Queen s Speech 2017 Refugee Council Briefing on the Queen s Speech 2017 June 2017 About the Refugee Council The Refugee Council is one of the leading organisations in the UK working with people seeking asylum and refugees. We provide practical and therapeutic support to adults and children in the asylum process, newly recognised refugees and resettled refugees, which informs our policy and advocacy work, aiming to ensure their needs and concerns are addressed by decision-makers. The Queen s Speech An Immigration Bill The Queen s Speech recognised that new legislation in relation to immigration will be necessary as this session of parliament includes the UK s exit from the European Union. It is only just over a year since the last immigration act became law 1 (and much of it is yet to come into force). There is much that the new government could do to improve the welcome and protection given to refugees and asylum seekers. At a time when the UN s Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, has said that more than 67 million people are of concern to them, the UK should be looking to improve and expand the welcome it provides and take this opportunity to show global leadership in influencing other nations to do likewise. The new government should take the opportunity during this parliament to: Expand existing and create new safe and legal routes to refugee protection in the UK, reducing the need for people fleeing war and persecution to turn to smugglers. Make much needed changes to ensure that people who are recognised as refugees do not face homelessness and destitution within weeks of receiving a positive decision on their asylum application. Address those aspects of the asylum and refugee system that leave women at heightened risk of violence or exploitation, even after arriving in the UK. An existing safe and legal route - Refugee Family Reunion Refugee family reunion is one existing safe and legal route. Under the Immigration Rules, people granted refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK can apply to be joined by their family members who are still living in other countries. Refugee family reunion safely brings together families that have been torn apart by war and violence. Family reunion also plays a key part in helping refugees in the UK integrate and settle. For many refugees that we work with, including those who have been resettled through the Syrian Vulnerable 1 The Immigration Act 2016 Registered office Gredley House, 11 Broadway, Stratford, E15 4BQ, United Kingdom VAT reg no: 936 519 988 Page 1 of 6
Persons Resettlement scheme, the safety of family members who are still in the region is a cause of enormous anxiety. The All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees found in its Refugees Welcome? report that successfully being reunited with family members is an important step in helping refugees to integrate. 2 However, only certain family members qualify for refugee family reunion. 3 For adult refugees in the UK, only partners and dependent children under the age of 18 who were part of the family unit before the refugee fled will usually come under the definition of family. As a result, families can be left with the invidious decision of whether to leave some members behind. For example, the rules mean that a Syrian father granted asylum in the UK would be allowed to bring his wife and younger children to join him yet his eldest child, a 19 year old daughter, would not ordinarily be able to also come. Her parents would be faced with the stark choice of either leaving her behind or paying smugglers to bring her to the UK. In either scenario, she is at grave risk. The rules also do not allow for relatives such as elderly parents or adult siblings to come to the UK. For example, a woman who the Refugee Council are working with who came to the UK through the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme with her husband is gravely worried about her sister, who stayed behind in Syria to look after their elderly mother. She had no other family and their mother has since died. The immigration rules do not allow for the sisters to be reunited in safety in the UK, despite the evident risks facing the sister living in Syria at this time. The Home Affairs Select Committee have previously said of family reunion that it has been shown to have benefits in terms of integration and support networks, in addition to the human rights requirements of allowing families to be together, and there is clear scope for further measures to facilitate women and children joining husbands, fathers and other male relatives who have reached the UK. They went on to recommend that the UK broaden the scope of the family reunion rules. 4 The government should expand the criteria for qualifying family members for the purposes of refugee family reunion to include dependent young adults, parents, siblings and any other dependent relative. Unaccompanied child refugees The UK, unlike other EU countries, does not allow children who have travelled alone and then been granted refugee status or humanitarian protection to bring even their very closest family members to join them. Article 10 of the EU Directive on Family Reunion sets out this provision and applies to the vast majority of EU countries. 5 The UK, along with Denmark and Ireland, chose not to exercise its opt-in in relation to the directive and so is not bound by it. However, Ireland has enshrined the right for 2 All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees, Refugees Welcome?: The experience of new refugees in the UK, April 2017. 3 There are further provisions within appendix FM to the Immigration Rules for family reunion of other family members or post flight family members, but the requirements are much more difficult to meet and there is a charge to make an application. 4 Home Affairs Committee, House of Commons, Migration Crisis, Seventh Report of Session 2016-17, HC24 5 Council Directive 2003/86/EC on the right to family reunification http://eurlex.europa.eu/lexuriserv/lexuriserv.do?uri=oj:l:2003:251:0012:0018:en:pdf Registered office Gredley House, 11 Broadway, Stratford, E15 4BQ, United Kingdom VAT reg no: 936 519 988 Page 2 of 6
