Clause 15 - Support for destitute asylum-seeker
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
9:00 am
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) would limit the period to three months, and that tabled by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) would limit it to six. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey rightly quoted the remarks made by the Home Secretary on the Floor of the House on Second Reading. I confirm that we do not want people to stay in accommodation centres indefinitely, and that six months is an appropriate time. After six months, we would seek to make other arrangements. However, it is not sensible for the Bill to include such a statutory limit, which would give us no flexibility in dealing with individual cases.
On an exact day and regardless of individual circumstances, we might have to move individuals or families out of an accommodation centre where they are settled, close to the end of the determination process, and about to be accepted as refugees, integrated and moved out. Alternatively, arrangements may be under way to return a failed asylum seeker who is still living in the accommodation centre, but we may have to wait a few days over the six-month limit to obtain tickets and the appropriate Government say-so to return that national to their country of origin. That often happens, and the practicalities of getting papers, tickets and flights to return people are also involved.
If the amendments were accepted, we would have to uproot someone and move them somewhere else for only a few days, which is absurd. We need that flexibility around the edges, but that does not mean that we intend to keep people in accommodation centres month after month while making no attempt to move them on or move them out if there are issues with their cases.