Covid-19: Asylum Seeker Services in Glasgow — House of Commons, 2020-06-17
Topic: Immigration
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the asylum support work of Refugee Action and other charities, and I certainly support what he said today My constituent Simon wrote to me in advance of this debate: "Access to a mobile phone and the internet has never been more important. As well as Refugee Week, this is also Loneliness Awareness Week and action is needed to address loneliness and social isolation in the asylum system, including by ensuring that people seeking asylum have the digital resources that they need to stay connected, access support and continue education." Simon goes on to say: "The UK continues to face a global health emergency that has disproportionately affected people from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups, including here in the UK, with many minorities living in deprivation simply left dead by covid-19, not protected adequately by the UK Government. It remains vital that everyone, irrespective of their immigration status, can live in dignity, afford the most basic things and to be safe." My constituent Saffie also wrote to me: "Even before coronavirus I was barely surviving on around £5 per day. We have to travel to the bigger shops that have lower prices, but now with lockdown we can’t travel and the small shops have hiked their prices. Things like soap and hand sanitiser are very expensive and leave only a few pence for food and other essentials. Since lockdown, essential support services…have closed their doors, so you have to have phone credit or data to even contact them for help. This means deciding to eat or to get phone credit. The recent increase of 26p per day to asylum support is heart breaking. I just want to live in dignity, afford the most basic things and to be safe." My first question to the Minister is: as we come to Refugee Day this Saturday, will he please reconsider the asylum support rates, and will he promise not to penalise asylum-seeking families who receive digital packages and laptops so that their kids can keep up at school with blended learning? The coronavirus is a public health crisis, but it is also a humanitarian crisis for people in the asylum process I turn now to a welcome and, in public health terms, essential safeguard to asylum accommodation when lockdown was announced. It was stated that asylum seekers would not have their financial support and accommodation cut off—that they would not be evicted—and that that would last until, at the very least, the end of June. As the Minister will be aware, we in Glasgow have called for an end to asylum homelessness and eviction for years. Most recently, we resisted Serco when it tried and failed to make hundreds of people street homeless through cruel forced lock changes. We showed the way, and we urge all dispersal areas to resist asylum accommodation evictions and homelessness I welcomed the pause in evictions, as did Glasgow city council and many other asylum local authorities, who for years have demanded that the Home Office take responsibility for the care of vulnerable asylum seekers, rather than shunt them heartlessly onto the streets.