Asylum Seekers (Destitution)
The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-04864, in the name of Linda Fabiani, on open your eyes to destitution in Scotland.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament believes that many volunteers and organisations, including churches, charities and community groups, work hard to try to alleviate some of the problems experienced by asylum seekers living in destitution; commends the campaign, Open your Eyes to Destitution in Scotland, by the Scottish Refugee Council and the Refugee Survival Trust, which argues that current UK laws can force asylum seekers, many of whom have fled war and torture in their own countries, to beg or leave them with no home, money or food; recognises calls for an improved decision-making process in dealing with asylum claims, for proper support for asylum seekers waiting to be granted protection or returned home safely and for those asylum seekers who have been in the UK for more than six months to have the right to work, and welcomes support for the campaign.
12:36
I thank those members who supported the motion, with particular thanks to Patrick Harvie, Malcolm Chisholm and Mary Fee, who quickly signed up to allow the motion to have cross-party support and thus the debate to take place. I also thank the Scottish Refugee Council and the Refugee Survival Trust for the open your eyes to destitution in Scotland campaign, the petition and of course the assistance that they have given today.
An example of what the motion talks about—destitution of asylum seekers—is a man who, having fled, sought asylum in 2007, hoping that his wife and children would be able to join him when his claim had been recognised. He was dispersed to Glasgow, but in 2008 his case was refused and he found himself destitute.
He was able to gather evidence to submit a fresh claim but, again, his case was refused and he found himself on the streets, suffering from a complex range of health problems, including hearing problems, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and depression. At one point he slept under a bridge; at other times he used the basic night shelter set up by the Glasgow destitution network in a church. He began to suffer from insomnia and additional mental health difficulties. His health continued to deteriorate as he struggled to survive without any support for food or shelter.
Earlier this month, he collapsed on a Glasgow bus. He was rushed to hospital in East Kilbride in my constituency, where he died. He was aged only 52. He had not received support since 2009, save for emergency grants from the Refugee Survival Trust and Positive Action in Housing. He had not seen his children for eight years.
It is because of cases such as his, seen daily by organisations such as the Scottish Refugee Council and the Refugee Survival Trust, that the campaign has been launched. I have deliberately not said where the man came from or explained his asylum case because those details do not matter. What matters is that in this day and age, in our country, we have people living in destitution and suffering in that way. It does not matter whether they fled here or were born here; they are flesh-and-bone people with human needs like the rest of us—for shelter, for belonging, for sustenance and for esteem.
How do such things happen to asylum seekers? People can become the victims of destitution for a number of reasons, including errors, delays and complexities at certain points in the asylum process and support system. The United Kingdom Government is following a deliberate policy of making refused asylum seekers destitute in order to force them to return to the countries that they fled and to deter new applicants. That is quite clear in the UK Government’s regulations.
If someone faced going back to a country where they believe they would be killed or tortured or become homeless and starve, what would be the incentive to leave the UK? The policy does not seem to be working as the UK Government thinks that it is.
The UK Government says that those who do not qualify for international protection should return voluntarily to their country of origin. How many Iraqis from central and southern Iraq who have left there over the past few years would consent to go back, irrespective of how hard life is made for them in the UK or whether they were given a lot of assistance to encourage them to return to where they fled from?
Many in the Scottish Parliament have campaigned on this issue for many years. I think that it was about a year after the Parliament was set up that the dispersal programme started for folk coming to Glasgow. I can see the faces of members from all parties—starting with the Deputy Presiding Officer and going round the chamber—who have been campaigning on the issue since then.
Successive Administrations have tried to do the best that they could within their devolved competences. I think that in this Parliament we have always felt very strongly that these matters are not reserved. It does not matter whether asylum and immigration are reserved; regardless of party affiliation in this Parliament, we have felt that they are not reserved and that we shall do whatever we can do here about them. Meanwhile, those of us who have fought successive Westminster Governments over the way in which they have dealt with the issue will carry on that fight.
I want to be clear that having the right policy for dealing with asylum seekers not only is the right thing to do but pays dividends for the country. The UK topped a recent poll in Monocle magazine on international soft power, soft diplomacy and so on. That success owes much to this year’s Olympics, not least because the Somalia-born refugee Mo Farah, who came to the UK as a child from his war-torn homeland, won two gold medals for this country.
