Clause 37 - Accommodation
Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill
5:45 pm
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 127, in clause 37, page 21, line 23, at end insert—
‘()In section 99(4) (Provision of support by local authorities) after “section”, insert “4”.’.
In the spirit of the progress that we have made, I will introduce the amendment briefly. It is an important amendment relating to the so-called hard case support. Clause 37 is, in itself, reasonably welcome in that it allows local authorities to provide hard case support under section 4 to the Home Office through NASS in a way that they have previously not been able to do. The amendment would permit local authorities to incur expenditure in preparing proposals for entering into arrangements to provide support. I think that that is necessary.
We know that there is a problem with the so-called hard case support, in that it is unfortunate that people should be left in such a situation at all. We know from the Library briefing that the number of people successfully applying for hard case support has increased, mainly, although not entirely, due to large numbers of Iraqis finding that their asylum applications have not been successful but that it has not been possible to remove them. With large numbers in such a situation, how people survive is a problem. Hard case support provides for accommodation only, and it has not been clear—and still is not—how people survive in respect of food.
The understanding was that the accommodation should be full board, but I am led to believe that that is the case in only 10 per cent. of cases. Vouchers have to be used, meaning that we are returning to the voucher situation that we thought we had seen the back of when the Government dropped that policy. A number of issues are raised by the clause and the amendment, but in particular the need to ensure that local authorities can incur expenditure in providing for entering into arrangements to provide support. I hope that the Minister will look kindly on the amendment and I look forward to hearing his response.