Kirsty Blackman

I absolutely agree, and there was a very similar case in my constituency. There was a woman here with her young child, and it had been agreed that her husband was eligible for reunification with his family here under the ARAP scheme, but he was in hiding in Pakistan. No matter how much we pressed the Home Office, the woman and her young child were left here without their husband and dad. He was unable to come over, because the Home Office refused to take action. Part of the issue is the lack of humanity and consideration for individual circumstances created by the Home Office machine. Blanket policies discriminate against people in protected groups, not taking into account that there are nuances, differences and family circumstances that need to be in place. Going back to the requirement to contribute, that will cause particular issues for those who cannot, or find it difficult to, contribute in the classical sense. The UK Government said there would be special consideration of vulnerable groups, but have not laid out what those will be and what the consideration looks like. Not making clear who those vulnerable groups are and how those considerations will work risks significantly disadvantaging people. It is worth noting that, eight years on from receiving asylum and the right to work, the average income of refugees in Scotland is only £13,000, which is significantly lower than the median income. That is partly because refugees, by their nature, have suffered trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder and are unable to work full time in many cases, through no fault of their own. Due to that level of discrimination, and partly because they may not have long-term settled status, employers may be less keen to take them on. People who are trying to work, or have even been working full time for eight years, are earning significantly less than average. If we try to measure contribution, compared with people who were born here and have had a settled life—white men, for example—it will be difficult for any refugee from a protected characteristic group to meet that bar. Other issues include regular reapplications and a reduction in appeals. There will be a 30-month period to reapply for status. We know that 50% of appeals from women win. A reduction in the number of appeals, allowing only one and no subsequent appeal, will entrench the fact that the Home Office makes wrong decisions. If 50% of appeals win, the Home Office has clearly made wrong decisions in half the cases that go to appeal. The people more likely to appeal, whose cases are negatively looked at, have more complicated pasts and issues with disclosing what they have faced. Regarding trauma and violence against women and girls, the UK Government have suggested that not disclosing trauma early in the process will likely have a negative impact on their case. If people do not disclose their protected characteristics, there will likely be a negative consideration from the Home Office. People born here who have experienced sexual violence can take 20 years to come to terms with the situation and raise it with the authorities. We are expecting refugees, who have been through significant trauma, to disclose that information to a legal aid lawyer they do not know. He could be a man from their community who looks like an authority figure or the person who abused them, or might be part of the religious community that perpetrated the abuse. We will punish them for not being able to disclose the sexual violence they faced, or their sexual orientation to someone they do not know. We also know that when it comes to legal aid, for example, the increase in the number of appeals will significantly gum up the system, and the system is already significantly gummed up. The UK Government inherited a system that was a mess in terms of the length of time that asylum decisions took. Adding in a significant number of extra reassessments at 30-month periods is simply unworkable. We are already waiting years for people to get decisions—even children who are supposed to have special consideration and who are supposed to receive decisions more quickly. We got an email from a constituent this week whose children have still not received a decision. We have had a number of emails from constituents about asylum decisions, but the one that struck me came in yesterday. We had spoken to the Home Office about it and the email said, “Could you please tell us what is happening with this case?” And the Home Office said, “No. If you have not heard anything by December, get back to us.” The person still has not had a decision, despite the fact that children are supposed to be considered more quickly. If the UK Government cannot meet their obligations now, how will they meet their obligations within a 30-month period? What will they do about legal aid to ensure that legal aid lawyers are willing to take on the more complicated cases, the cases of sexual or domestic violence, or where the individual presenting is LGBTQI? At the moment, legal aid lawyers often look at those cases and say, “No, it is too complicated. The legal aid money does not cover it. Why would I bother doing that when I can do an easier case?” There is a significant problem. If the Government are going to make sweeping changes, especially the significant number of reassessments, they need to fix the legal aid system, or people with protected characteristics will be negatively impacted even more than the people without protected characteristics. Going back to the family reunification changes that are being suggested, Home Office figures tell us that 92% of the people who receive grants under family reunification are women and girls—92%. On the massive reduction in the number of family reunification applications that are accepted or in family reunification routes, 92% are women and girls. I do not understand how the Government can suggest there is not a disproportionate impact on people with protected characteristics when just this one specific measure has a massive impact on women and girls specifically. I understand why the Government have not produced an equality impact assessment. They do not want to see what is in such an assessment, but they should produce one. They have a public sector equality duty to do so. The Home Office is still bound by the public sector equality duty. It does not not apply to the Home Office. It applies to the public sector and it has not published one. On the length of time and the possibility of people being required to wait 20 years to receive leave to remain, we know that the lack of stability adds a significant negative impact on people. We know that that lack of stability is multilayered in the impacts that it has. I have already touched on the issues with employment. Employers are less likely to take people on if they do not have permanent leave to remain. Employers do not necessarily understand the immigration system. Good employers can be terrified of falling foul of the Home Office. If they can see that somebody was born in another country and does not have citizenship yet, they decide not to employ them. That means people are stuck in limbo for a significantly longer time because of the Government’ s decision—much longer than in some other countries, by the way. Not enabling people to work at 12 months makes us an outlier in Europe. In some EU countries, people can work from day one. In many countries they can work from two months. That gives an increased level of stability than if requiring people to be out of work for 12 months, and then only able to access jobs on the occupation shortage list or immigration list. Some of those jobs are not as acceptable or not as possible for people who have protected characteristics. A disabled person may not be able to access some of those roles. If we are more flexible in the roles that people can access, we are more likely to have people able to contribute, because they will be more able to do jobs that work for them. That lack of stability also means, potentially, that people will have no recourse to public funds for a significant length of time. No recourse to public funds is horrific and should be cancelled, particularly for those people with dependants. I never again want to see a family come in to my office whose children are malnourished because the UK Government have said that they have no recourse to public funds, or who are being threatened with homelessness because they are unable to claim anything. I had a family come in whose four children had not eaten fruit for days. How is it acceptable that the UK Government can decide that people have no recourse to public funds, and then keep them in limbo for such a long period? Women for Refugee Women looked at the number of destitute women and spoke to them about what destitution meant for them in the asylum system. Of the women in the asylum system who had no recourse to public funds, 38% had stayed in an abusive relationship because of their inability to access public funds and the fear that they would be homeless or destitute as a result of leaving that relationship. A further 38% of those women who stayed in abusive relationships were raped as a result. The UK Government’s policies are forcing women into destitution and unsafe situations and relationships. Among women in that group who were destitute as a result of the UK Government’s policies, 8% were forced into sex work to get enough money to feed themselves or their children, or to clothe their children. How is this a humane situation when it is negatively impacting women more than men and where those protected characteristics are not being protected?