The campaign against dawn raids run by school pupils from Drumchapel high, fronted by a group of asylum seekers and indigenous girls, is well known to the Scottish Parliament. The National Theatre of Scotland has now translated that campaign into one of the most powerful pieces of modern theatre, which has been a big success at the Citizens Theatre and is off to Stratford. It carries a positive message of a community working together to challenge some of the injustices faced by asylum seekers. The campaign had successes, but I do not have time to go into them. Unfortunately, we still have people being carted off from their homes and sent away, but some gross excesses were prevented by the work of the Glasgow girls. I am sure that members who have seen the theatre production will recognise it as a particularly powerful expression of the values that we want Scotland to project to the world.
It is unacceptable that asylum seekers can be forced into destitution in this country and left in legal and financial limbo for months, if not years. The open your eyes to destitution in Scotland campaign is a reminder to us all that it is time to tackle that injustice. We need improved decision making and proper support, as well as something for which we fought for years and which was given for a short time but taken away again: why the heck should asylum seekers not be allowed to work, given the skills that they bring to this country, to support themselves and stop their stigmatisation?
I do not think that such things are an awful lot to ask for. I hope that the Scottish Parliament will again send that very clear message down to the UK Government.
12:43
I welcome the members of the refugee women’s strategy group who are in the public gallery for this debate, along with staff from the Scottish Refugee Council. I met the refugee women’s strategy group a few months ago, and found the meeting not only informative but inspiring. I heard harrowing tales about what refugee men, women and children have endured not only in their own countries but here in the UK, where they thought that they had found comfort and safety.
I heard that many asylum seekers find themselves living on £30 a week, which comes in the form of a pre-loaded card, so many do not have access to tangible, hard cash. I also heard that, as many of us know, some people are stuck in the asylum process for many years, which leaves them destitute and often alone, with, in some cases, mental health problems or learning difficulties.
There needs to be a radical change to the way in which asylum seekers are treated when they come to the UK. However, I fear that public misconceptions about asylum seekers make that difficult for policy makers in both the Scottish and UK Parliaments.
The open your eyes to destitution in Scotland campaign is a significant and important one and I am pleased to add my support to it.
The complexity of the asylum process is a major reason for the number of asylum seekers and refugees who are destitute, as is the refusal of the right to work. What I find concerning is that many highly skilled asylum seekers and refugees will lose their skills if they end up spending a decade in the complex asylum process.
I will focus on women in the asylum process. Although many women flee their countries for the same reasons as men, many flee due to issues that are gender specific—rape, sexual violence, forced marriage, domestic abuse and female genital mutilation. Women in the asylum process must be treated in a manner that recognises their particular needs as women. I remember being told of examples of women who had to explain their need for asylum with their children in the room. Can anyone imagine the mental and emotional turmoil that that must create for women, especially if they have to discuss issues around abuse, rape and genital mutilation?
Women, who are the primary care providers in most families, are predominantly the sole care provider in many asylum-seeking families. The stress of surviving on as little as £30 per week would take a serious toll on anyone’s health, never mind someone who has travelled thousands of miles to escape persecution.
I will tell the Parliament the story of a destitute refugee woman. Mrs B fled from Zimbabwe when she found herself on the wrong side of the Mugabe regime. She sought asylum in the UK five years ago, but her case was refused, as was her appeal, despite a Supreme Court ruling this summer that it was not safe for anyone who opposed the Mugabe regime to return to Zimbabwe. Her appeal was refused earlier this year, which meant that she was destitute for five months. She was homeless, penniless and not entitled to emergency accommodation such as a hostel bed.
She suffered from poor mental health and the antidepressants that she was given did not help. On occasions, people from her church were able to offer her a bed for a few nights. On other nights, she was left to sleep on a floor mat, in a sleeping bag, in a temporary shelter. During the day, she volunteered in a charity shop, and when the shop closed she walked the streets with her bag, having no idea where she would sleep that night. Sometimes she was able to borrow money from friends for essentials such as sanitary products, but she felt that begging was deeply shameful.
Some people suggested that Mrs B could perhaps meet a man who would “take care of her”. Although she rightly did not take that advice, the Scottish Refugee Council informs me that women regularly feel forced into sexually exploitative situations.
Mrs B lodged fresh evidence and in recent weeks she has been granted support. As positive as the support will be, it seems that she is back at square one. As a result of being destitute for five months, there has been a serious impact on her physical and mental health. Mrs B’s story brings to life why the open your eyes to destitution in Scotland campaign is so important and needs all our support.
