Doubts by the dozen

Housing commentator Jules Birch puts the latest news in context

As peers prepare for the key debate on the household benefit cap the policy is still begging as many questions as answers.

Ministers appear to have won the battle for public opinion over the principle of having a cap with 76 per cent of voters backing the idea in an opinion poll over the weekend.

However, the battle will be over the details. Labour has said it will not vote against the cap itself but will try to amend the Bill so that extra costs do not fall on council tax payers. Several Lib Dem peers including former party leader Lord Ashdown have said they cannot support the cap as proposed. And Lord Best will be prominent among crossbenchers pressing for changes.

Extra fuel for the fire came in a revised impact assessment published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) this morning. This admitted that 75,000 families will be affected – 25,000 more than in the first version published last year. They will lose an average of £83 a week each – £10 less than before. And the government will save more than previously estimated (£330m in 2014/15 rather than £275m).

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Source: Inside Housing

The asylum seekers who survive on £10 a week

They can’t work, they can’t claim benefits, they have nowhere to live. And their only means of survival is one £10 food voucher a week. Four failed asylum seekers tell their desperate stories

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Somalian refugees on benefits live in £1.8 million home

By Chris Irvine

Nasra Warsame, originally from Somalia, seven of her children and her mother moved into the six-bedroom home last month, while her husband Bashir Aden and an eighth child are living in a separate “overspill” property, also paid for by housing benefits.

The couple claimed asylum in Britain after leaving Somalia in 1991. They have since been granted citizenship and all their children, aged between two and 16, have been born here. The family moved into the 1960s development within walking distance of Edgware Road underground station while Mr Aden lives in Camden in a two-bedroom council flat, after their previous property in Maida Vale, northwest London, was considered too small.

Last year James Purnell, then Work and Pensions Secretary, promised to curb excessive housing costs. But it would appear the Warsame family are granted £1,600-a-week allowance, despite the going rate for properties in the Edgware Road area around half that figure.

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‘We’re all in this together’

As asylum seekers have their benefits cut, Rowenna Davis stays with a Bangladeshi mother whose weekly struggle to make ends meet is replicated throughout the country

By Rowenna Davis

As asylum seekers have their benefits cut, Rowenna Davis stays with a Bangladeshi mother whose weekly struggle to make ends meet is replicated throughout the country.

Shakira Begum does not look like a conventional warrior. She stands at five foot nothing, sports a ponytail and wears Velcro trainers. But from a small terrace house on the outskirts of Greater Manchester, Begum, an asylum seeker from Bangladesh, fights each day to support herself and her daughter on 30% a week less in benefits than British families receive.

“Come in, come in!” she says, ushering in every guest with a smile. “Have some food now please. Don’t be shy now – I got it reduced so there is much more. I’m sorry it is so cold, I tell the man the heating and the hot water is broken, but he just says ‘yes, yes I am coming’ and never comes. Please eat, eat.”

Begum is a proud housekeeper, and a generous hostess. It is only if you have lived with her for a few days and catch her anxiously counting slices of bread, or carefully diluting washing-up liquid in a small plastic pot by the sink, or boiling saucepans of hot water to heat deliberately shallow baths, that you slowly begin to understand the full extent of her daily struggle. Poverty manifests itself in small things.

For Begum, and 31,500 other asylum seekers, deprivation is a legal obligation. Forbidden to work, she is forced to live on state handouts. New legislation that came into force last week has frozen benefits for asylum-seeker lone parents at £42.16 per week, instead of increasing it in line with inflation to £44.35. Begum receives an extra £50 a week for her daughter Farzana. Under the same legislation, single asylum seekers aged over 25 have had their benefits cut to just £5 a day. No asylum seeker is allowed to supplement their income, no matter how long it takes the Home Office to process their claim. Begum and Farzana, have been waiting for three years for a decision to be made about their asylum claim. She lives in fear that any day she could receive a rejection letter and will be deported.

To most people, having an extra £2.19 a week in their pocket may not sound much, but for Begum it could be the difference between paying her phone bill or being cut off, and eating or going hungry. Although she does not have to pay any rent, and her gas, electricity, water and council tax bills are paid for by the taxpayer, surviving on £92 a week means regimenting her lifestyle and rationing her own and Farzana’s diet. It means that every outing, every snack, every meal, every wash cycle, has to be planned, assessed and executed with the utmost precision. Shopping, for example, is always done on a Monday, after she picks up her weekly benefits from the post office. Combining these trips saves money on bus fares. This is important, because using the bus just three days a week with her daughter costs £20, or 22% of their income.

