security Advisory Committee, which took submissions from 225 organisations and individuals, and in December presented its unanimous recommendation to the minister that the regulations should not be implemented.
Undeterred, Lilley laid the regulations before Parliament on 11 January, with only minor amendments which deleted retrospective effects. By then, a legal challenge from two London councils had been given the go-ahead by a High Court. Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham councils were concerned not so much with the plight of destitute and starving refugees but with their duties to house homeless people and to provide assistance (including cash) to children "in need" and their families. The councils' argument was that they should not be left to pick up the bill and that the regulations should await the abolition of all housing duties to asylum-seekers which is to be enacted shortly in the Bill.
Soup kitchen
On the day the regulations had been due to come into effect, 8 January, West Midlands Anti-Deportation Campaign organised a "soup kitchen" protest outside the DSS office in Handsworth, Birmingham to draw attention to the inevitable poverty and destitution that will be caused by the removal of benefits.
Finally, the efforts of the campaigners forced a Parliamentary vote on 23 January, which was won by the government by only 15 votes. On the day they came into force, 5 February, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants mounted another legal challenge, this time on the basis that the regulations infringed the UK's obligations under the Geneva Convention on Refugees, by dissuading asylum-seekers from exercising their appeal rights and starving them out of the country. Judge Henry Brooke, brother of Westminster Tory Peter who voted against the regulations, granted leave for the challenge to proceed. Both challenges, from the opposite ends of the political spectrum, were to be heard together later in February.
Labour isn't working
The Bill, meanwhile, has been going through its committee stage. Contrary to the hopes and expectations of campaigners, the parliamentary opposition in committee has been less than committed in its opposition, apparently fearing the label of "bogus refugee-lover" too much to be effective. Notable straws in the wind for those seeking indications of Labour's attitude in office have included:
* refusal to table amendments to provisions giving police draconian new search and seizure powers
* refusal to table meaningful amendments to provisions criminalising employers of "illegal" workers
* refusal to support an amendment relating to gay cohabitees.
Thus the Bill is expected to emerge from committee in late February with its main provisions intact, including employer sanctions. This despite Home Office research showing that with<