On a final note, I hope to re-establish the cross-party group on asylum seekers and refugees in the new year and I look forward to the support of those members who are in the chamber. Thank you.
12:49
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate my colleague Linda Fabiani on securing the debate and on all the work that she has done on the issue. I also congratulate the members of the previous cross-party group on asylum seekers and refugees, the Refugee Survival Trust and the Scottish Refugee Council.
I start by commenting on the news that came through today or last night that 150 unopened boxes of applications for asylum in the UK have been found. They have been there for God knows how many months, or even years. That shows just how bad the system is in this country. We must highlight the fact that those applications are sitting there, unopened, while people are waiting for them just to be looked at, never mind put through the system. We really need to take that on board.
Zimbabwe, Iraq and Afghanistan have been mentioned as countries from which asylum seekers have fled. Those people absolutely deserve our help and security. What has not been mentioned is the fact that there are some people in this country who cannot go back to their own country. That is recognised by the UK, which tells asylum seekers who come from countries on a list that it holds: “Sorry, you can’t get asylum, but it’s too dangerous for you to go back to your own country so we’re going to make you destitute.” Those people have nowhere else to go and through no fault of their own have had to flee violence, yet the UK will not give them the succour that they deserve. We must remember that there are certain people in this country who are told that they cannot go back to their own country because it is not safe, but, because they will not be given asylum here, they can go out and sleep on the streets.
Linda Fabiani mentioned the gentleman who died on the bus. I met that gentleman. He got help, to an extent, as everyone else did—he had a sleeping bag from the Simon Community. He slept in a graveyard one night, in the winter time, and he was not a young man. Perhaps lots of people in Glasgow knew that gentleman pretty well, yet we could not help him in the end. That is a terrible indictment not just of us, but of humanity. That is what this is about—it is about humanity, and trying to help those people, because we are all human beings.
People have mentioned constituents. Whether or not people have a right to remain here, if they live in my constituency, they are obviously my constituents. I will tell members about two of my constituents. One is a gentleman who has leave to remain—he has a British passport. The other is a lady who is still awaiting a final decision, having been here for six or seven years. They applied to the UK Border Agency to get married—they were living together, having met at college, where they were learning English—and the UKBA said yes.
However, now the lady has been refused leave to remain, and they are looking at an appeal. She has been told to go back to her own country and apply from there, and that her husband should go back with her. I will not name them or say which country they come from, but I ask members to guess how old they are. They are 63 years of age, yet—despite the fact that the husband has a British passport—they are being told to go back to their country and that maybe they will be able to apply to come back in. What does that say about the UK as a whole? A 63-year-old couple, who are doing nobody any harm whatsoever and who bring great joy to the community that they live in, are being told that they cannot stay and that they must go back. That shows what an absolute disgrace the asylum system is.
I will finish on a wee point that other members will probably make. Those people are my constituents—but they are everyone’s constituents, too. We deal with such people daily and it is about time that the UK Government recognised that and recognised that we should be able to represent our constituents.
Hear, hear.
There are some good MPs who will do that work, but there are some MPs who will not. As parliamentarians, we cannot cross that line. We need to get those powers here, so that we can represent those two 63-year-olds, who do nobody any harm and bring a great deal of good to our country.
12:53
I, too, congratulate Linda Fabiani on securing today’s debate. I have much sympathy with the humanitarian points that she and other members expressed. I put on record my party’s recognition of and thanks to the organisations that have been mentioned that give support to asylum seekers in Scotland. I am particularly aware of the good work of Positive Action in Housing, which is ably led by Robina Qureshi. I declare an interest in that I have personally donated to that organisation and taken part in demonstrations against early morning break-ins.
However, asylum policy is obviously an extremely difficult issue that requires calm and serious consideration. We would all agree that many of those who come to Britain to seek asylum have been through terrifying experiences. However, the current position is that asylum seekers can apply for permission to work only if they have not received an initial decision on their claim within 12 months. That is in line with the current requirements of the European Union directive on the reception of asylum seekers.
It is my understanding that the UK Government has no plans to reduce the time period to six months or to extend access to the labour market to all asylum seekers who have been refused asylum but who face a temporary barrier to their return. The UK Government fears that extending the permission-to-work policy in that way would risk abuse of the asylum system by economic migrants and would detract from the aim of encouraging those whose claim has failed to return home voluntarily.
