 Good morning and welcome to the seventh meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. Our first item of business today is a decision to take items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Do we have agreement for that? Thank you very much. Today we're going to be taking evidence from two further panels on refugee and asylum seekers. Given that this topic is also of interest to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, we have invited members of the committee to join today's session. We welcome back Pam Goswll MSP to our meeting this week, and Pam is going to be joining us remotely. I also welcome to the meeting our first panel, who are all joining us remotely. We have Graham O'Neill, who is the policy manager for the Scottish Refugee Council. Welcome. Andy Sirle, a legal director and partner, and Lydia Danku, a just citizen member from Just Right Scotland. Welcome to both of you. We have apologies from Rubina Qureshi, who is going to be joining us, who is the chief executive officer of positive action in housing. A few issues to point out before we get started. Please allow our broadcasting colleagues a moment to turn your microphone on before you start to speak. Witnesses can indicate their wishes to speak by typing an R in the dialogue box, the chat function in blue jeans, or simply by showing your hand if we're not picking you up or having technical difficulties. I urge everybody to be mindful of time this morning, because we have quite a lot of business to get through. You don't have to answer every single question, but if you have something that you need to add, please feel free to do so. I ask members of the committee to direct their question to a panel member that would be very helpful. I am first going to turn to our first theme. I am going to hand over to Jeremy Balfour, MSP, who is going to kick us off. Good morning. Thank you for coming along to give evidence, and thank you also for your written evidence, which has been really helpful already. Can I start maybe with asking a question to Graham, if that is okay? In the previous Parliament, we did some work on the dispersion of refugees, asylum seekers across the whole of Scotland, and there were obviously issues around some of that in regard to housing, and particularly in regard to perhaps legal advice that you can get out with the central belt. As a principal, do you think that it's a good idea that individuals aren't just placed in maybe Glasgow, Lanarkshire or Edinburgh, but that they are found accommodation and support in other parts of Scotland as well? If so, how do we go about doing that in a more effective way? Sorry, Graham. Thanks very much, Jeremy, and thank you to the committee for inviting us to come and give evidence to be. It's a very pertinent question, Jeremy, and I would say that, in principle, the Scottish Refugee Council and indeed I think the wider refugee sector across the UK is for people being housed in communities in normal accommodation, residential accommodation and like what I'm sitting in just now, opposed to being placed into often hotel remisolation or worse-style military barracks, which is not appropriate for anybody and that very much includes people seeking refugee protection who have often fled war and persecution and often have complex psychological trauma because of repeated episodes of very severe impacts and events. We've had what, in terms of the jarvons, called the dispersal system for about 20 years. Glasgow has been the biggest in the UK over that 20-year period. Currently it has about 6,000 people seeking asylum who are housed in the city. What we want to see in relation to the housing of people seeking asylum is that people are housed in communities, that local authorities and local health services and local charities are supported, including directly funded by the Home Office, to do what they want to do best, which is to welcome and integrate those who are here seeking safety at a very difficult point in their lives from countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea. For reasons to be known to the Home Office, most of all, they've persistently refused direct funding to local authorities and health services. That's problematic because often there's a number of reasons, but one of the first reasons I would give is that often people are accommodated by outsourcing private companies such as Seco or G4S or Nears Group or Clear Springs in some of the poorest areas of the country. Often it's those areas that are the ones that welcome people most warmly, but the housing is often not of good quality, has structural issues which go back many decades. These areas are classed as areas of multiple degradation, so they've already got a lot of challenges. Of course there's been significant cuts in central government grants, that UK central government grants to local authorities over a number of years. To put all that into the mix, it's a very difficult ask of local authorities unless there is direct funding and they have a say in where people can be placed so that it rubs up well with their local housing policies and local community planning policies. The movement of people through the dispersal programme into a wider set of local authority areas, including in Scotland beyond Glasgow, is something in principle we very much welcome and have called for consistently for a generation really, but there needs to be certain things in place, direct funding to the local areas from the home office and also it's done on a partnership basis. The problem at the moment is that the home office has been rolling out what they call contingency accommodation for the last two and a half years. That's generally what people have been placed in hotels, often for variable periods of time, sometimes close to a year. That's very expensive for the UK state to be paying that amount of money and the numbers are quite stark in terms of the increase, so there's about 1,000 to 1,500 people in October 2019 who were placed across the UK in hotel-type accommodation, which is inappropriate. People experience often this institutional accommodation, they have £1 a day to get by on, no real choice over the food they have. I'm allowed to work by the system and often I'm placed there without any consultation of the local authority and health services who are then having to play catch-up, which is not right. It doesn't need to be like that, but increasingly it is like that. Now we've got just shy of 30,000 we estimate people who are in such contingency institutional accommodation across the UK, including close to 500 people in Scotland, across seven, from what we can see, six to seven local authorities. That has been done what we described in written evidence through a ffata-complete practice, that people have been moved into those areas with no consultation with the local authority or health services. We question whether that is actually contingency accommodation because the length of stay that people are in it is quite significant. As I touched on just a minute ago, the costs are really, really eye-watering, and in our view, wasteful, and it can be done so much better. The Home Secretary gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee last Wednesday in the UK Parliament, and she confirmed in the home, obviously, to clarify that currently £3.5 million has been paid per day to accommodate at that point 25,000 people asylum seekers in so-called contingency, generally ex-hotel accommodation in barracks. Can you just do a simple sum on that, multiply that £3.5 million by £365? You come to £1.277 billion has been spent by the Home Office to private companies, so that is Mears, Dercot or Clear Springs in terms of their accommodation contractors who then contract with ex-hotels, hoteliers. I don't blame the hoteliers for taking those contracts because my name has lost a market through the Covid crisis, but when you think about what that figure is, that is a gross waste of public monies, which even a fraction of that, if it was diverted into local authorities, would enable them to identify areas and then be able to place people back to my first point in communities so that they can live their lives and be the normal people that people are, just the extraordinary challenges in their life. Just to give you a zoom out from that £1.277 billion figure, that has been spent in relation to one-third of the current asylum seeker population. There are 80,000 people in asylum accommodation across the UK, so about 25,000 to 30,000 are being placed into any way of accommodation because it is ex-hotels. It is not right for people, it is traumatising for many people and isolating, but then that £1.277 billion constitutes over a quarter of the £4 billion that was budgeted by the Home Office and the Treasury for those 10-year contracts. So just put it all together as you all will know better than I. This is dysfunctional, it is wasteful, it does not need to be like this and it is not sustainable. Nobody is actually winning out of this in terms of the people placed in the accommodation because it is really damaging for them, especially the longer people are in there. Also for the Home Office and the Treasury, I would imagine that Treasury must be looking at this and thinking what and if has gone on here, this cannot be allowed to happen. The Home Secretary was the first Home Secretary last Wednesday to say in the Home Affairs Committee for the best part of a decade that we are now going to directly fund local authorities. It is really important that that promise is made good on quickly across the UK, including in relation to Scotland and Glasgow and other local authority areas, because that is the solution here. It is that you work with local authorities in partnership, provide direct funding rather than this distribution of resources to huge private companies, and then they contract with telliers. The costs that I have just outlined are really unsustainable and actually quite wasteful. The profits that are being made by the private companies that are specifically accommodation contractors are unsurprisingly there to see. In 2020, Clear Springs Ready Home, which covers much of London and south-east of England, was making £4.4 million profit. The three directors share the dividends of £7 million between them. That is £2.3 million each. Graham, sorry to interrupt. That is the company that runs. Sorry to interrupt. We pay it. The profits are also made by CERCO in years for it as well. Thank you very much. Sorry to interrupt there, but I know that Jeremy does have another question. We only have till 9.55 and we have played a lot of questions to get through. Jeremy? That is helpful. If I can direct this question back to you, and maybe we have a slightly brief answer, if this policy is carried out, as was announced by the Home Secretary last week, is there enough appropriate housing in places like Glasgow and Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland to accommodate these individuals? Do we have enough accommodation? I know that Edinburgh struggles often to give any support because we do not have the accommodation. Across Scotland, do we have that accommodation or are we going to have to see more new builds and other properties coming onto the market? I promised to be brief at this time. Thank you for your permanence earlier. It would be better for Edinburgh and Glasgow to be a much better place than I to answer that. There is certainly what we have picked up as there are acute housing pressures in some parts of Scotland. Within that, the housing markets are quite tight. I would say that this discussion has never really been allowed to happen across different Scottish local authorities between the Home Office and them around how we identify appropriate accommodation. What is the accommodation city in Aberdeen City or in Stirling or in Dundee? That is the discussion that we really need to happen. That discussion can happen if there is a serious discussion around direct funding and a partnership approach being taken. People at Glasgow—Susan Aitken to her credit said this last week and we fully agree. As people coming from all parts of the world to Glasgow has been a really positive thing over the last 20 years for Glasgow, we have seen the difference that has been made in terms of education for some schools. Just in terms of the language diversity within many schools in Glasgow has been really enriching for that and has a positive educational impact in a wider school community where you have asylum-seeker children for whatever you are putting it there. It is possible. The only way that discussion can happen is if, as we hope, the Home Secretary was being genuine and on it in terms of saying that direct funding can and now happen. Because otherwise, what we would have is what I outlined earlier, which is just people getting chunted into inappropriate exo-tel accommodation and feeling really isolated while meeting people across the country doing what the best they can but with no funding behind them. It should not be like this. It does not need to be like this because the point that I am making is that we just need a partnership between central local government here and then