unaccompanied child refugees to act as sponsors for the purposes of refugee family reunion in their own domestic law. 6 That the UK does not follow the example of other European countries is despite child refugees having been through the asylum system in the same way as an adult. As a result of this rule, child refugees in the UK are condemned to live apart from their family. There is no justification for this. Both the Home Affairs Select Committee and the House of Lords European Union Committee have recommended that children should have family reunion rights. The Home Affairs Select Committee said that it seems to us perverse that children who have been granted refugee status in the UK are not then allowed to bring their close family to join them in the same way as an adult would be able to do. 7 These are children who have been granted refugee status or humanitarian protection and are not waiting for a determination on their asylum claim. They have been recognised as being in need of protection in their own right. They will not have been granted this status on the grounds that they are unaccompanied, but because it is recognised by the UK Government that they cannot return to their own country as it would be unsafe for them to do so. Unaccompanied refugee children should be able to be with their parents and siblings while enjoying the protection afforded them by the UK Government. The Two-Tier System of Refugee Protection The Refugee Council has supported thousands of refugees who have arrived through various government resettlement schemes, including the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme for Syrian refugees. Refugees who arrive through one of the resettlement programmes are provided with accommodation and support to access services and gain employment. The Refugee Council see the life changing impact the support provided through the resettlement programmes can have on refugees. However, for other refugees with whom the Refugee Council works, a lack of support leaves many at risk of destitution and homelessness. People who are granted refugee status having arrived in the UK and then applied for asylum as opposed to resettled refugees who arrive in the UK with refugee status are not provided with dedicated support. The vast majority of refugees who have been through the asylum process will have been living in accommodation provided by the Home Office and will have been reliant on Home Office financial support as people seeking asylum are only allowed to work while awaiting for a decision on their case in extremely limited cases. When they receive a positive decision on their case, they are given just 28 days before that support is ended and they are made to leave their accommodation. This 28 day period is often referred to as the grace or move on period. During the 28 days, refugees are expected to find alternative financial support either by finding a job or applying for welfare payments as well as securing accommodation. Other than support provided by civil society, refugees are expected to navigate this period alone. Delays in receiving key documents including Biometric 6 See section 56 of the International Protection Act 2015. This replicates the right in section 18 of the Refugee Act 1996 7 Home Affairs Committee, House of Commons, The Work of the Immigration Directorates (Q1 2016), Sixth Report of Session 2016-17, HC151 Registered office Gredley House, 11 Broadway, Stratford, E15 4BQ, United Kingdom VAT reg no: 936 519 988 Page 3 of 6
Residence Permits and National Insurance numbers as well as problems opening bank accounts and receiving incorrect advice from JobCentrePlus staff mean that for too many refugees, this 28 days is simply not long enough for them to successfully move on. The result is that the joy that comes with receiving a positive asylum decision is all too quickly followed by homelessness and destitution. The Government s response to date has been that refugees need to apply for welfare benefits far sooner after receiving their positive decision. Not only does this ignore the lack of support that refugees are given at this stage to navigate what is a complex system, it also fails to address the problems caused by the delays in receiving key documents. This response also fails to take into account the impact the national roll-out of Universal Credit will have on newly recognised refugees. Universal Credit has an inbuilt six week delay the first payment under Universal Credit will not be received until at least 35 days after an application has been completed. As the APPG on Refugees conclude in their report Refugees Welcome? the current 28 day move on period is not compatible with the delay in receipt of payments under Universal Credit. The immigration bill should ensure that the support provided to refugees while they are waiting for a decision on their asylum claim remains in place until other forms of financial support and accommodation are in place. Refugees who are recognised after going through the asylum process should receive dedicated support to help them rebuild their lives here, as refugees who arrive through one of the resettlement programmes do. Addressing violence against refugee and asylum seeking women Refugee and asylum seeking women are at risk of violence at all stages of their journey to safety including after arrival in the UK. They face particular risks when on the move and this is principally because of a lack of safe and legal routes to safety often forcing them to turn to smugglers. The risks they face after arrival in the UK are compounded by an asylum support and accommodation system that fails to guarantee women s safety and protection from violence. The UK Government s failure to prevent and respond to the violence experienced by migrant and asylum seeking women undermines its position as a global leader in the fight to end VAWG. Women are at particular risk of violence and exploitation when on the move, as the power dynamics at the root of the inequalities facing women around the globe are magnified in precarious situations of transit and marginalisation. Refugee women who have been separated from the father, partner or male relative who might normally protect them, are at risk of rape by smugglers or of trafficking for sexual exploitation while changes in gender roles brought about by displacement can also lead to high levels of domestic violence. 