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Making asylum work

27 October 2003

Asylum seekers and economic migrants can be an asset as well as a cost. Letting them work while their cases are considered is useful for society and saves money, too.

Last week the schools inspectorate Ofsted published a report on the education of asylum seeker pupils in British schools. It is a topic that has generated a good deal of heat in political and journalistic circles, so the introduction of some factual research into the debate is a welcome development.

It was, according to David Bell, the chief inspector, an unalloyed good news story. Schools were in general coping well with the demands made upon them and many instances were cited of initiatives designed to assist with the integration of non-English speakers into their new environment. Particularly striking were the consequences of the government's dispersal policy for asylum seekers. This has led to relatively large numbers turning up in the shire counties, and although the schools here were the least well equipped in resources and experience to receive them, the impact of this unfamiliar stimulus on the cultural life of the schools was notably well-received and positive.

The report is not over-long and repays reading. It reaffirms faith in human nature when confronted with the human face of an otherwise de-personalised political football. It also contains an important message in its subtext for a government that might be tempted to approach this debate with a generalised political gambit that ignores the human reality. That reality exists not only in the experiences of the asylum seekers, but also in the experiences of the British people who interact with them, and hear their experiences, and talk to their friends and neighbours about what they learn. The government should remember that, unlike asylum-seekers, these people vote.

Asylum seekers, even those they fall into the supposedly "bogus" category of economic migrants, have, in almost every case, two characteristics in common. The first is that they have come from a background of considerable hardship. This could be merely extreme poverty but it is likely to include fear, persecution, brutality and even torture. The second is that they have endured further extreme hardship, fear, uncertainty and suffering in the journey that has taken them from their own countries to the English shires.

These personal histories are not fanciful or exaggerated. They represent an experience that goes far beyond what is available to most people who are born and brought up in Britain. They necessarily trigger in the people who hear them feelings of sorrow, anger, frustration and a desire to help. They sit uneasily with the description by politicians and commentators of asylum seekers as "a problem" since they draw attention to real problems of global poverty, unfair international trade, the sale of weapons of torture and repression and the propping up of repressive regimes to which the policies of the governments of wealthy countries such as Britain daily contribute.

And what the Ofsted report further highlights is that the relationship that is triggered by the direct encounter of Britons and asylum seekers is by no means one way. Asylum seeker families bring to British schools an unusually high degree of support and commitment from the parents. For teachers this is manna from heaven. It is positive for the school community generally and counters the popular image of asylum seekers as needy or dependent and with nothing to give.

Nor is this the extent of their potential contribution. Political and economic migrants are survivors who have already faced down considerable odds. It is self-motivated migrants like these who built the United States, and if the determination that has brought them to Britain can be made use of (rather than being stifled through a life on benefits, denied the right to work; or, worse still, in a detention centre), there is real potential for the positive contribution that these schools are experiencing to go further into the economic and social life of the country.

This observation has relevance for the other major asylum announcement of last week, the decision to grand indefinite leave to remain to 15,000 or so asylum-seeking families who have been in the country for over three years and are still awaiting a final resolution of their case. The decision has been presented by the government as "clearing the decks" for the new, tougher regime, and justified on grounds of economy and humanitarian values. This latter point reveals an important truth. In his statement the Home Secretary observes that the system "does not manifest itself only in statistics but in the lives of real families in our communities... MPs from all sides appeal to me for such families to be allowed to stay in the UK every week."

One is reminded, as was pointed out in this column on 11 August, that no one likes to see families uprooted from their homes and schools. What is striking, however, is that, of the 15,000 families, about 12,000 are living on state benefits because they are stuck in a system that does not permit them the right to work. And this despite the fact that they are now integrated in other respects into local communities in which their perilous status may not even be known. As it is, they are a £180 million per annum charge, which is well over half a billion pounds spent so far on upholding the doubtful principle that asylum seekers should not seek work.

The principle is a conflation of two ideas: firstly that for asylum seekers to work would lead to a de facto integration that would make subsequent removal more difficult, and secondly a throwback to the days when unemployment was rife and there was fierce competition for the few jobs that there were. These days, migrants bring useful skills. The problem is that they can be forced into inappropriate (and illegal) menial work at rates of pay that undercut the minimum wage. This harms the legitimate job market and makes no contribution in tax or the reduction of benefits.

Mr Blunkett's announcement merely legitimises a fait accompli. Few of his 15,000 families were ever likely to leave. By acknowledging that fact he is saving a wedge of money in benefits and the costs of appeals. But if these people were holding down useful, legitimate jobs, would we want them to leave, anyway? The objection from Tory detractors that Mr Blunkett's decision sends the signal that if you can establish yourself in Britain you'll probably be allowed to stay is no objection at all since the signal is entirely appropriate. Arguably, the best way to select migrants is on the basis of who has the strength to make it to the country and then who has the enterprise and initiative to survive.

This principle of selection cannot, of course, be applied literally without the risk of significant abuses of human rights. But it points the way towards a more pragmatic approach to political and economic migration that starts from the principle of "taking what comes". It is particularly appropriate in cases where whole families arrive; the interests of migrant children will almost invariably dictate the creation of conditions of stability, which cannot then be ruptured without causing significant harm. For this reason it can be hoped and expected that the current amnesty for families will not be the last, and that the positive contribution from asylum seekers already being felt in schools and communities will make such amnesties increasingly acceptable. It is a process that would be greatly helped if asylum seekers were permitted to work from the outset to demonstrate their usefulness and reduce the cost of sustaining them.

Ofsted report: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/index.cfm?fuseaction=pubs.summary&id=3418