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Refugees Welcome? the Experience of New Refugees in the UK a Report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees

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Refugees Welcome? the Experience of New Refugees in the UK a Report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees Refugees Welcome? The Experience of New Refugees in the UK A report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees April 2017 This is not an official publication of the House of Commons or the House of Lords. It has not been approved by either House or its committees. All-Party Parliamentary Groups are informal groups of Members of both Houses with a common interest in particular issues. The views expressed in this report are those of the inquiry panel only, acting in a personal capacity, based on the evidence they received and heard during the inquiry. The printing costs of the report were funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust. Refugees Welcome? 2 Refugees Welcome? About the All Party About the inquiry Parliamentary Group This inquiry was carried out by a panel of Parliamentarians on behalf of the APPG on Refugees, with support provided by the Refugee Council. The panel consisted on Refugees of members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They were: The All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees brings together Parliamentarians from all political parties with Thangam Debbonnaire MP (Labour) – an interest in refugees. The group’s mission is to provide Chair of the APPG on Refugees and the inquiry a forum for the discussion of issues relating to refugees, Lord David Alton (Crossbench) both in the UK and abroad, and to promote the welfare of refugees. David Burrowes MP (Conservative) Secretariat support is provided to the All Party Lord Alf Dubs (Labour) Parliamentary Group by the charity The Refugee Council. Paul Butler, the Bishop of Durham For more information about the All Party Parliamentary Group, Baroness Barbara Janke (Liberal Democrat) please contact [email protected]. Anne McLaughlin MP (Scottish National Party) A full list of members of the APPG on Refugees is Baroness Ruth Lister (Labour) available at www.refugeecouncil.org.uk, and updates of the work of the APPG are available on the group’s Caroline Lucas MP (Green) twitter account: @APPGRefugees All evidence submitted to the inquiry is available at www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/refugees_welcome-inquiry The panel would like to thank all those who submitted evidence to the inquiry. The panel would particularly like to thank those who gave oral evidence to the inquiry and who gave up their time to meet with panel members during the trips to Bristol and Nottingham. 3 Refugees Welcome? Table of Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................................5 Refugees Welcome? The Experience of New Refugees in the UK ..............9 Chapter 1: Background to the Inquiry ...........................................................9 Chapter 2: The Move On Period ...................................................................13 Documentation for newly recognised refugees .................................................13 Welfare Reform ...............................................................................................17 Bank Accounts .................................................................................................18 Housing ...........................................................................................................19 The impact of the problems associated with the move on period .....................22 Parliamentary calls to extend the move on period .............................................22 Comparison with resettled refugees .................................................................24 Chapter 3: Integration after the Move On Period ......................................27 The process of integration ................................................................................27 English Language .............................................................................................28 Employment, training and higher education .....................................................30 Healthcare .......................................................................................................33 Women refugees .............................................................................................36 Child refugees .................................................................................................37 Family Reunion ................................................................................................39 Safe Return Reviews ........................................................................................42 The impact of the asylum system .....................................................................43 Chapter 4: Refugees Welcome in the UK? ..................................................47 The two-tier system .........................................................................................47 The role of local authorities ..............................................................................47 The lack of a UK strategy for all refugees .........................................................48 Integration as part of the Syrian Resettlement Programme ...............................49 Local Community Refugee Welcome ................................................................50 Chapter 5: A National Refugee Integration Strategy .................................51 A Minister for Refugees ...................................................................................52 “Not everybody is Mo Farah” ...........................................................................53 Chapter 6: Conclusion ...................................................................................53 Recommendations ........................................................................................55 Annex 1: Terms of Reference ............................................................................58 4 Refugees Welcome? Executive Summary Refugees Welcome? and what more could be done to support communities to successfully welcome refugees. “In the network we have people What became clear during the course of our inquiry is who are engineers, community that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of individuals, communities, organisations and local leaders, teachers, people with authorities playing a key role in welcoming refugees. important skills who can contribute We were told about the determination and desire that to this country. When we’re talking refugees have to meet the challenges they face. We were also told of areas where Government policies were about refugees that achieve great supporting refugees to integrate and build their lives in things for this country – like the UK. However, in too many areas we identified barriers Mo Farah – not everybody is to integration and a lack of support for refugees that undermine those positive examples and that take away Mo Farah, but everybody has from the protection that refugee status should entail. something to give to this country.” • We recommend that the Government introduce a Kolbassia, Survivors Speak Out network1 cross-departmental National Refugee Integration Strategy that is applicable to all refugees in the UK. The strategy should learn from the positive examples On 3 September 2015, people up and down the UK we were told about to coordinate support for refugees awoke to newspaper front pages and news bulletins so that they are able to rebuild their lives and make displaying the picture of a Turkish police officer carrying full use of their talents and abilities to take part in, the body of a young Syrian boy who had drowned during and contribute to, British society. an attempt to reach Greece. We would later come to • We recommend that a Minister for Refugees should be know that that boy’s name was Alan Kurdi. In the months appointed to oversee the National Refugee Integration following those reports, there has been much debate Strategy, and to ensure there is a focus on refugee both inside and outside of Parliament on what the UK’s policy within the Government. response to the global refugee crisis should be. This debate has predominantly focused on how many • Following the referendum result of 23 June 2016 and refugees the UK can and should offer protection to. the vote to leave the European Union, there will be a need to develop a new, post-Brexit immigration system. Very little time, if any, has been given to considering Part of that system, and of showing that the UK remains what happens to refugees once they have been granted global-facing, should be a refugee policy based on protection by the UK Government. In undertaking this compassion that allows refugees to rebuild their lives and for the UK to benefit from the talent and resilience inquiry, we set out to ask to what extent refugees are that refugees bring. The Minister for Refugees and the welcomed in the UK. We started from the idea that National Refugee Integration Strategy should be central protection does not end when a decision to grant in shaping that policy. someone refugee status is made. We wanted to look into how government policies supported refugees in the UK, 5 Refugees Welcome? Two-tier system – which will mean that most claimants won’t receive any payments for at least six weeks after they submit an The evidence we received shows that a two-tier system application – the move on period will not be long enough has developed for refugees. Refugees in the UK will either even for those newly recognised refugees who receive all have gone through the asylum process having arrived in their documentation in a timely manner. the UK and then submitted
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