plan out to put people in the communities. The housing could well be available but we need to get the discussions going first. We are blocked at the moment because, in our experience, the Home Office is just digging their heels and pumping all the money to take a shadow state private companies. It does not need to be like that. That is not a serious level and up agenda. That is not a serious agenda in terms of people respecting devolution but we need to get to that point and then we can start to open up the housing that might just be sitting dormant within other local authority areas within Scotland. Thank you very much for your answer, Graham. We are going to move on to our next theme which is no recourse to public funds. I have a number of members who want to come in on this. We have Pam Duncan-Glancy first, then Miles Briggs would like to come in and then Emma Roddick, who is joining us remotely. Pam Duncan-Glancy Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us. Thank you also for the information that you have given us in advance. It is really helpful. I want to start with exploring a little bit about no recourse to public funds and how we can use mechanisms in the third sector and others to support people. Specifically, you noted the importance of making sure that people get the right information about what they can access and what they can access and a bit of there is a difference and some people assumed certain funds were unavailable or were listed for purposes that meant they couldn't access it. Can you tell us a little bit about the importance of that and how could we fix it? What could we do to make sure people do get the information that they need? Thanks. Oh, sorry. Lydia and Andy, please. Can I just let Andy answer that, please? Hi, good morning. Thanks very much, Pam, for the question. The issue of no recourse to public funds is vexing and it has been deeply problematic for a very, very long time. One of the reasons why it is so complex and difficult for professionals, services and individuals themselves to understand is because it is a very fluid thing. We have this idea in our head where somebody has no recourse to public funds and everybody knows what that means and it is a static thing but that is not the reality that we live in. Because of the hostile environment it is very easy for somebody to become no recourse to public funds but there are also avenues out of it so that no recourse to public funds is either a condition on leave to remain or it is a result of being undocumented and becoming undocumented is something that is actually because of the hostile environment easy to do. Home office decision making is erratic administration errors are made at the home office, some families are forced to pay fees for applications women fleeing domestic violence can become no recourse to public funds European nationals with pre-settled status can have blockages to public funds because of whether they are working or not whether they are exercising treats arrives so whether you have a job or not can determine whether you are NRPF so it is very difficult to gather the data and understanding the nuances of that is a challenge for services. I completely understand that immigration law is extremely complex and it is hard to convey it in simple terms when actually something can be so fact specific. What I think the key things we need to make sure are widely understood are what are public funds in the immigration context and what's not that is a key issue that we see time and time again that leads to gatekeeping with services I remember delivering training a number of years ago to an educational institution that had been refusing educational funding for years to people on the basis of no recourse to public funds despite the fact that educational funding is not a public fund so there can be baked in misunderstandings around that and I think that making it very clear that public funds is a list and if it isn't on the list it isn't a public fund is quite an important element and connected with that would be an important round of information dissemination or training I mean these things aren't enough we already have the causal guidance which is very good there was training run off the back of that which was successful but people move on from jobs as long as the people who are trained are in the job we need to make sure that a response a humane and well informed response no recourse to public funds becomes a cultural reaction within services in Scotland much like child safeguarding services are instinctive a clear understanding of what NRPF is and I'm reasoned that public investment at the time of people in front of those services is critical and the last thing I'd say is making sure that services understand who to refer to because one really important thing about no recourse to public funds is that it can be very often remedied you know if you have a mother and child in front of you who are NRPF they've got leave to remain but they're NRPF and they're destitute to an immigration lawyer as early as possible it's very likely an immigration lawyer can apply to the home office to have that condition removed sometimes it can be quick sometimes it can be slow because of the specific circumstances but immigration lawyers are well placed to work as quickly as they can in order to make that happen the earlier referral was made and the more work that is done to remedy the NRPF the more time the individuals are being supported using statutory powers when in fact the benefits can equally support them so I think there's a combination of things there that need to happen and they need to happen now because as we'll speak about within a few moments I'm sure the national team borders bill is about to explode this problem on a scale that we've never seen before Lydia would like to come in on this quickly thanks Lydia many thanks I just wanted to add a little bit to what Dan had alluded to about the impact of NRPF conditions which continue to be felt disproportionately by women and disabled migrants because of their experiencing inequalities in an intersecting way and therefore are more likely to need to access publicly funded support services in particular migrant women experiencing domestic violence who are potentially being forced to remain with a perpetrator as they do not necessarily have access to publicly funded services and refugees thank you thanks thank you both for that I found it really really helpful could you also talk about the touch points that people have with the system is it public sector is it housing, is it health is it third sector is it all of the above so that I can get a sense of where we need to ensure that knowledge exists and what kind of network needs to be created and also I know that there's been approximately a million pounds cut to third sector budgets in this budget do you know anything about the impact that I'll have to continue to provide support for people who have no recourse to public funds and again if that could be directed to Lydian Andy thanks for the question so in terms of your first question about touch points it's hard to say when I think about the referrals we received through the just by Scotland they come from a very very wide variety of places they come from local authorities we run for example a second year immigration advice line on a Wednesday afternoon that usually gets at least two to three calls a week from local authorities health visitors, social workers criminal justice workers coming up against the no recourse to public funds phenomenon and wondering what they can do effectively so we receive referrals directly from statutory services so that's probably one of the first touch points I think that a lot of people if they're at the stage but they're engaging with statutory services they're lucky but they're in a more fortunate position than the ones that we don't know about we work very closely with the British Red Cross with Scottish Refugee Council with Maryhill integration network government community project organisations on the ground that are really in the trenches here and I think those are the key touch points and I think your second panel will definitely be able to speak to this those are key touch points that refer through to ourselves as well and when they're working with individuals who are NRPF it can be very difficult to get those individuals in front of statutory services for various reasons relating to fear if you're undocumented lots of individuals have a fear of engaging with the statutory services as well as health et cetera et cetera so those are the key touch points we see sometimes we receive referrals through from police Trafficking awareness raising alliance Scottish guardianship service is a huge referer I say those are just the ones that we see we know that there are more out there and it's difficult to reach them Thank you very much for your answer Andy Pam, is that you? Thank you, Lydia did you want to add anything to that? Just in relation to as related to employment impacts of Covid-19 such as statutory sick pay, furlough scheme scheme and the self-employment income support scheme which have not been accessible to all migrants with NRPF conditions unless they have a work visa given the impact of Covid-19 on the labour market and the significant increases in the numbers of either lost or have had their incomes reduced without access to the welfare system NRPF migrants are a lot more likely to experience the institution Thank you very much for that Lydia, I think that's very helpful for us to understand that We only have about 25 minutes left and a lot of questions to get through so I'm going to ask both members and panel members if they can be really succinct because there are still many areas that we would like to touch on so I'm going to bring in Miles Briggs and then Emma Roddick and Foisle Chowdo who have questions on No Worker Course of Public Funds over to you, Miles Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel I wanted to ask a question with regard to the Scottish Crisis Fund and how you think that's made a difference and just for the interest of time I'll maybe merge my second question where in Scotland specifically when you look at pressured areas like Glasgow City Council and Edinburgh City Council where that's made a difference and how that's been administered Andy, you touched upon the British Red Cross in your response so I'll maybe bring you in just a comment, could they put an hour in the chat and I'll hand back to you, convener Thanks very much for the question I think for the sake of brevity I will defer because its organisations like the Red Cross and the Refugee Council that are more likely to come in contact with the Scottish Crisis Fund so I don't know whether Graham has anything to come in on that if he doesn't then fill in the second panel we'll be able to speak to that I'd like to come in and say something on that I mean very briefly first I would say that Phil Arnard is the best person to talk to talk on that we do see pressures on those that we work with people that have been granted refugee status who then fall into destitution almost perversely because they can't get they can't get access to the housing and access to universal credit in the social security system as quickly as they they would hope to and then have to try and draw upon emergency short-term payments such as the crisis fund and it's and and there can be difficulty sometimes in that but I can't be at that by saying that it's our services colleagues that see this more acutely then I certainly do so I wouldn't want to speak to it definitively on it but it's certainly something that I know that has been an issue I'm sure we'll touch on later on as Andy mentioned the issue around precarious lives and destitution that is going to probably explode across parts of the UK including Scotland as a result of the nationality and borders bill to take the opportunity very briefly to echo that but I think Phil would be the best person to answer that in most detail Thanks very much for that it's good to recognise that we do have British Red Cross coming in the second panel who will be helpful there Emma Roddick who's remote and then Faisal Chowdry Thank you, and good morning everyone this is really for Liddy as it's a bit of an extension on what you were saying earlier we know that migrant women are much more likely to be subject to domestic abuse yet the NRPF policy prevents them from accessing support services so given the high levels of destitution amongst these women do you agree that supporting them needs to be the priority in terms of ending destitution and who in your view is best place to provide that support and just for speed as well I'll ask does having NRPF make you even more vulnerable to further abuse? Thank you I think yes NRPF does make you more vulnerable it creates a condition in which you are not being able to access the same services and to have the same protection yes and destitution would help but removing NRPF conditions would probably put people on a level field Thank you very much Liddyia Emma, is that you finished or do you have a further question? Those were my questions That's great, thanks