Clause 43 - International projects
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
12:30 pm
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I hope that my answers will satisfy members of the Committee about this part of the Bill.
The resettlement programme poses two separate issues: the return of migrants to their country of origin, and resettlement, which is a formal gateway into the country of people recognised as refugees by the UNHCR. For them, the resettlement programme
will develop as a result of the powers in the Bill: it will be a toe in the water. The purpose of the resettlement programme is to deal with a problem that many hon. Members often refer to—that people cannot enter the country legally in order to claim asylum. We are creating legal routes into the country.
Another important objective is to save refugees from the people smugglers and traffickers who profit mightily and obscenely from their trade in human misery. We are planning to develop the resettlement programme in association with the UNHCR. The resettlement programme will allow us to take into this country from abroad people who have already been classified as refugees. Initially, we are thinking in terms of about 500 people—believe it or not, making it one of the largest resettlement programmes in the European Union. The USA takes 78,000 a year, so ours will certainly not be the largest in the world, but it will be an important first step towards creating a legal gateway into the country for people classified as genuine refugees—and it will keep them out the hands of the people traffickers.
Some of the issues point the other way, to voluntary return to countries of origin. Clause 42 deals more explicitly with that, in so far as it allows us to spend money to facilitate voluntary return projects more practically than in the past. I hope that it will lead to sustainable, coherent return for failed asylum seekers or those who want to go back to their countries of origin—Afghanistan is an obvious example—when things are getting better, to rebuild their country. We hope that Sri Lanka will prove to be another positive example.
I shall now deal with the issues raised by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan). There is no question of a two-tier process—a refugee is a refugee—but we are anxious to develop safer ways of acknowledging refugee status and legal gateways in order to crack down on the activities of people smugglers. That is what the resettlement programme is intended to halt. Creating such a gateway under the powers in the clause is an humanitarian tool.
Currently, such work is funded under the powers of the Appropriation Act, which provides a legal basis. However, it would be more flexible if we had our own powers to fund rather than having to rely on that Act, which limits project expenditure to short-term and one-off projects that do not run for longer than two years or whose individual costs do not exceed £900,000. Under the comprehensive spending review process 2002, we shall attempt to create some funding—I cannot tell the hon. Lady exactly how much—in order to develop sustainable return programmes for failed asylum seekers or those who wish to return.
I was asked whether financial support includes secondment of staff. Yes, it does. We provide a financial benefit to the relevant international organisation. We know from our work with international policing and immigration organisations and international non-governmental organisations that great mutual benefit can be gained from
secondments and support. The hon. Lady will know that we also work closely with the International Organisation for Migration in respect of voluntary returns, among other issues. We already have some experience, but we wish to expand it. The clauses are part of an holistic approach to immigration whereby we consider the difficulties in source countries and how the Home Office can help. There is also a role for Governments throughout the European Union and the developed world who experience problems of economic migration to work together to see what they can do to help source countries to stabilise. It is in everyone's interests to do so. The clauses give us the necessary powers to continue to develop work in this area more unambiguously.