We welcome Home Affairs Select Committee’s call to address UK’s faltering asylum system
We had good reason to cheer this weekend with the release of the Home Affairs Select Committee's report on Asylum, which offered searing criticism of the UK's asylum system – one which continues to force many survivors of torture to live with great insecurity, and often in protracted situations of severe poverty.
Drawing on written and oral evidence submitted by Freedom from Torture and the Survivors Speak OUT network (SSO), the report highlighted significant concerns about the level of support available to those seeking asylum in the UK and concluded that low level Section 4 support was "not the solution" for people who have been refused asylum but cannot return to their country of origin.
The committee went on to recommend that asylum support should be continued for people who have been granted asylum until the Department for Work and Pensions confirms that the recipient is receiving mainstream benefits. As Freedom from Torture's recent 'Poverty Barrier' report exposed, many torture survivors recognised as refugees become destitute due to disjointed government systems and difficulties faced by those with mental health problems in accessing mainstream benefits.
Serious concerns were also expressed by the committee about sub-standard housing provided to asylum applicants and unacceptable delays in getting problems resolved.
In the wake of the Home Office's heavily criticised 'Go Home' advertising campaign, which featured dismissive posters encouraging asylum applicants to return from whence they came, the report also warned against a 'culture of disbelief' infecting asylum decision-making – something Freedom from Torture's Chief Executive, Keith Best, wrote about this week for the Independent newspaper in relation to the lengths lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or intersex ('LGBTI') asylum applicants are forced to go to in order to 'prove' that they were not heterosexual.
Reflecting on the report as a whole, Keith Best said:
"This parliamentary report must serve as a wake-up call to the Home Secretary on the need to fix the chronic bureaucratic dysfunction and paltry levels of support that make people unable to meet essential living needs. Through this report the committee has looked beyond the backlogs to expose the human suffering that is the by-product of an asylum system which fails so many vulnerable people whom the UK should be protecting. The Home Office must rise to the challenge and turn this situation around after the Home Secretary's bold action to disband the UKBA to improve the system."
Freedom from Torture also welcomes the Committee's:
- Call for improved credibility assessments of vulnerable asylum applicants including torture survivors
- Concern that torture survivors are allocated to the 'Detained Fast Track' contrary to the government's own policy and acknowledgment that this is partly due to a flawed requirement for them to provide 'independent evidence' of their torture before they have even had access to legal advice including about the need for such evidence
- Criticism of proposals to make refugees pass a 'residency test' before becoming eligible for legal aid and call for a new system of monitoring to ensure that legal aid advice is of high quality
The release of the Home Affairs Select Committee's Asylum report comes just days before we host a ground-breaking web debate between the UN Special Rapporteurs on Torture and Extreme Poverty to mark the UN's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and the release of our 'Poverty Barrier' research.
Join the conversation on Twitter by following #17Oct and #povertybarrier.
