Clause 7 - Failed asylum seekers: withdrawal of support
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
9:10 am
Ms Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Citizenship and Immigration), Home Office; Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
I support the spirit of amendment No. 85. The hon. Member for Winchester wants to ensure that the process is not precipitous and that we allow enough time for families to leave voluntarily, or for opportunities to enforce a removal before certification, as we discussed in the previous sitting. I am clear that the purpose of the amendments is to ensure that families have adequate time to leave voluntarily and I have no dispute with that principle. However, we must remember that, in the entire process that I have outlined, the period of 14 days applies only after the Secretary of State has certified that, after many attempts, the family has failed to leave or to co-operate with arrangements to enable them to leave. That makes the situation different from the other circumstances that were outlined.
I can confirm that in other legislation there is a period of 21 days for single people for whom support is withdrawn once appeal rights have been exhausted. I envisage the total process being considerably longer than 21 days. We have agreed to write to inform people formally of a notification by the tribunal that appeals have been exhausted. We have also agreed to write to give them an appointment for an interview. Clearly, we will have to give them notice of that. We have also agreed that, if people continue to fail to turn up or to co-operate, we will issue a third letter warning them that support may be withdrawn, before we finally reach the certification letter, which says, ''I'm sorry, you haven't co-operated.''
Before the 14 days, there will be a period, which we have yet to work out in detail, to allow for three letters and notice of an appointment. I imagine that we are talking about at least another fortnight in that regard, so the period is already more than 21 days.