very much Over to Faisal Tairdrae who is also remote Thank you Good morning panel I'll make it small as well What is the impact of the known lack of data on people with NRPF particularly on the third sector and just for the time allowed the second question here as well I mean how would panel assess the role of the third sector in cities with large number of people with NRPF given COSLA has highlighted the financial pressure particularly on those cities Who would you like to direct that to Faisal? Whoever feels comfortable Andy Thank you very much for the question Before I try to answer briefly your questions I just want to say one thing to the previous question from Emma around domestic violence and the impact on women because this is critical and it's critical because as a problem it's going to amplify again after the nationality and borders bill in terms of who can support the survivors of domestic violence local authorities can under their existing statutory powers we see them use section 22 of the Children's Scotland Act to support women who have children who are fleeing abuse on their NRPF where there's a gap is women who don't have children there is a power there in section 12 of the social work Scotland Act 1968 but in our view it's underused and we need to develop our understanding of how we can provide safeguarding support in those circumstances the second thing I want to say is that shelters, women's aid shelters et cetera my understanding is that they're funded by housing benefit and as a result NRPF women are unable to access it and there are some exceptions to that but that seems to me to be an issue that requires to be looked at and is perhaps within the gift of the Scottish Parliament to do that and does NRPF make women even more vulnerable to domestic violence yes for sure of course of control from an abuser but most importantly state perpetrated economic abuse that's what it is in terms of those second two questions I'll be very brief impact of the lack of data on NRPF I'll let Cosland the local authority speak to this more broadly and I'm sure they did at the last session but the figures I've seen in the briefing around 9,000 in Scotland seem to me very low very low indeed and when we now have a population of about 300,000 Europeans who are in this post Brexit era where if you have precentral status you can have no legal to public funds or struggle to access benefits because of the assessment of your right to reside it means people can flip in and out of NRPF so that number I think is low and if you don't have the correct numbers then I don't see how you can resource the issue and in terms of how can third sector assist that services in this there are an amazing amount of things that third sector can do the third sector I'm thinking about grassroots organisations in larger services like Red Cross and SRC are really struggling with capacity at this point in time so direct funding and resource has to be given there if there's any wish for the third sector to provide added value there thank you thank you very much for that Andy we're going to move on to questions from Natalie Dawn who is remote who's going to ask some questions on the afghan resettlement scheme Natalie thanks convener and good morning panel I'm going to direct my question to Graham and I want to thank you for your very thorough response in your first comments they were really very helpful I originally had some questions around contingency accommodation but you've answered those so I'd like to ask what is your assessment of why asylum decisions take so long and what do you think can be done to address the backlog that's the result of that and equally what impact do you think on those decisions over to you Graham thanks Natalie thanks Natalie for the question yeah I mean the asylum system insofar as the asylum system is broken which is one of the kind of assertions that's put forward by the current Home Secretary I think it's squarely within the Home Secretary and the Home Office's responsibility there's two major problems the first is you've spoken to and it has actually a pivotal one which is the long-term trend that's been around since 2014 we slow asylum decision making process and that currently means that we have 83,000 people who are still awaiting just an initial asylum decision 56,000 who have been waiting six months or more and 23,000 who have been waiting 15 months or more just to find out an initial asylum decision the pattern of nationalities that apply for asylum is pretty standard and conventional in UK terms but that I mean it's quite regular there's a kind of pattern to it and many of the people that do at least half that do come are in UK refugee recognition terms from high refugee recognition countries you know from Afghanistan, Iran Sudan, Vietnam, Eritrea Syria, Yemen et cetera you know 70% are above refugee recognition rate and the reason I highlight that is that given that there's such a substantial number of people who are from over a pat along period of time high refugee recognition countries in UK terms there would be consideration getting given especially as a bulging backlog now of people stuck, literally stuck in the asylum decision making process that there would be some innovations coming forward that UNHCR themselves have touched on with the whole office last year most recently to think about you know a simplified procedure towards grants of refugee leave for people from high refugee recognition countries it's very important there can be no removal of safeguards from such individuals but just try to maintain the quality that's speed up the system in a way which grants people leave who anyway are ultimately going to be given refugee leave in the current system kind of pre nationality borders bill that is and but that there's a kind of head in the sands mentality that that's just not been there and these trends of you know chronic slowness in asylum decisions pre-date Covid you know they're already there and the number of asylum applications over this period is fairly stable so it's not the reasons for the backlog are not to do with huge numbers, huge increases in asylum applications and actually almost perversely initial decisions on asylum applications have fell by 40% over the last five years so there's something quite irresponsible going on I suppose is what we are saying here in how the Home Office are mismanaging the asylum decision process and you clearly asked about the impact of this and of course I touched upon part of the impact because the flip side of slowness in the asylum decisions is people being stuck in increasingly inappropriate and actually eye-wateringly expensive inappropriate accommodation contingency accommodation you know that some of the figures I was mentioning for long periods of time so if you've crick up, speed up the asylum decision making process, people are not going to be stuck in hotel room isolation or barracks or they'll be able to do what any person wants to do which is to get on with their lives contribute work be part of the community that's what people want to do you know so Andy mentioned you know that there's very high levels of poverty out from the no recourse to public funds system and the asylum support system I would put invented comments around support because we have to look at what people get in terms of financial support remember we're not allowed to work by the Home Office which is in itself a response from perverse decision it amounts to about 40 to 42% the value below the social security minimum in terms of financial support that's if you're in community dispersal accommodation if you're in hotels you get £1 a day £8 a week that's it I mean you wouldn't even buy a fish supper in most Scottish towns and cities it's obscene so it's UK state sanctioned severest forms of poverty imaginable and it has an impact on people and if one empathises and imagines what that does to people not over a few weeks because that's not what we're talking about here but over years because of the chronic slowness in asylum decisions people lose hope people poverty starts to eat away people starts to increase mental health pressures and deteriorations and I keep going back to this original point it really doesn't need to be like this if we had a better functioning asylum decision making system that was able to make swift grants of refugee leave for those who are anyway from high refugee recognition countries and the costs that are then displaced not only to the people themselves in terms of mental health harm as poverty is in but also just to reiterate the eye-watering costs that are then displaced to the private private interest accommodation companies and also the hoteliers who we don't blame hoteliers that say they've got their job to do they've lost their markets in many ways it's it's a really dysfunctional incompetent way so it really grates with us when we hear the Home Secretary consistently say when putting forward the UK nationality borders bill this system is broken I've mind been a problem analysis of the asylum system we'd say sort out the chronic slowness in asylum decisions sort out the prohibitive and inappropriate the prohibitive cost and inappropriate accommodation that's been provided as well and then don't introduce the nationality and borders bill but at the very least take the asylum and criminalisation because they are just going to make it worse and in fact through ended misspillicity the only idea Graham, we're actually going to move on to that topic at the moment and we really want to try and fit it in so we do have some questions round about the nationality and borders bill and the legislative consent memorandum so I'm going to bring Marie in on that and then we'll hand over to Pam Duncan Glancy after that so Marie McNair who joins us remotely if you could come in now please Thank you, convener and good morning panel put this question to Graham The Scottish Refugee Council has referred to the nationality and borders bill as an anti-refugee bill and argue that it's the biggest threat to refugee rights in decades we've also provided us with significant written evidence about the bill and the legislative consent memorandum and to also ensure there's oral evidence on record would you mind giving us a summary of your main concerns about the nationality and borders bill Thanks, Graham Thanks, Marie I mean, we have the greatest concerns about the nationality and borders bill those of us at work in the immigration and asylum fields are kind of almost assaulted with immigration and asylum legislation every three years it's heavily legislated and therefore there's a lot of instability that kind of stems out of that for people trying to make sense of the law and policy and immigration and asylum I say that by way of very brief context because the nationality and borders bill is different it is truly a new, nadir, new UK refugee law and policy it is a policy that is a new plan for immigration and legislation that is the nationality and borders bill that diverse the UK states link with the refugee convention its self and the refugee convention flowed out of an international community's revulsion at the horrors of the holocaust that's where it came from and it came from a result of this within the international community immediately after the second world war to say we can't have displaced peoples as at that point was happening across Europe not being able to get into countries to seek safety and refuge we need to do something we need to create a right for people if they need certain criteria to be able to get refuge now what the nationality and borders bill is to say several links as UNHCR says it renders it's incompatible with the UN refugee convention and it does that because the UN refugee convention provides that right of seeking safety within a territory and it also provides a protection for people who do that who not to be subject to criminal administrative penalties for seeking safety in a territory is there somebody coming to the UK by boat or you know I've been dropped off in a lorry in a car park that person should not be subject to criminal administrative penalties by dint of the fact the manner in which they've arrived because by its nature people who are seeking refugee protection can't get a travel document or a visa from those the states, the oppressive regimes that they're fleeing like somebody from the Taliban somebody's not going to go to the Taliban and say can I get a document so that I can flee away from you and the refugee convention recognise that and therefore treats with equanimity a regular arrival arrival without documents in the same way that it would with people who are arriving legally in with documents and that's a really important recognition that should built into the refugee convention and that is one of the ones that's enabled millions of people over 70 years to seek safety and to be safe and to rebuild their lives including relatively small numbers in the UK compared to the world globally in terms of refugee movements the nationality and borders bill reverses that principle so it doesn't treat with equanimity a regular arrival necessarily so from people seeking safety it