---

Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

I am sure that my hon. Friend is right officially, but that does not accord with my experience of surgeries for asylum seekers. People who are refused asylum are in despair because they have lost their access to NASS and their housing. They turn to what they see—perhaps erroneously—as their only method of support, which is each other. That is wholly unsatisfactory. I fear that for all the good employment measures in the Bill, it will make the situation marginally worse. It may appear initially to appease some of those who wish that the problem would go away, that we did not face international obligations and that there was no pressure across the world to make people leave their homes in fear of their lives, but that wish fulfilment is not going to come about. The Bill may appeal to them, but it will not solve the problem. I fear that the Bill and its predecessors will do nothing to enhance Britain’s reputation across the world as a safe haven—the very thing for which those asylum seekers turn to this country. When someone’s tribe or country has been in turmoil and their life threatened, people in the 20th century—in particular since the second world war—have rightly said that Britain is a safe place, with justice, decency and fairness, to which they can appeal and, if they make a good case, be looked after. Neither the Bill nor its predecessors contribute to that. We are in danger of losing that reputation. Although the responsibilities are difficult and not popular with the British people—understandably so, in many ways—we have those responsibilities internationally. This is a reputation that we built up by the decent treatment of asylum seekers and refugees throughout the 20th century. Do not let us throw away that reputation and be seen in the eyes of the world as yet another country that wants to turn away and ignore the awful realities that exist around the world.