Through the asylum improvement project, the UK Government is focused on implementing new ways of speeding up the processing of applications while improving the quality of decision making. Overall, performance has improved recently. In particular, the Border Agency is making decisions more quickly and is consistently deciding more than 60 per cent of asylum cases within 30 days without sacrificing quality.
As we are all aware from the media coverage this morning of the new report from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, the Border Agency needs to make much greater progress. Nevertheless, we have seen a significant improvement compared with what was left to us by the previous Labour Government. Therefore, although I can agree with parts of Linda Fabiani’s motion and have enormous sympathy with the open your eyes to refugee destitution campaign, I am unable to sign up to the motion completely. I believe that the focus must be on securing an asylum system that is fair and measured and which, crucially, deals with cases in the shortest possible time so that some of the problems about which we have heard today are not suffered by asylum seekers waiting months for a decision to be made.
12:56
I commend my colleague and friend Linda Fabiani for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is an issue on which, together, we have campaigned long and hard, and we have spent many a cold morning outside Dungavel detention centre. I believe that Parliament is at its best when it debates issues of humanity such as this.
I will give a definition of destitution:
“Extreme want of resources or the means of subsistence; complete poverty ... A deprivation or lack; a deficiency.”
Those are the reasons why I support the open your eyes to refugee destitution in Scotland campaign. The campaign’s website can be found—I take the opportunity to give it a plug—at www.stopdestitution.org.uk. It seeks to build public and civic society opposition in Scotland to asylum destitution. The Scottish Refugee Council, of which I view myself as a friend, and the Refugee Survival Trust, which is another friend, are asking individuals and organisations to sign a petition that they will present to the UK Minister for Immigration.
Members will remember the tapestry of deceit that was manufactured in 2003 to make legal an illegal war in Iraq. Let us look at the human costs of that war. I will tell members about a young man called Adar. Adar is an Iraqi Kurd who was forced to flee Kirkuk after his father, a high-ranking military man, was executed and his own life was threatened. He claimed asylum in 2008, but his case was refused, as were a subsequent appeal and a fresh claim. Adar is 27 and has been destitute for two years. He survives by relying on a network of friends who will put him up for weeks and, in some cases, months at a time. At various times he has slept in a night shelter that was set up by the Glasgow destitution network. He says that it is almost impossible to sleep there, but that it is far better than being on the streets.
Survival is extremely difficult for Adar. He eats at drop-in centres for asylum seekers such as the cafe that is run by the Unity centre and others across the city. Occasionally, he has received small grants from organisations such as Positive Action in Housing and the Scottish Refugee Council, or has been given money by friends. I declare an interest in that I am a financial contributor to Positive Action in Housing, and have been for a number of years.
Adar desperately wants to be allowed to work. In Iraq, he worked as a designer in a factory making windows and doors, but he will not risk working illegally here. He is a very moral man who wants to do things by the book and continues to report to the Home Office. In recent times, he has found the stress of his situation to be increasingly intolerable and finds it difficult to sleep at night. He feels as though he is no longer seen by others as a human being but, however difficult his situation, he cannot consider returning to Iraq, where he fears for his life. In Scotland, he says, at least he is alive.
That testimony is heart breaking; imagine not being able to go home for fear of losing your life, and not being able to make the place of your sanctuary your home because of the disgraceful UK Home Office policy. It is an utter disgrace. Imagine being left outside in this weather. Imagine catching a weather report last night and realising that you need to seek shelter—any shelter—from the elements. Imagine not knowing where your next meal is coming from. Imagine that all that is a result of a terrible war in your land, which was not caused by you, and that the country that waged that war will not help you in your time of need. Imagine wanting to work to support yourself and not being able to do so because of draconian rules that have been imposed upon you. That is what destitution means for Adar. That is Adar’s life.
That is why the campaign is so important. It is important not just for Adar and all the others like him, but because people—human beings—should expect nothing less than care, compassion and support in times of need. To turn our back on our brother or sister in times of need is not a Scottish value; helping, supporting and caring are Scottish values. We need to assert those values, we need to ensure that people seeking sanctuary are treated with dignity and humanity and we need to have control of the system to ensure that those good values are used to create the best of circumstances for people who are nationless.
We need to stop destitution. As has already been said, humanity is not a reserved matter, so let us open our eyes and see—yes, really see—the impact of destitution. I urge everyone who can do so to support this extremely important and worthwhile campaign.
