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Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

The hon. Gentleman is being unduly cheeky at this hour of the day. Rome was not built in a day. I yield to none in my admiration for the scale of the transformation of the Conservative and Unionist party that has already been brought about, in a very short time, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron). If the hon. Gentleman seeks to egg me on, he must be mindful that he will be tempting me to stray from the disciplines of order. I would incur your wrath, or at any rate your furrowed brow, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I am not minded to do so, even when tempted so sedulously by the hon. Gentleman. I have three simple concerns. First, to cut to the chase, the hon. Member for Walthamstow is right that the use of vouchers has a stigmatising effect. To try to decide whether we think that that argument is correct, let us for a moment imagine ourselves, as the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) did, in the position of someone using the voucher, standing in a queue in Tesco. If hon. Members ask me whether I have seen that myself in Tesco in Buckingham, I admit that I have not. I am conscious, however, that there will be right hon. and hon. Members throughout the House who have witnessed it. I do not want to be discourteous, but, with great respect to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Mahmood), it is a very serious point. For those people in those queues, experiencing stigmatisation, feeling embarrassed and anxious and finding themselves on the receiving end of hostility, it is not a laughing matter. They are waiting to pay for goods. Use of the voucher can lead to delay and, not surprisingly, that causes irritation among other people who are waiting. What could send a more obvious signal that someone is different than the fact that, unlike everyone else who is paying by cash or card, the failed asylum seeker is having to use a voucher? That is very unfortunate and undesirable. Whether it actually constitutes a breach of human rights is, I accept, arguable. What I would say to the Minister is that it is a very notable and unnecessary unkindness and it reflects a meanness of spirit that is unworthy of the Government. Although the Minister of State has long been determined to prove himself the Labour party’s answer to my noble Friend Lord Tebbit of Chingford, the truth is that on these issues he is a humanitarian. I do not want to embarrass him—I know that he is always embarrassed when he is complimented by a Conservative Member—but at heart he is a humanitarian on these issues. He has championed the cause of fairness in immigration and asylum policy over a long period. Although I think that there are serious weaknesses in aspects of government policy, he is not fundamentally a bad guy on these issues, and I ask him to think about those individuals in that queue. There is a related point affecting someone with a voucher in the queue. In the operation of the vouchers to date, there has been ambiguity over what the voucher can purchase. If the Minister can assure me that that will not be so in the future, I shall be delighted, but I shall want firm guarantees and explicit details. In many cases, in given stores it has fallen to the check-out assistant to judge whether the voucher can be used to purchase, for example, nappies. My view—and I hope that I command assent for this proposition in all parts of the House—is that it is unfair on both the failed asylum seeker and the check-out assistant for that situation to arise. In so far as the Government have said that they want to introduce greater flexibility, recognise the need for additional support and can see that the operation of the system over the past 11 months has contained flaws, I welcome that, but I want to know what particular commitments they will make. It is wrong that someone using vouchers who is on section 4 support should have to make the invidious choice whether to use a voucher for travel—if that opportunity will exist—or for purchasing food. We need to be sure that the vouchers will be sufficiently flexible and adequately generous to allow for all the necessities of life on which those people, no less than ourselves, depend.