will actually punish people for arriving irregularly and that's why we describe it as a severing of the link with it because in the UNHCR say it's incompatible because you can't have it both ways if you recognise in treat with equanimity a regular arrival there and not to subject people to criminal administrative penalties then you're complying with the refugee convention if you don't do that as this nationality and borders bill then what you're actually doing as the bill says is that you're replacing the current refugee protection policy in the UK with something different we think it's being replaced by a refugee punishment system a refugee punishment regime so if somebody from Afghanistan was to arrive once this bill becomes an act later on this year and seeks safety and arrives necessarily irregularly because they don't have the travel documents they just had to get away then that person will be absolutely subject to a set of interlocking penalties that's why we describe it as a penalty and a punishment regime immediately they'll be liable to the criminal offence of an lawful arrival 12 months minimum or four years in prison that's somebody fleeing a Taliban it could be a woman fleeing a Taliban they will be almost certainly placed into an accommodation centre isolated probably getting eight pounds a week as I was describing earlier they will not have any consideration for the first number of months of their substantive detection claim whereas the Home Office will then look to see how they can either remove that person through some thankfully they're not a place yet of shoring arrangement or have a re-admission agreement for the incomes to third country nationals to some distant states thankfully they don't have any of that at the moment either and they won't have any prospect of refugee leave five years limited leave to move on to settlement if they cannot be removed by the Home Office then the Home Office will then maybe grudgingly give the person what is called temporary protection status which is up to two and a half years temporary protection which may well be subject to any NRPF condition on it increasing the risk of destitution and they will not have any notable rights from what we can see in relation to family reunion either so the set of interlocking penalties visited upon somebody who necessarily arrives irregularly through the UK as a result of this bill and the people that will be subjected to that are people who are seeking refugees so we are very much to the view sorry I know that Miri has a further question and Andy wants to come in so Miri, could you ask her further question and thank you thank you for your comprehensive response there are significant issues to say at least with this bill any other members wish to add on that obviously I know that Andy wants to come in I know that we're going to push for time but it's a really important issue thank you very much it's a really important point to take Graham's comments and put them in context for what it's going to mean for individual living in Scotland and perhaps what we can do about it and what the committee can recommend to colleagues and the Parliament just following on from what Graham was saying I'm just going to read out a quote from the United Nations on this bill and it's really important that we understand this the quote says in short group 2 status is not only inconsistent with the refugee convention it is also a recipe for mental and physical ill health social and economic marginalisation and exploitation the human cost to the refugees and their families to do the children is obvious enough and deliberate because by definition refugees cannot go home the economic and social costs of their emiseration will ultimately be born by local authorities communities and the national health service that is a quote from the United Nations we do not enter the foray of domestic politics lightly and I think that really hits home what we're talking about here in terms of those broad reserved powers that are being implemented on individuals in Scotland and what's going to happen what's going to happen one or two other things I just wanted to touch on that's really important protection standards within the bill the law itself is being rewritten in this bill in order to reduce the prospects of obtaining protection for key groups like women and children particularly women being gender based violence age assessment there's lots in this bill about age assessment which reaches a very long arm into child law in Scotland Scottish local authorities are going to be compelled by the Home Office to conduct age assessments on children and young people or pass it on to a new national age assessment board their decisions will be binding on Scottish local authorities decisions that are made for immigration purposes binding on children services here to determine the eligibility of child protection services in Scotland scientific methods which have been long debunked as junk science and you will struggle to find a scientist in the UK in support of this certainly all the regulatory bodies are dead against it and the last thing I'll say is human trafficking and exploitation the measures that are being put forward in this bill are very regressive they penalise the late disclosure or rather of deeply traumatising incidents and anyone who works with survivors of trauma know that traumatic disclosure happens over a period of time you can't do that anymore off the back of this bill and that applies to men, women and children in Scotland this bill in terms of trafficking for people in Scotland and trafficking is a devolved issue is going after victims it's looking and trying to go after victims and reduce the number of people who are recognised as victims when you have less victims recognised you're going to have even fewer prosecutions this is going to inhibit Scottish criminal justice system going after traffickers as well so really no one wins I know that those two age assessment and trafficking are part of the LCM and I just want to put on record our views on that in addition to our written evidence thank you very much for that Andy that's very helpful Pam, do you have a few questions Pam Duncan-Glancy on this issue thank you convener and I'll be brief thank you for setting that out Andy and also to put on record the quote from the United Nations is Stark and this really is a new low for us I think this bill and I hope that it doesn't pass could you briefly possibly Andy if that's alright set out what we can do in Scotland in terms of ensuring the access to support that is available or that now needs to be available as a result of the bill if it were to pass what can we do in Scotland through councils or government here to try and protect people thank you for the question Pam I'm looking in the remote chat here and I think Graeme is lined up to answer this question he was desperate to answer it so it's good that you asked it so I'll pass over to Graeme for that okay Graeme and if you can be very brief because we do have a few questions left and we're over time thank you yeah I'll do a first in the brief the first of the five things we want to see happen is a less than consent motion to be approved by the Scottish Parliament so that the consent will be withheld in relation to the trauma notices and also the trafficking information notices and age assessment the second we would like to see the institution of our Scottish identification responsibility in relation to human trafficking and exploitation so the use of the section 9 powers in the 2015 legislation up here so that we have an intense human trafficking and exploitation protection process that makes initial decisions on trafficking status and then provide support and assistance which is already in that 2015 legislation and then crucially about whether somebody is to be recognised as a survivor of trafficked exploitation with any recommendations that that body would then make to the Home Secretary for leave to remain would be a logical thing truly needed now because the bill is going to really affect trafficking exploitation survivors' rights the furthest we want consideration to be given to a positive duty within the Scottish Human Rights Act to refugee migrant inclusion so that Scottish public authorities see the refugee and see the migrant in their standard work because the point of this nationality and borders bill is not to see the refugee is to reclassify the refugee in that really horrible term illegal migrant to illegal immigrant and remove all their rights and indeed criminalise them so it's really important that a Scottish Human Rights Act does that. The fourth is we want to see the law advocate produce clear human rights based guidance and instructions to prosecutors that is generally not in the public interest to prosecute what we would regard as refugees for this new and lawful arrival offence that is a critical safeguard to the public interest test that sits with the law advocate the absurdity and the perversity of, for example, people fleeing Syria or Iran or Afghanistan being criminalised through the Scottish criminal justice process for the unlawful arrival offence within this bill and the fifth is we think it's imperative that the Scottish Government conducts a review of its key national policies which have listed and written evidence including the human trafficking exploitation strategy including the ending of the institution and the strategy in new Scots refugee integration in the light of this bill because, as Andy Wightley said earlier among other things the institution is going to explode as a result of this bill if it's implemented so the Scottish Government must review those strategies strengthen them and we think adequately resource them. Thanks. Thank you very much for that Graham. We have a final two questions. We have one from Jeremy Balfour and another from Pam Gossel from the Equalities Committee who joins us remotely. Jeremy. Thank you. Two quick questions. The first one may be more helpful if you could put this in writing back just because it is quite a long answer. We've talked about the Afghan resettlement. My understanding was that if we look back slightly to the work that was done by the Scottish Government, UK Government and local authorities I'm a third sector among the Syrian refugees that came in that was very successful and I'm just wondering if you could respond to us to see what lessons have we learned from that and how do we implement that going forward. A question of clarification there seems to be some confusion in regard to children who are either refugees or asylum seekers being allowed to have bus passes under the new scheme and I wonder do you have any information on two children across Scotland who have this status at the moment or is it not? Does anyone have any information on that? If I could ask the first question which will require a detailed answer I think if we can get some of that in writing that would be fantastic and if anybody has anything to add about the under 22s bus I'm not sure Andy I can see that you've got your hand up. I will we're happy to put something in writing in respect of the Afghan resettlement scheme the lessons we learned from the Syrian resettlement scheme is that information around rights and entitements is absolutely critical from an immigration perspective for those who have arrived in the two key elements our refugee family reunion families who have been resettled are often potions of families their brothers sisters, parents sometimes even older children are very often left behind or scattered in the region and understand the way the first thing on their mind is to try and see them again refugee family is a complex area the communities the refugee communities we worked with in the resettlement scheme before was riddled with misinformation around what can be done to reunite people and it created almost like a boiling pot of hope and desperation to be honest with you that was unrealistic and the lesson we learned was that key concise information around this manages expectations and the second thing they'll need information and advice on is British citizenship as well as access to social security etc and the key lessons we learned and the children I don't have the answer on the bus passes for the unaccompanied minors apologies Okay thanks very much for that Andy and Pam's indicated that she doesn't have a question at this time but might for the next panel so thank you also very much for your evidence this morning and the written evidence that you've submitted to us and please do follow up on the points that we think that that would be warranted so I'm going to suspend briefly for up to five minutes so we can have a change of panel thank you very much we will now continue to take evidence on refugees and asylum seekers the format of the session will be the same as the previous panel and I welcome our next panel who are joining us remotely we've got Hatha and Dorasi from challenging violence against women project manager of community info source we have Phil Arnold, head of refugee services Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland we have Maggie Lennon who is the director of the