13:01
As others are, I am grateful to Linda Fabiani for securing the debate. I suppose that my only regret is that there is something so dysfunctional about our political culture that the chamber and the press gallery were packed not so long ago while we heard howls of outrage about what is happening in college budgets—which are important, but which we have all seen printed in black and white—whereas a debate like this does not attract the same attention. A debate like this should attract similar howls of outrage.
Not so long ago, Parliament debated the living wage. We debated the concept and the fairly simple assertion that people ought to be able to expect a decent income to live on that affords them a standard of dignity. During that debate, we acknowledged that many people in this country who live on out-of-work benefits are on incomes that are so low as to result in a degree of poverty that we should regard as unacceptable. However, many asylum seekers in this country live on just about half that amount, if they are lucky. As Mrs Fee mentioned, very often that is provided not even in cash but through a card that must be spent only in certain outlets.
A wee while before that, we debated a call from international development non-governmental organisations that challenged us to attempt to live, as so many of the world’s poorest people do, on the equivalent of $2 a day. I think that a former First Minister, Jack McConnell, took up that challenge and made an effort to live in the UK on that meagre income.
“Destitution” is a word that should have such a powerful impact. Destitution means absolute levels of poverty way below what we think is acceptable for people who put in a day’s work, way below what we think is acceptable for people who are out of work and way below the outrageous levels of poverty that exist around the world and in which so many hundreds of millions of people live. Destitution is having nothing. There was a time when people in the UK talked about destitution as being something that is deserving of sympathy and charity—as an unhappy circumstance that people might fall into. Very often, what people got—I am talking about a time before the welfare state—was charity rather than change in society that would eradicate that destitution.
In this debate, destitution means something different. It means a deliberate act of Government policy; that has to be remembered. This is not destitution as a merely unhappy circumstance about which we can do nothing and that affects those few poor souls who have fallen through the net. This is destitution as a deliberate act of policy. Let me quote the Home Office document from 2007 that has been provided in the briefing to all members:
“For those not prioritised for removal, they”—
that is, refused asylum seekers—
“should be denied the benefits and privileges of life in the UK and experience an increasingly uncomfortable environment so that they elect to leave.”
That is Home Office policy from 2007.
Destitution, in that circumstance—for asylum seekers and those who have been refused asylum in the UK—is a deliberate act of Government policy. How outrageous that is, in its own right. Even if that policy was successful—Linda Fabiani has demonstrated that it is unsuccessful in achieving its objective—rather than just imposing destitution on people, it forces them to choose between destitution and the return to an environment in which they fear for their lives. Either circumstance is a moral outrage, and we should hear louder howls of outrage in the chamber than those we heard over another issue less than an hour ago.
I know that not all members will agree with my next comment, but my hope is that one day we will see an asylum system in place in Scotland that is based on compassion and the purpose of which is to provide asylum to those who need it, instead of the system operated by the UK Government, the purpose of which is to say no to the maximum numbers possible.
13:06
I, too, thank Linda Fabiani for raising this important issue. The debate has been a sobering one, in which we have had to face up to the reality—the reality that people will not find on the pages of the press or in tonight’s Edinburgh Evening News—that some of our asylum seekers, who are the most vulnerable people in Scotland, have to live through daily.
Patrick Harvie, Sandra White, Christina McKelvie, Linda Fabiani, Mary Fee and Jamie McGrigor all made excellent and powerful contributions about what destitution means for certain groups of people.
Scotland has always been a welcoming country, with a long and proud history of sheltering asylum seekers and refugees who flee persecution to find safety. I am very proud to be the son of immigrants. My father was an economic migrant; my mother, whose family had to flee Kenya for safety reasons after the African uprising that made, at that time, life for Asians in the region difficult, chose to come to Scotland.
Migrants have been coming to Scotland for centuries. It saddens me to hear, as I am sure it saddens all members in the chamber, the heartbreaking details of the situations—whether those of Mrs B, Adar or the individual to whom both Sandra White and Linda Fabiani referred—that some asylum seekers find themselves in, in modern 21st century Scotland.
The Scottish Government continues to be appalled that in this day and age there are people who face destitution in our country. The Scotland that we aspire to live in would not force vulnerable individuals into hardship and deprivation. Scottish Governments—this Scottish Government in particular—have always been clear that asylum seekers should be welcomed, supported and integrated into our communities from day 1, and that they should have access to health and education services.
