Let refugees work

Imagine a government policy that forces people to depend solely on the state for their (progressively worse) housing and living costs. (You don’t have to)

For almost a quarter of a century many hundreds  of people have passed through our doors, having spent YEARS of their lives in this enforced limbo. The state spent millions housing, detaining, attempting to deport and then ultimately releasing asylum seekers.  We watched as people’s mental health deteriorated and hopelessness set in. Our refrain was not to give up and to keep going until they got their status. Which they did. And then you saw them contribute to this society and get on with their lives as the barriers lifted.

Twenty-four years later, the UK govt is spending £4B a year housing refugees in hotel rooms where they receive £9 a week,  eating the same monotonous plastic-wrapped bread/pasta/chips (bad for the environment) and packeted breakfasts (filled with processed garbage and sugar) that gave people sore stomachs and denied proper food like fresh vegetables and fruit.

Most people who we speak to do not want to stay in these depressing hotel rooms, which the hotel owners and Mears group profit handsomely from with rising share prices and millions in profits. People tell us they are desperate to escape the Home Office asylum contract culture.

Imagine a different system, where the Home Office wants to know the asylum seeker’s profession and their dreams of how they will make it in the UK—as well as their reason for seeking asylum—so that they can be quickly incorporated into the world of work as soon as they arrive here and start contributing to society, paying taxes (that pay for our standard of living and pensions), and paying their own living costs, so doing away with the costly asylum contract culture.

This would save the taxpayer £4B a year at least. A pragmatic approach would also save the derisory £9 a week in asylum support, and the government wouldn’t have to pay for the costly multimillion-pound asylum contracts that are “providing” people with what they can do for themselves. If they were allowed to do it.

After 24 years this country has lost billions in potential taxes from c. 1M asylum seekers who had to endure a hostile asylum system which has hurt this country long term. That’s why we are where we are.

We disagree that this encourages more people. Actually it encourages people to use safe legal routes rather than turn to smugglers in a vacuum. Ukrainians and Hong Kongers do not drown in the English Channel because they had legal safe routes, which they thrived on by getting jobs, homes, and settling down and NOT relying on the state any longer.

Asylum seekers from other countries have NO safe, legal route here. People smuggling went from a little-known activity in the 1990s to gilt edged stock when Blair and Straw stopped refugees coming into the UK via trucks, cars, and boats. This in turn created the demand for people smugglers.

Three in four countries face the threat of 'underpopulation' by 2050 because of the world's plummeting birth rates. Can this country afford to discourage refugees from seeking sanctuary in the UK? A compassionate environment rather than a hostile one will surely serve this country better. 

Robina Qureshi