bridges programme and we have Pena Asker who is human rights and advocacy coordinator at the Maryhill integration network and as in the first panel I'm hopeful that you are all able to join and listen in on that I will ask for synced questions and answers because there's a lot of information that we're trying to gather this morning from yourselves and there's a lot of interest from members here to be asking questions so please do put an R in the chat function if you have something to add equally do remember that you can follow things up in writing if you feel there's something important that we as a committee need to hear so again I'm going to start the questions and we have Jeremy Balfour who's going to come in first thank you and good morning to you panel thank you for joining us this morning some of you may have heard the questions previously and we will be starting from my perspective similar to the ones before and so if I can pick up maybe the issue of the over perhaps reliance of the central belt for people being accommodated and does anyone have a view of whether that there should be distribution across the order of Scotland and if so what are some of the challenges that we have in regard to that and if you don't have anything to say you can just agree with the previous comments but it would be interesting to know particularly around services that individuals need whether that's legal or in regard to health can that be provided in your opinion across Scotland or is it better just to keep it within a small number of local authorities and who would like to direct that to open to suggestions if anyone wants to jump in perhaps Thank you and thanks for the invitation to come to speak to the committee as well so the Red Cross is in support of dispersal across Scotland I think it's hugely important and especially when we're thinking around the role or we're seeing in terms of the use of institutional accommodation increasingly across the UK I feel it's completely contrary to areas of dignity and integration like the previous panel there's loads of issues around how dispersal works in practice and thinking through what that means funding was obviously mentioned as one of them there's other areas in terms of thinking around the specialist services that are going to be needed in those areas sometimes what we see is around a gaps in thinking about vulnerability and some of the concerns inside that often like has been mentioned there was quite a conversation around data in the last week part of the challenge around disclosure and issues of trauma is that often these emerge over time and we also see gaps inside vulnerability assessments to make effective decisions around the support that's going to be needed around individuals so the Red Cross has been advocating around a vulnerability screening tool to be used more effectively to help think through what the wraparound services may require inside some of that things around legal provisions things around access to health services and mental health services there's some very specialist services around access things like freedom from torture for example those sort of broader wraparound services that are incredibly important in terms of some of the vulnerability issues that emerge later on we have sort of significant concerns over some of the issues around mental health and around the role of more community based which other panel we have speak to about as well we've released various different reports about and it reflects on some of the comments that have come through previously around issues in the asylum accommodation and the standards around the length of the asylum determination process and other issues around that in a recent report far from home the Red Cross has released information around where we've got case files of 400 case files where we've got concerns of suicide ideation for people inside asylum accommodation and over just over a 12 month period and often these situations are coming down to some of the complexity around support and making sure that services are trauma informed but there is real space in thinking about how that works in a more effective way inside Scotland inside that. The other issue I just wanted to flag is that the universal is one part of it and access to community accommodation however it's also important to think long term in terms of integration considerations and one of the aspects after people get status is thinking through the family reunion and what happens in terms of integration of families on arrival and the Red Cross has been piloting a range of programmes across the UK that focus on family reunion integration where there is key opportunities for acting more preventively and opportunities for thinking through longer term integration for the family members so I think it's really important just to think through not just the initial arrival of people in the asylum system but also the longer term integration. I know that Pinar and Maggie would like to come in so Pinar over to you first and then Maggie. Thank you everybody and thank you to all the committee members for inviting me and fellow committee speakers as well just agreeing on a few points that Phil has also made as well I think one of the key aspects for us what is around the issue and concerns around integration especially when people are being dispersed into a remote areas where there is not a sport structure in place we have cases and we have people who have been calling us for support in terms of how do we set up groups how do we provide the support to people what support do people need so we have been getting a lot of questions from some of the areas especially at the moment with when the hotels are being used in some of the areas in Falkirk, Iskillbride, Perth and a few other cities as well and we find this really concerning because there is no long term structure in place and we have people who are potentially going to stay there for a short period of time and as Phil mentioned also there's no proper structure in place where people are having access to services and I think that's one of the key things is having access to services and access to information especially about their rights especially about what sport is in place and we have been having phone calls from some of the local areas from the local groups who are trying to provide sport but they don't know how to provide the sport and they don't know how long people are going to be in the accommodations and we were hugely saddened and disappointed to hear that Glasgow is no longer a dispersive city and we believe that this is going to have a long term impact on the work that we do and many other organisations within the sector who has been providing sport within the city for many years the concern about isolation and mental health is a huge one for us especially when you have people who have not been properly assessed and properly directed to services and you have them in accommodations especially in hotels for a period of time we believe that this is going to have a long term cause on individuals long term trauma long term mental health issues for people and there are no services in place although we do hear that there are some services in place however in practice we have phone calls and we have people who have no access to any sort of sport mechanisms and also just to add on the previous comment there were some questions around the Syrian resettlement programme what we felt and what we think one of the key aspects a learning point for us was that around using community based structures and having programmes in place where people do have access to legal rights, do have access to justice do have access to information we believe that that sort of programme helps people to integrate into community and learn about the local community that they will be calling home for the forsy in future I think I'd like to end here thank you Thanks very much for that Pinar and over to yourself Maggie Back to the original question I think I agree that why this dispersal could be a potentially very positive thing not least because of what we've seen with the process of the Syrian resettlement however it must be absolutely must be in partnership with local authorities and the Scottish Government to really resist any further attempt to put asylum seekers in areas away from the central belt when they're living in motels for institutionalised accommodation for all the reasons that we've heard I want to think about what happens when people get their status in remote areas of Scotland and force them to stay there while there are asylum seekers will they stay there when they want to get their status or will there be a desire to drift back to the central belt perhaps even other parts of the UK where there's a perception of more employment and we have to consider the implications of that making themselves homeless whatever so I think a lot needs to be done to prepare the local authorities so that they can offer a permanent home and there is some work being done on that at the moment we are in the legislation from colleagues on supporting a number of local authorities to do exactly that and I think a lot has to be done on prepping local authorities they are going to be taking large number of asylum seekers very different from taking large numbers of Syrians in the public perception where Syrians were seen as the good refugees they were seen what was happening in Syria and there was an outpouring of generosity and we know from last time that is not always the case when asylum seekers pretend to be demonised by the current hostile environment or put in an area and as we've been learning in the previous panel exactly what's going to happen to that group of asylum seekers refugees once the new bill comes in so it has to be very much with local authority approval and the specific areas that can certainly about dispersal away from main services is access to ESOL, English for speakers of other languages, that's critical and crucial and frankly a few hours of community ESOL a week doesn't cut it, concern about access to legal advice and concern about access to just general support advice for becoming ready to be prepared to live and work in the UK if status given. The Scottish Government will leave an integration from day one that simply cannot happen if you have people alienated from the community in institutionalised accommodation and I would also urge the committee to consider what's happened to the ESOL strategy in Scotland which used to be a standalone strategy which is now being sub-tuned into the adult learning strategy for Scotland and as a result is not getting the support and the prominence that it needs and there needs to be a much bigger investment in the ESOL of Scotland wherever it is at the moment. Thank you very much for that Maggie we're now going to move on to questions surrounding no recourse to public funds. I have my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy who wants to come in then Miles breaks after that and we'll go to Emma remote so over to your Pam thanks. Thank you convener and good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us and for the information you've given in advance and also thank you for all the work that you've done particularly during the pandemic but before that as well I know that the work you do is absolutely essential and I record my thanks to the previous panel as well. I had intended to say that first but got straight into questions. I have a couple of questions around no recourse to public funds and I'll try and group them all in the interests of time. I wonder if Phil you could tell us a little bit about what you're seeing coming through in your Scottish crisis fund and how that fund can help reach people with no recourse to public funds and how it could work perhaps with another more statutory offer for people with no recourse to public funds is there a mechanism for example to develop a bit of social security in Scotland that's sat out with the list and the Home Office have also could you maybe speak a little bit about the excellent peer support project as well that you launched last week how we will survive project so that we can have an understanding of the benefits of the recommendations thank you Phil? Thank you and thanks for the questions on the Scottish crisis fund there's part of the initial ending destitution together strategy under some of the action one as things start to get under way inside that strategy with inside that there's an initial pilot to try to provide an emergency cash grant to people at risk of homelessness including people who are in RPF it built off the back of work that the Red Cross was doing in distributing cash and enabling people to access this emergency cash and it's a crisis grant that's funded by the Scottish Government that is in a pilot phase that's looking at providing support to 600 people I think in terms of from the comments from the previous panel around some of the complexities and some of the issues around data gaps inside NRPF the ability to have data that's emerging from the use of emergency cash payments to understand the reasons why people are in those circumstances who's in those