In Morrisons supermarket, Begum picks out a reduced pack of tomatoes. “These will last us the rest of the week,” she says with a proud smile, “And I must buy bananas, because those are good, and give you energy. Sometimes I go out all day and I can’t afford to buy food when I’m out. If I take one of these with me, it’s OK.”

As she weaves in and out of the aisles, you can see that every purchase is weighed, compared, agonised over. She desperately needs new saucepans, and they are reduced this week, but that would mean no vegetables, and Farzana, 13, must have those because she might be getting sick. She wants to buy pasta in bulk because it is cheaper, but can’t because that leaves too little money for emergencies. “Better to get things little by little,” she says. “Never know what might come up.”

Her weekly supermarket shop comes to £14.70 and includes eggs, lentils and chips. A further £12 is spent on fish and vegetables in the market.

By the time Begum heaves her rustling shopping bags through the front door, Farzana is already home from school, drawing in her bedroom. Unlike her mother’s broken English, she has a strong Mancunian accent. A feisty teenager, Farzana is full of enthusiastic chatter about all the things her friends have that she doesn’t – iPods, fancy clothes, makeup. “It’s my birthday next week,” she informs me. “And do you know what? Since I came to the UK, I’ve never had a birthday present!”

Downstairs, Begum has already started cooking. “It’s difficult for her,” she says over the sizzling of onions. “I try to tell her I never had the things she wants, and I survived, but she doesn’t understand.” Earlier that day Begum had told me how her daughter once brought a school friend home. They had no food to offer, and the house they were living in at the time was damp, with water dripping through the living room ceiling. The friend took a video on her mobile phone. The next day, it was all over the playground.

“‘Farzana lives in a poor house, Farzana lives in a poor house’ – that’s what they were all saying,” says her mum. “She was ashamed. Only friends who are asylum seekers come to the house now.”

More than anything, Farzana loves to paint. The house is filled with her brightly coloured creations, tacked lovingly on to the walls. Farzana has been getting straight As in art, and wants to go on a school trip to Paris to see the galleries, but they can’t afford it, and her ID card probably wouldn’t get her past the border. “Mum says I can’t go,” says Farzana, “But maybe it will be OK if I just go in with everyone, you know? Maybe they won’t notice.”

No matter how difficult life is here, however, Manchester is home for Begum and her daughter. Bangladesh, the country where they were both born, is a threat. There, Begum suffered violent abuse from her husband for failing to produce a son. When she chose to pursue a different branch of Islam – Ahmadiyya – the intimidation increased. One night, religious extremists came in and held a gun to her daughter’s head, stealing everything in the house in the name of “true Islam”, she says. She started sleeping with a knife under her pillow. After squirrelling away money from the housekeeping her husband gave her every month, borrowing from friends, and selling jewellery she had inherited, she was finally able to flee to the UK with Farzana.

Her daughter still throws fits in her sleep, crying and shouting. She might be 14 next week, but she still won’t go downstairs alone.

The Home Office continues to investigate whether Begum’s circumstances entitle her and her daughter to stay in the UK. This means that every Tuesday she has to check in at a reporting centre to reassure the authorities that she hasn’t slipped underground. The centre is only 10 miles away but she has to take three buses, which is why the round trip takes more than five hours. Moreover, it costs her a precious £4. When Begum eventually arrives, a stream of other asylum seekers are trickling in and out of the building through the rain. None of them wants to disobey the order to sign in and have their fingerprints taken. At best it would damage their case for permanent residence, at worst it could lead to detention, deportation or destitution.

For Begum, these dutiful pilgrimages are an investment for a time when things could be better. Jumping through bureaucratic hoops entitles her to attend her local community college, where she studies English and IT three days a week. “If I get my qualifications and papers [refugee status] then I would like to work in a shop, or a bank maybe,” she says.

