15 December 2024
On 13 December 2024, the Bishop of Chelmsford the Rt Rev Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani spoke in the House of Lords during the second reading of a Private Members Bill brought by Baroness Lister about support for asylum seekers.
My Lords, like many others it is a pleasure for me to speak in support of this bill and I too pay tribute to the noble Baroness Lister's Private Members Bill and indeed to other campaigners who've continued to call for a longer move on period for those newly granted refugee status.
I sincerely welcome the Government’s decision to introduce a pilot extending the move on period to 56 days. It was one of the recommendations made by the recent Woolf Institute Commission on the Integration of Refugees, on which I was pleased to be a Commissioner. I also state my interest as a Principal of RAMP. Only last autumn we were responding to the reduction of the period to 7 days soon after which refugee homelessness figures reached an unprecedented peak, accounting for 51% of rough sleepers, a near 1000% increase from July of that year.
Even 28 days is simply not enough time to find new accommodation, seek employment, navigate a welfare system especially if supporting a family. Without a longer period, we are setting people up to fail which is no strategy at all for integration.
Stability is key for families, especially for children and young people. 56 days will help ensure minimal disruption as council services will have more time to find suitable accommodation closer to support networks and, especially, allowing children to stay on at their existing schools.
The Bill before us makes sensible provisions regarding documentation. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Government will be looking at simplifying the scheme and improving the processes further? For example, why can an e-visa not be issued at the same time as the documentation relevant to the asylum decision, and can we have assurance that local authorities can start to support refugees with housing support right from day 1?
It’s clear there’s more we can do to support refugee integration and I hope this positive move from Government is the start of a developing strategy. I’d be delighted to meet with the Minister and offer whatever support I can going forward.
Finally, the Home Office often refers to the move on period as a grace period. I hope the Minister will allow me to speak from a faith perspective for a moment (as you might expect from these benches). “Grace” (in the theological sense, and I would argue the true sense) is never for a limited pilot period or for when it’s easy or convenient. I therefore encourage the Government to go further and make this extension to 56 days a permanent fixture – a true period of grace within the asylum system.
+Guli Chelmsford
Long Title of Baroness Lister's Bill
A Private Members Bill brought by Baroness Lister to introduce a minimum period of 56 days after an asylum claim is determined before an asylum claim is considered to be determined for the purposes of ending asylum support; to make provision about the serving of documentation relevant to the ending of asylum support following an asylum determination; and connected purposes.