circumstances is actually critical and by enabling access to cash to everybody then it creates that safety net where we can start to learn about some of the issues it's a Scotland-wide crisis fund and we're happy to send some further details around how it's running but running across Scotland it does include referers who come from local authorities for example where it creates community practice for bringing referers together part of the questions around the complexity of no recourse to public funds and what we've heard in previous panels is around how does it work in terms of people's rights and entitlements and some of the complexities on NRPF so through having a space where practitioners can come together part of it is to understand how practitioners operate the types of responses that are taking place inside that those are around the circumstances of people's situations and how we can move to more preventative work rather than needing emergency cash provision as a sort of reflection as we've heard about as some of the data 600 grants is a very small tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential scale of need and it is a pilot we would hope for the sort of long term sort of support inside that to continue that bedrock what we've seen there's other sort of grants in other devolved countries as well that do similar things and we can see some of the impact of data coming through around how that can sort of help to plan services and think through the issues inside it I would say it's only one tool in a wider range of interventions that are really required emergency cash is a starting point and as the well as the sort of work such as the ending destitution together strategies sort of outlines there's real need for independent advocacy casework support and far stronger considerations around mental health implications and part of the issues around people who have got no records to public funds conditions is this confusion and separation from being able to access public services and other areas there and so which is partly how the report around how we will survive and working with peer educators and bringing in lived experience is really important around creating a safe space for people to come together around having a peer support space there so that people can understand their rights and entitlements far better that they're able to offer insights also around sort of co-producing policies and strategies and creating that space for lived experience to come through Scotland's got a very strong starting point for and other panel members will be able to speak about this about how we create space for people with lived experience to talk about how the issues that they're experiencing with inside the report it was a peer education a peer research report with people who had experienced destitution and it's just so key when we're thinking about how we design and develop services to make sure that people's lived experience is right at the heart of that planning and so one of the areas that we had been calling for was further Scottish Government support for peer support programmes inside Scotland to help create stronger social connections for people Pam, do you have any further questions? Thank you, I do, if it's okay. Thank you, convener and thank you very much for that fill, that's really helpful. Can I just move a bit on the kind of services approach and maybe ask Pinar to comment on the importance of local services like libraries et cetera in the absence of no recourse to public funds and just to say I think crisis funds and relying on money like that is not a long-term solution I think we do need to look at a much more structural systemic solution but could you describe the role of services in the absence of public funds? Yes, absolutely. I think one of the areas and one of the things that we have seen especially during Covid-19 was the on-going injustice and the on-going issues that people seeking asylum and refuge has been facing we've seen that the issue around digital inclusion many of the people don't have access to WiFi and one of the key reasons is again not being able to work so when people are seeking asylum and as a result of that they are not able to provide themselves with the essential needs that we would potentially be seeing everybody else providing we have people who are in the asylum process who cannot open bank accounts which means that that closes the door for potentially just a lot of the resources so not being able to have access to bank accounts then this follows and to not being able to have a WiFi in the house and not being able to then join groups to participate and that's one of the things that we have seen what we very quickly did was we provided digital equipment and WiFi for the people to participate in online groups and then we were able to secure some devices from Connect in Scotland scheme which was really helpful however we feel like this is not a solution for a long term we need more structures in place we need to talk about why asylum seekers cannot open bank accounts what would it mean if they were able to open bank accounts and obviously the libraries being closed during the pandemic was a huge hit to the community a lot of the service users we have go to the libraries to access to the internet, to access to computers to print some of the documents that needs to be given to the lawyers and unfortunately because we were closed as well so it was a huge barrier for the people in that aspect the other area that we have seen was that asylum support it was quite disappointing and inhumane that the total amount of increased asylum support during the pandemic was 26 pence 26 pence is nothing it's very dehumanising to even talk about giving people an increase of 26 pence to asylum support and this automatically connected with the issues around food insecurity people not having access to food and when we were referring people to food banks the whole issue around food banks in itself was another topic but the food that was not being there the food which was not being taken into account the food that people would have in relation to that aspect there are a lot of issues that people have been facing that was highlighted I think during Covid-19 and I think access to social places access to services was a huge one and as the previous speakers also mentioned about it as well the access to easel classes is a huge one that we are having having two hours a week is nothing we have people who has been waiting in the queue for access to colleges for easel classes and we ourselves can not contact the colleges for easel provision to get a clear idea of when people are when there might be places for people so I can't even imagine people trying to have that information for themselves and one of the key things that we've seen was the people within our groups to support themselves they were sharing information amongst themselves but we are really concerned for just moving forward how these provisions not being in place is going to impact on people and in terms of again just going back to the dispersal and the local sport in the area we are based in Maryhill but we support the community wider in Glasgow and what we've recently also learned is that the houses the flats in Maryhill is potentially going to be knocked down and we are hugely concerned how this is going to impact on the asylum seekers who are also living in the flats in Wanford Road which is just behind in Maryhill area so we are really concerned again people are going to be dispersed into more remote areas where there is no sport mechanisms in place the other huge area that we are really concerned is the importance of people facing discrimination and racism and when people are scared to report these incidents because of the fear that people have from the home office and the police as well and then obviously these cases are not reported and then when we look at statistics then statistically we say that we don't have any issues around hate crime or incidents of racism so this is again another area to provide information about how to report we are a third party reporting place so we potentially use that aspect of the work we do but this is something within the asylum and refugee community that has not been even looked into there was a case that when we were running an online meeting in our men voices group and the live on the call we had a member who literally witnessed a hate crime when a group of people threw a stone in their window and this was really shocking for us and then the person just disconnected and obviously we had to follow up later on but these are just one case and we are talking about many cases across the city that people don't know their rights and people don't know how to report I could go in to talk about issues that I think I'll stop there Thank you very much Pena for that and that was a wee bit of powerful testimony there from yourself on this point before I hand over to my colleague Miles Briggs Hassan? Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity and for inviting me for this as well unfortunately I missed a lot of the first panel but I have been listening to what feel Pena and Maggie were talking about I do agree on the dispersal that it's good to have a dispersal but everything could be taken into account and Maggie and Pena has picked out on ESOL classes which is the language barrier where people should be well assessed and supported on that the ESOL classes actually we are having a problem with that because of the digital poverty as well as there is any provision for people to join online for example the ESOL classes we got some volunteers who are helpful and would like to go extra mile to help people in everything but dealing with people due to the digital poverty as well as there is no provision to support them given them data to join the classes this is another issue the second thing which was also talked about the bank account yes the bank account this has been a problem to give provision to asylum seekers first of all the home office makes a restriction where you cannot send an amount to asylum seekers to give them money there are some families who have been allowed to open bank account but this was not all the asylum seekers know about it and there is no funding as well to cover everything so this is the issue it has been long making the mental health impact on people with the people that you work with my the project that I work with is the gender-based violence or the violence against women in general through working with men but in connection we do have a work with women as well so all the things the impact that these things leave is very great by Phil which is a non-records public fund actual these are categorised by three people where there are people who have got status and they are non-records public funds people who have been refused and they have become non-records public funds and there are people who have been refused but they are not known to the public or they are not known even the home office doesn't know where they are about these people during the pandemic we were looking through them so we called them hidden asylum seekers these are not known they are still in the asylum process because their asylum process has been hidden for a long time and these are the most vulnerable in the community they were actually like taking part of that because they have been using friends and family members asylum seekers are only living in 5.36 per week per day which is not enough this is being shared with those people who have no recourse to public funds so no recourse to public funds should be dealt with appropriately I know that the Scottish Government is doing its part on that but I think a lot need to be done on this thank you very much I'm going to bring in Miles Briggs and then Emma Roddick thank you, thank you, good morning to the panel, thanks for joining us I wanted to carry on this theme of questioning and looking specifically at frameworks around this so COSLA had issued a framework guidance on supporting people with no recourse to public funds during the pandemic and that guidance is currently being updated so I wanted to ask the panel looking at how that's been rolled out across local authorities we have heard and had written evidence around inconsistencies so I wondered given your experience where you've seen that I'll maybe bring in Maggie and then if anyone else wants to come in can they put an R in the chat thanks Maggie? The discretionary element of the support that's being made available the problem with discretionary funding so there is no guarantee that it will be used in the way that it was perhaps intended and that can be influenced by a huge number of issues so we've seen particular problems in Glasgow and Edinburgh where the need is greatest I think without going into too much detail about COSLA's report because I know that they've already given both written and verbal evidence on this I think there's so much confusion around no recourse to public funds not just in understanding what it covers but I think with policy makers on what it means and I think if we simplify it and simply make the case that no recourse to public funds is