8 The risks facing women on the move in search of protection are compounded by the lack of legal avenues for international travel open to them, forcing women to travel irregularly in order to find 8 Refugee council (2009) The Vulnerable Women s Project: Refugee and Asylum Seeking Women Affected by Rape or Sexual Violence. Literature Review. Accessible online at: http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/assets/0001/7039/rc_vwp-report-web.pdf Registered office Gredley House, 11 Broadway, Stratford, E15 4BQ, United Kingdom VAT reg no: 936 519 988 Page 4 of 6
protection, often with smugglers. Obstacles to and restrictions on refugee family reunion disproportionately impact on women and children and may in part explain the significant increase in the proportion of women and children making dangerous journeys to Europe. Expanding refugee family reunion through the immigration bill would help minimise the dangerous journeys women are forced to make. Even once women arrive in the UK, the asylum system fails to guarantee women s ongoing safety and protection from violence. This is in part due to a lack of attention to women s safety in the asylum accommodation and support system. Consequently, women who are already likely to have experienced violence or abuse, often do not feel safe in the accommodation they are provided with while awaiting for a decision on their asylum application. Many asylum seekers will first spend time in one or more of the seven initial accommodation centres in the UK. In the main, these are large full board hostels which are often overwhelmingly dominated by men. They have mixed communal and eating areas, unisex bathrooms and limited or no women and children only safe spaces, potentially further exposing women to additional trauma and/or risk. Even after dispersal into longer term accommodation in the community, women report that they still do not feel safe. Due to their previous experiences of violence or for reasons of cultural or social norms, many women in the asylum process are uncomfortable or feel threatened by unknown men entering their homes. Yet they are likely to have a male housing officer and may even find themselves sharing a house with a man they do not know. Allocating female housing officers to women-only households and guaranteeing that under no circumstances are women required to share their homes with unknown men, would be a significant step towards ensuring that women in vulnerable circumstances feel safe. The Home Office s rules and guidance on asylum support needs to pay far greater attention to women s safety. As a matter of urgency, Home Office guidance that addresses the domestic violence experienced by women seeking asylum needs to be revised and widened to ensure that all women in the asylum system affected by domestic violence are able to access refuge accommodation. Current guidance only applies to some women in the asylum system, those already in Home Office contracted accommodation. Without access to mainstream benefits, asylum seeking women are not eligible for refuge accommodation and may be forced to choose between street homelessness and returning to a violent home. The Government must guarantee funding for immediate access to refuge places for women and children seeking asylum who have been affected by domestic abuse until they are found safe and secure accommodation through the asylum support system. For those who are granted refugee status having applied for asylum, failures of the asylum support system can place women again at risk. The APPG on Refugees reported that there is a lack of emergency accommodation for women who find themselves homeless after being granted refugee status. Most women who have been through the asylum system are unlikely to have a wide network of family and friends able to support them, putting them at risk of homelessness. Destitution and homelessness force women to rely on extremely unsafe strategies for survival and puts them at significant risk of sexual violence and exploitation. The APPG on Refugees also found that the way National Insurance numbers are issued can leave women financially dependent on their partners. National Insurance numbers are only automatically Registered office Gredley House, 11 Broadway, Stratford, E15 4BQ, United Kingdom VAT reg no: 936 519 988 Page 5 of 6
issued to the principal applicant on an asylum claim. An asylum application is made by the principal applicant and any dependents which can include a spouse, partner or minor children are included in that claim. Women are far more likely to be dependents on a claim than men. Not having a National Insurance number allocated automatically can lead to delays in women being able to gain employment and access the social security system, leaving them financially dependent on their husband/partner. An immigration bill should include improvements to the asylum system to reduce the risk of violence faced by women seeking protection. For further information, please contact Jon Featonby, Parliamentary Manager, on 0207 346 1038 / 07780 664 598 or jonathan.featonby@refugeecouncil.org.uk Registered office Gredley House, 11 Broadway, Stratford, E15 4BQ, United Kingdom VAT reg no: 936 519 988 Page 6 of 6