Communities across Scotland provide essential support and extend compassion to asylum seekers who face incredibly hard times. Those actions can often make a world of difference. In that vein, I want to record my thanks to the Scottish Refugee Council, Migrants’ Rights Scotland, the Refugee Survival Trust, Shakti Women’s Aid and all the other organisations that do an outstanding job in providing not just the basics that people need to live on, but a safe space for our country’s asylum seekers and refugees to thrive in and to become active members in many communities. It is amazing how asylum seekers can go into a community or school and energise it—people see the effect of that among members of such communities.
The Scottish Government would have liked to go further in our help for asylum seekers. For example, we are on record as noting our ambition that asylum seekers be able to work while awaiting decisions on their applications. It is ludicrous that people who come to this country after fleeing persecution cannot contribute. When we read the pages of certain right-wing newspapers that express outrage that asylum seekers are claiming X, Y or Z, those stories are not usually mired in truth. Such people want to contribute, but the UK Government denies them the opportunity to do that. Unfortunately, the present constitutional settlement does not allow us to take action on those issues.
Sandra White mentioned a couple of issues in particular. I undertake to send ministerial correspondence once again to the UKBA and ministers in the UK Government to highlight the issue that has irked many members in relation to representing their constituents to the UKBA. Time and again, this and previous Scottish Governments have hit their heads on the proverbial brick wall while attempting to reason with the UK Government and the UKBA on how they treat asylum seekers.
As a progressive global state, an independent Scotland would have the opportunity to give asylum seekers a place of safety, and would have the power to implement fair, sensible and humane policies on immigration.
Linda Fabiani mentioned the “Glasgow Girls” production. I had the pleasure of seeing the performance on the same day as her. I did not know that she would be there, but I ended up sitting right next to her. They let anybody into the theatre nowadays, I must say. It was a moving production, and I recommend that every member take the chance to see it. It was moving to hear the tribute that was paid to the work that she undertook, along with other members—some of whom are no longer members, including Bill Butler—to fight child detention, and to hear the words that she spoke in the chamber in 2005, which are still relevant to the debate. I agree with her whole-heartedly that, although the matter is reserved to Westminster, human dignity and fair treatment are not.
Mary Fee’s speech was powerful and relevant. We are aware of some of the unique barriers that prevent women who seek asylum—and who also suffer domestic abuse or other violent behaviour—from accessing support. They can include living in and adapting to a new culture, a lack of language skills, the rights that they have in the UK and the fear of hindering their asylum claim or, even, losing their children. Those obstacles are real, and Mary Fee gave a powerful account of them.
We are aware that asylum-seeking women are not explicitly referred to in the Scottish Government’s “Safer Lives: Changed Lives: A Shared Approach to Tackling Violence Against Women in Scotland” strategy. We will ensure that the needs of all women, including asylum-seeking women, are expressed in our strategic approach to tackling violence against women. We will also consider those issues as part of a review of the refugee integration strategy.
Patrick Harvie’s whole speech was excellent, but I will pick up on the point about the Azure card—the support that is given under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999—which is one of the most dehumanising aspects of the system. Some asylum-seeker families cannot even use the card to buy children’s clothes because the products that they can buy are restricted. In 2011, my colleague Keith Brown, who was then the Minister for Housing and Transport, wrote to the Home Office asking how it could extend the scope of section 4 support. Unfortunately, he was rebuffed. We will keep pursuing that issue; we will keep doing the best that we possibly can.
I thank the organisations that passionately and tirelessly pursue the case for asylum seekers and refugees in Scotland. The services that they provide consist of more than simply a roof over asylum seekers’ heads; they also offer protection and much-needed advice.
Regardless of what side of the constitutional debate members sit on, we are almost unanimously agreed that this Parliament would implement a more humane policy on asylum seekers and refugees. However, the fact that those powers do not rest with us does not mean that we do not take responsibility. If an asylum seeker is living on the streets of Scotland, that automatically becomes the responsibility of every councillor, MSP, MP and minister in Scotland. Even if all we can do is shout, we have a duty to ensure that we shout our very loudest.
However, many of us are tired of shouting. Scotland will soon have the chance to do things differently. I want to live in a Scotland where troops of officers can no longer hammer down doors at the break of dawn and drag women and children out of their beds. I want to live in a country whose families are not locked up like criminals in detention centres, even if the Government tells us that those detention centres are “family friendly”. I want to live in a Scotland where the underlying principle of asylum is not suspicion, but compassion. That is why I hope that many others in Scotland will vote to take those powers and bring them to this Parliament in 2014.
13:15
Meeting suspended.
14:30
On resuming—