a public health matter pure and simple then that should give you a road map to know how to deal with it and I think where there is massive confusion from local authorities and from the third sector is understanding how it is that Scottish welfare payments and yet in terms of eligibility re-immigration are so reserved and this conflict is what's causing the problems so there are some welfare payments and there are some payments which are not included there are others which are I couldn't tell you the list frankly and I've been working in the sector for 20 years I think I know quite a lot of stuff so there's a huge amount of work that the Scottish Government needs to do to make those things clear and I would suggest respectfully that there's a lot of work that the Scottish Government needs to do in order to try and draw these powers back and defend them and if that can't be done then mitigation along a public health line of thinking needs to be put in place that it's not just discretionary and that it's not continually putting money into fantastic pilots like Phil was talking about but I would agree with a member who said that that kind of one-off sticking plaster approach is not sufficient we do not know the number of people in Scotland who are covered by no recourse to public funds I would agree with the speaker from the last panel that the figure of 9,000 is woefully inadequate so I appreciate it's very difficult to plan a service when you don't know that but frankly we've never really known all the figures about everything to do with asylum and refugee figures in Britain for 20 years and we've managed to do that but if you start thinking about it as a public health issue then that might give you a way to think about how it needs to be addressed thank you very much for that Maggie thank you for that, I'm not sure if anyone else wanted to come on in on that point I wanted to move on to specifically look at models though which are in place to support unaccompanied children and young people and what that looks like and how that sort of model could be developed so I wondered how that is very different and how services do engage directly with these young people as well and where that could be a model that we could look at as a committee as well Phil? Question The British Road Cross has a youth service with Insight Glasgow that provides support for young people navigating through the assignment process and who are often inside Scotland trying to access services and start life inside Scotland but one of the key things that I would flag inside inside this is often we are really in support of the guardianship service and I think it should be extended and expanded to age disputed young people as well one of the considerations that we have when we are supporting young people is when people are in Scotland and have been assessed as being an adult they are often going through quite a complex process of challenging their age and obviously there is recognition with Insight the list that changes around this to consider what we see inside is obviously there is huge complexity of the age assessment process and it needs to stay with specialist social workers who have the time to undertake those assessments and there is also such a huge weight around people's age and sometimes the process of going through an age assessment process itself can be quite traumatic it can raise questions about people's identity to their family abroad at points in which young people are isolated and when we see some of the impact of this for about over the last few years we supported three dozen young people who have been going through the age challenging in terms of age dispute and over half of them had their stated age recognised that takes significant periods of support on average we provide over 10 months of support for those young people and during that period of time they are living as in adult accommodation facing various safeguarding concerns and welfare concerns and various other issues and we feel like there is definitely space inside Scotland to provide a more holistic service for young people inside this context Thank you very much for that answer fell if it is okay males I need to move on I will bring in Emma Roddick who is joining us remotely a quick question Emma Roddick Thank you, convener This question is really for Phil and it kind of follows on from my colleague Pam's questions earlier in terms of distributing the crisis grant have there been any lessons that you have learned that might be helpful to the Scottish Government or to local authorities when considering any future changes to the likes of the welfare fund to provide support for asylum seekers? Thank you So what I would say is that it is very early stage so we are only sort of six months in and in terms of the level of distribution there is around which provides support to over 300 people inside that context so it is very early stages to draw any conclusions inside it I think there is definitely space for thinking through how some of the access to the Scottish welfare fund can cause issues and so we have had inquiries about can we expand the fund to reach more people for example with particular groups of people who are struggling to access the Scottish welfare fund sometimes things like access through language issues and an ability to apply for support with inside that so there are insights but it is anecdotal at this stage so it is sort of a longer term picture to really draw out some of the lessons inside that Thank you Emma, do you have anything further? Is that your answer? Yes, just one more question I thought for Asan in the previous session we did speak an awful lot about the particular effect of an RPF on women are there other groups particularly that share protected characteristics which are also disproportionately impacted by the policy? Asan? Thank you very much for the question I exclusively work with men but we do have a partnership with organisations who are working with women by extensions of working with men we do know that this has a great effect on working with as I said previously we have known that there are people who have not been known that they are an RPF that they don't have and the Home Office has forgotten about them altogether and they are just leaving on the handouts of some charities and leaving with the asylum seekers as well who are getting only 5.39 pounds per day this has a great effect on the people because it impacts on their mental health first of all the second thing is they have not developed themselves for the last few years that they have been on the asylum process so if some of them are with families which is also a big burden to them and those who are single are also having a greater impact on them so an RPF for us if we are going to take from the men's perspective it has been impacting on the people whether it is in their career or career development as well as there are some people who are on an RPF but they have been having some qualifications back at home they can't work because they don't have the status those people who have an RPF can't work far more better than those who are on the asylum process or who have been forgotten by the system all together so it is a kind mixed thing where some of the NRP people can be working because they have the status and those who don't have the status who have been struggling are just leaving on the handouts of some charities thank you very much for that Haasan can I bring in Fosal I understand that Pam Gosel has a further question on the NRPF after that Fosal thank you very much after the powerful statement from Pinar I just wanted to ask a small question given the squeeze on the local authorities do you or the panel think that current third sector support is attainable for Pinar or Haasan Pinar thank you that's a really good point and I think the support and what is left for the third sector and the people on the ground is a lot and we are facing that and we are doing that on a daily basis and we have been doing that for many years and we have seen that during the pandemic how the third sector and the local group ends up doing a lot of the work that the other especially local authorities, mayors are supposed to be doing and I think that this has a huge impact obviously on the stretch of the organisations and how we continue providing the support I'll just like to go back to say that we need to look at the root causes of these issues that we're talking about handing people vouchers handing people travel expense is not a solution is not a long-term solution the root causes of these issues such as not being able to work especially for people seeking asylum how dehumanising that is how it stops for people to contribute to economy and fulfil their skills and to share their expertise we need to look at the root causes of these which is looking at the time for decision we have members that we witness when we started working with them when they arrived to the community very new five years, six year passes and we look at the same member and we look at the difference in them we look at how they have changed and how they are not they don't have any hope anymore and the pressure that has on people on their wellbeing, on their mental health and we see that these people and they don't want to do anything anymore and we are seriously concerned about the welfare and the wellbeing of the people yes, the third sector does a lot yes, the local group and networks does a lot but it shouldn't be us doing the work that the authorities should be doing such as mayors when we see that when people are in hotels when people are dispersed into accommodations we have cases where people's fridges are not working where it's not being fixed for weeks potentially for a month and then we have to provide that sport it shouldn't be us providing the sport it should be the authorities and those who actually gets the funding in places doing the work and yes just going back to look at the root causes and I think it's really important the social justice and social security committee looks at the root causes and discusses what we can do in Scotland what we can do within the powers that we have especially around health, education and justice Thank you very much for that Pina I know that other people wanted to come in but we are running really short on time so I'm going to hand over to Pam Goswell to ask another question on No Recourse to Public Funds Thank you convener and good morning panel it has been reported that the discretionary grant matched the social isolation support grant being accessible to the people to subject to NRPF however there was confusion and lack of awareness that this was available for those with NRPF in light of this what can be done to make people with NRPF aware of the support available to them and I think my question would go to Pinar Pinar over to yourself Thank you I think working with the organisations and groups who provide the direct support is really important and making sure that we are aware of it and also that the structure is in place for people to apply and the structure is very clear so the way that usually obviously we operate as we get the information and then we have a process of giving the information to the asylum community and the refugee community so I think that information needs to be quite transparent and the way that it's accessible needs to be very clear as well and potentially produced in different languages I would say some people's first language is obviously not English so if that's the case then we end up translating or some of our staff speaks a few languages and we end up translating the document ourselves so maybe having a more clear way of explaining the document or having the processes in place would be quite useful I would say Yeah, thanks Thank you very much for that answer, Pinar We're now going to move on to questions regarding the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme and my colleague Natalie Dawn would like to come in Natalie I just want to say a truly heartfelt thanks to the panel that your comments and responses have been very helpful I just want to focus on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme so the scheme itself has received some criticisms based on the limitations and eligibility and the fact that the UK Government are counting Afghan refugees that are currently in the UK within the total number so I'm just wondering what your views are on the eligibility to the scheme and if I could come to Pinar first please I think in the previous panel Graham has hugely commented on this but I would like to say that I'm really worrying to see the Prime Minister prioritising animals being taken out from Afghanistan than people themselves being taken out and this is a huge concern when you look at the category and when you compare it with the Syrian resettlement programme it's taking its time and it's not being done properly at the moment and I think in Scotland what the Scottish Government could do is to keep pushing and to keep saying that there are people that needs to be taken out as soon as possible and then having the structures in place I mean I was really really concerned and surprised to