The idea that people leave their homeland, their family, their friends and spend all they’ve got on highly dangerous clandestine journeys, just to claim British benefits — it is just not serious. Yet the reasoning that asylum seekers come to cash in on ‘soft touch’ Britain remains unchallenged by both major political parties. Where is their evidence? There has been no dent in the number of asylum seekers arriving in Britain since the introduction of vouchers. Yet faith in the deterrent power of vouchers seems unshakeable.

If vouchers do not achieve the Government’s stated aim, they do achieve its unacknowledged purpose, namely to punish asylum seekers and their families. This is not a by-product of an otherwise desirable policy, or what politicians call ‘collateral damage’. This is an intrinsic part of policy. It reveals blatant double-standards, and demolishes any claim by New Labour to ‘joined up’ government. Two recent events provide ample illustration.

On 28th November, a group of teenagers who came to Britain as unaccompanied asylum seekers gave evidence to the House of Commons All Party Group on Refugees. Amongst their experiences, they described what it is like to have to shop with vouchers. Zuhra Bahman, from Afghanistan, put it thus: ‘You’re at Sainsburys, waiting your turn, and being embarrassed and you have a red face. You feel you’re being different in the sense of not being as well as everyone else… On the one hand, they say they want us to mix, but on the other, vouchers are a stamp — this person doesn’t belong here, isn’t one of us.’ All the young witnesses said they didn’t like people to know they were asylum seekers — it had become a dirty word.

The treatment of these children is in total contrast to the Government’s stated policy for ‘our’ children. Labour’s second term, according to Chancellor Gordon Brown, will make the needs of children and families ‘a major feature’ in the coming election manifesto. The aim, he said in a speech on 5th December, is to lift a further 1 million children from the poverty that is ‘a scar on Britain’s soul.’ The message could not be clearer — asylum children count as asylum seekers, not children. ‘Save the Children Fund’ has recently launched its campaign ‘Children First’ to get these priorities reversed.

The second of the two events took place in London on 6th December. This was a conference organised by the Maternity Alliance to assess the provision of interpreting in the NHS in the context of post Stephen Lawrence anti-discrimination policy. The need to communicate was not an optional extra, speaker after speaker said, but a vital need. To deny it — particularly to mothers — was discriminatory and directly damaged the health and well-being of women and children. Asylum seekers were the focus of great concern. ‘We must respond to diversity, Tara Kaufmann, head of Policy and Planning at the Royal College of Midwives told the conference. She said that new arrivals, often asylum seekers, came with ‘quite daunting physical and health needs’. In a genuinely non-discriminatory and anti-racist society, these needs had to be addressed.

The incoherence of Government policy is underlined by the fact that the Home Office funded the Maternity Alliance conference.

Government policy is conspicuously to exclude asylum seekers from mainstream policies. While everyone who has direct dealings with asylum seekers sees the link between racism and immigration, New Labour tries to ring-fence the two issues in separate compartments. Thus, according to one London lawyer, a woman, after giving birth in London is dispersed up north as soon as the midwife says she is fit to travel. ‘It doesn’t matter’, he says, ‘that she knows no one, she has no community, no support.’

Vouchers are, again, at the centre of such discriminatory practice. Labour announces plans to increase maternity pay to £100 a week, we learn on December 8th. Only the previous week, the news was filtering out that the once-off £300 maternity grant is not provided in cash to asylum seekers, but in vouchers. This means shopping is limited to new goods in a small number of outlets, and no access to a second-hand pram. Mothercare will be grateful.

Not surprisingly, there has been a groundswell of protest against vouchers, not least organised by the NCADC, in co-operation with ‘Human Too’, the campaign for fair treatment of asylum seekers. Their lobbying comes on top of heavyweights, OXFAM, and Bill Morris of the Transport and General Workers Union. It was in order to stave off a Labour Party Conference censure motion that Ministers agreed to review support arrangements for asylum seekers. In particular, they promised an immediate review of the no change rule, which is the target of the OXFAM campaign.

The review did not start until over two months after the Labour Party Conference. It turned out to be a poor thing indeed: it was held by the Home Office and headed by the Immigration Minister, Barbara Roche MP. No one has much faith in it, least of all Bill Morris, who is reportedly furious at what he sees as a whitewash.

While the formal deadline for making submissions to the review may have passed on 22nd December that should not stop people giving evidence. Why not write to your MP setting out your concerns and asking them to press the government to abolish the voucher system altogether and return to a cash-based benefits system at Income Support levels. In this way asylum seekers will be treated the same way as everyone else while their claims are being decided.

Human Too campaign for Fair Treatment of Asylum Seekers

Jennifer Monahan