find out that the same hotels is being used to house the people from Afghanistan and when we looked at the figure that Graham earlier mentioned it doesn't make sense it looks like a big business where the private sector is just benefiting from this and the people are having no benefit from it the organisations who are meant to be providing the support are not seeing any of the benefits in terms of information and in terms of having the structures in place so it's extremely concerning about this and what could be done more is we need to keep pushing to the UK Government and obviously the Scottish Government needs to keep pushing as well and having the infrastructure structures in place and not having hotel accommodation or having the hotel accommodation as a way of housing the people from Afghanistan as well as people who are seeking asylum and I really liked what Maggie mentioned earlier it's the idea of a good refugee and a bad refugee we need to see the people who are seeking asylum and refuge not put the illegal label on them and we need to create the structures where it's community based normalising the use of hotel accommodations as a place of initial dispersal process or as a place of having asylum centres and what we are witnessing in Scotland is exactly what's happening the hotels is being normalised and I think as the committee and in Scotland we need to oppose this right now before any huge concerns happen and we have seen what happened in Glasgow when we lost Adnan and Richard in the park in the hotel but we need to immediately look into the usage of the hotel accommodation widely thank you for that Pinar and Natalie I know that Maggie would like to come in Maggie it's very difficult for us to comment on the eligibility because we don't know what it is there is no application process for this at all it's increasingly opaque we understand that there will be a referral pathway to the NGOs but we don't know the details of that and we know that the USCHR are being asked to identify people but there's a suggestion that some of the people that are identifying people who are in Pakistan not from the current period of flight but from the one ten years ago and that seems unclear and Annick Josley because that's who we can go on at the moment from the people we support we're here in the Afghan families here how to go about getting their families on the list and the same in Pakistan they're at a loss so we don't know the system I think it unlikely that it will be 20,000 in total of five years because as you've pointed out they will increasingly count the people who came on the Arab scheme that's people who worked for the British Government who are already here and during the process of being resettled so I think really what our focus needs to be on is what happens to them why in the UK is they're put in bridging hotels in Scotland how we ensure people who are put in hotels in Scotland are able to stay in Scotland where they will get a much better integration experience than elsewhere in the UK and we know that because of all the work we've done in the past Thanks, thank you Natalie, do you have any further questions? No further questions, convener That's great, thank you so much I'm going to move on to questions from my colleague Marie McNair I'm going to ask some questions about the nationality and borders bill and the legislative consent memorandum, Marie Thank you, convener Good morning, panel This question is to Phil Arnold from the British Health Cross In your written briefing you state that if the bill becomes law it will reduce access to sound system incentivise dangerous journeys add to delays with the sound system and reduce support available Can you expand on those points for the committee? Yes The Red Cross has got some wider briefings that we'd be happy to send in afterwards as well for further details about some of the issues The bill is the largest transformation that we're seeing for asylum policy and there's so many different aspects inside it that will both distract prevent people's ability to access both the UK and also the asylum determination system Graham earlier on had outlined just the depth of the changes that are coming through I guess just in terms of a few different reflections inside that the impact inside Scotland around the grouping of refugees will have a significant impact in terms of people's ability to see on NRPF, length of stay around family reunion rights around other aspects about how they go on longer term settlement routes which will significantly impact destitution, it will have a very harmful impact on people's ability to integrate and to be inside the UK if they can get status The one stop approach inside the bill will fundamentally risk people's credibility which is I think it was Andy who talked about the impact of disclosure around how that doesn't necessarily come out at the earliest point so we expect so you've got issues around that but also around things like the inadmissibility process about who can access the asylum system what we'll see is a prolonged period of time in which people are struggling to access the determinations which have a significant impact on mental health, on or around access to services, on people's ability to integrate and from a it comes back a little bit obviously not at this stage in terms of thinking through capacity but in terms of capacity inside voluntary sector to be able to change to adapt to some of the changes that are taking place is going to be incredibly difficult often we're being called in to understand how the changes will impact different groups of people to understand what their rights will be to deal with the issues around destitution and humanitarian consequences is going to be incredibly difficult to mitigate any of that I think that in terms of the time I'm happy to sort of follow up in terms of other areas of detail with inside the bill Thank you very much, Mary Do you have any further questions? Yes I do, thanks Cymru of the panel who want to comment again we're kind of pushed for time but what is your knowledge of the provision of support for victims of human trafficking that consent should be be felt on this clause? Is that to Phil? Just anyone it can answer, thanks I can't see any hands up because I'm just right, I've got Maggie Maggie, thank you Short answer, yes they must be told consent on this absolutely as they should with anything that is crossing and cutting cost involved and my understanding is it cuts across entirely our own human trafficking legislation and it's going to make it very difficult for Scottish courts to be able to identify who are victims of trafficking and then work out how the best way is to support them because it's all being based on an immigration consensus and that is clearly wrong it's against the current human rights and our briefing was specifically on the issues around human rights and has it affected asylum seekers and refugees and the number of times that even was in a Scotland which has committed to human rights that is being undermined and I think too often it's easy to hide behind the fact that things are reserved to say that it's not our fault we can't do anything about it but I think where we can we must so I would absolutely support the LCM if passed by Parliament, I hope it is Thank you so much for that Maggie Thank you, convener, for the questions I've got two final questions and we are over time but I think we need to hear them from Pam Duncan-Glancy and then from Jeremy Balfour Pam Thank you, convener, and I'll group as much as I can together. Firstly, the question I have is to Pinar from Maryhill Integration Network last week Councillor Susan Aitken told the committee that there was no pause on dispersal and that it was a myth but I'm conscious of what you've said in your submission and what you've told us today so could you share your views on Glasgow's temporary pause on single mail asylum seekers and given that this group to make up a majority of asylum seekers the impact this will have and then could possibly yourselves and the Red Cross comment on the use of hotels and whether or not you believe the Scottish Government could be doing something with the Home Office to look at reshaping how they used that 1.277 billion we heard about earlier to put people in better accommodation in Scotland and what they could do as a proposal through local authorities on that and very very last we've had a lot of constituents contact us to say that whilst the Scottish Government have said under 22s who are asylum seekers or refugees do have access to bus passes the free bus system we get a lot of constituents telling us that they can't access it so could you tell us a little bit about why you think that might be so that we can help address it thanks we've got a lot of questions in there and what I would say to the panel members that you can't submit some stuff in writing so try and keep your answers as brief as possible please and Pinar, thanks absolutely, thank you for those questions I would like to read just a sentence from the news that was published by BBC that Susan Aikins had commented that says that Councillor Lee, the Susan Aikins told the BBC the ban would continue while the scheme was run on the cheap so the evidence is there it's in the news that was said that there is a ban on the Glasgow City Council being as a dispersal city so I don't have anything else to comment but to say that it's clearly in the news that could be searched up and we are greatly concerned how this is going to impact on the work we do and for the future as well in terms of the hotel accommodation and using accommodation we have recently found that one of the hotels that has sadly passed away is still being used in Glasgow also accommodating single people and families with children and the same hotel is where Adnan passed away and in the same hotel people are still being accommodated without any sort of support for the people where again the local communities and sectors are being made to fulfil that area there is a huge confusion for us because whenever we go to Glasgow City Council it's not our responsibility to contact Glasgow City Council whenever we go to Glasgow City Council it's not our responsibility to contact the home office so there seems to be a triangle going around where the ball is being passed from one person to another which is extremely confusing for everybody and we are talking about people's lives who are being accommodated which is not in line with any sort of the aspects and legislations we have in Scotland in terms of using hotels once again I would like to say that we should not normalise this we should not be made to normalise the usage of hotel accommodation as part of the dispersal process we say this from the very beginning and we heard earlier we believe that integration starts from day 1 not in hotels across the country and people should not be made to fulfil the obligations and fulfil the work of the authorities who are supposed to be doing this work so we are hugely concerned about the usage of hotel accommodation and for the welfare that this is going to have on people in terms I could comment about this more but maybe I should give some written evidence and testimonies later on in terms of bus pass because we actually had a few members this week saying that when they are trying to complete the application form it asks for some form of ID which is passport and people obviously who are in the asylum process do not have that and they have not been able to access the bus passes and we were going to raise this with our local MP but I'm glad that the committee is also looking into this because it's going to impact what we work with and just to finally highlight to say that we do not support the usage of hotel accommodations and we think that it is going to have a huge impact on people while they are staying in hotels and we should not be made to normalise this aspect Thank you very much for that, Pinar If anybody else would like to add anything to that could you please submit it to us in writing in the interest of time Thank you In the interest of time rather than getting a verbal update it would be helpful if you have any information on that Matt is in regard to the Syrian refugees that came into the country Just any lessons learned both positively and negatively in regard to that one and in particular things that we can learn to do differently going forward but perhaps we could do that in writing if you have information on that Okay, so I've seen lots of nodding heads that we will get those answers in writing and Hassan, thank you very much for the comment in the chat we will take a note of that So, thank you very much to all of our witnesses this morning and to Pam Gossel who joined us from her other committee That concludes the public part of this morning's meeting at our next meeting on 24 February we'll be taking evidence on kinship cares as part of our work to explore the committee's remit and established key priorities for this session We're now going to move into private session to consider the remaining agenda items and members to join us online via the link in your calendar for teams Thank you very much everybody