Begum’s favourite day of the week is Friday. It is when she volunteers for the Women Asylum Seekers Together (Wast) charity. Unlike most organisations that campaign on asylum issues, it is led by female asylum seekers themselves. Begum helps run the meetings. In Wast’s small, overcrowded room, this small, welfare-dependent mother is a leader, welcoming new mothers from Eritrea and the Ivory Coast, fetching them chairs and asking them questions. She has a reputation among the regulars as a mine of valuable information. She knows how much benefit you’re entitled to, when markets offer the best deals, legal aid numbers and cheap bus routes. Despite this, she does sometimes go over budget. When she is ill and cannot cook, she gives her daughter money for more expensive ready-cooked food.

Watching Begum at Wast, it is clear that she is not just fighting for herself, or even just for herself and her daughter. “All of us women are a team,” she says. “If I get my papers, I will keep coming back here. This is not just about me. This is about all asylum seekers. All of us together.”

• Names have been changed.

Refugee Action is campaigning against cuts in asylum seekers’ support.

Rowenna Davis is a 24-year-old journalist from London specialising in political and social affairs. She writes features and comment for the Guardian, the Independent and the New Statesman amongst others, and works part time for Headliners, a charity that focuses on providing journalism opportunities for young people particularly at risk of social exclusion

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How should an asylum seeking child who has been granted Discretionary (or other kind of) Leave apply for a National Insurance Number? (NINO)

Every person over the age of 16 who wishes to work or claim benefits, must apply for a National Insurance Number (NINO). This includes separated young people who have refugee status, discretionary leave or indefinite leave to remain. Also, asylum-seekers who receive permission to work because they have been waiting for an initial decision on their asylum claim for over 12 months, will need to be issued with a NINO.

If a young person attends a substantive asylum interview and is entitled to a NINO, i.e, they are over 16, they will be asked questions to facilitate the issuing of a NINO if they receive discretionary leave or refugee status. However, those below 16 would not receive a NINO. Because children in the care system (whether asylum seekers or not) may not have acquired a national insurance number automatically shortly before their 16th birthday via the ‘juvenile registration’ system, a separate procedure has been developed which must now be followed.

The system is administered by a specialist team within the Inland Revenue and their contact details are as follows:

National Insurance Registration, HM Revenue and Customs, Looked After Children section, Room BP1002, Benton Park View, Longbenton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE98 1YS

Telephone: 084591 57946; 084591 53662
Fax: 01912253662

Who can apply through this procedure?

The application must be made through the young person’s social worker. The Looked after Children section are not concerned with the section of the Children Act that the young person is being accommodated or assisted under so long as the application comes through the social worker. Specifically the procedure is open to those ‘assisted’ under section 17 of the Children Act as well as those accommodated under section 20 or those under a care order.

Although the Department of Work and Pensions guidance to the procedure indicates that the application should be made shortly before the child’s 16th birthday many unaccompanied asylum seeking children will not have entered care by this time. This does not matter. The Children in Care section will accept applications from a child or young person in or leaving care up to the age of 20 ( the application must be submitted before the young person’s 20th birthday). After the age of 20 the adult registration process must be used.

How can the application be made?

The child or young person’s social workers must first of all write to or fax the Looked after Children section on Local Authority headed paper, authenticated with a local authority stamp to obtain form CA3530U. This application form should be returned, enclosing copies of the required documents. The application can be made either by post or by fax (on the above number) but should NOT be made by both methods. Photocopies of original documents are acceptable.

What additional information is required?

Most young asylum seekers will not have a birth certificate with them or have travelled on a passport. Neither will most be under a care order. Even if they have any of these documents in the case of UASC it is an essential requirement for the social worker making the application to provide copies of the young person’s Home Office documentation. Examples of acceptable HO documents are; a letter granting leave and containing the young person’s correct personal details (name and date of birth) or copy of the ARC card displaying the same details. If the young person is at the stage of applying for an extension of Discretionary Leave, a copy of the solicitor’s letter making the application for an extension or a ‘receipt’ from the Home Office indicating that the extension application is under consideration should also be included and will be acceptable.

Common Problems

It is important that the child or young person’s full name is transposed correctly and that the name given by the social worker matches that given by the Home Office. Where the Home Office have made a mistake in the spelling of a name (as frequently occurs) an accompanying letter from the social worker explaining the error and providing the correct version may be acceptable. Advice should be sought from the unit itself in this situation.

A mismatch in the date of birth is not acceptable and MUST be the same as on the Home Office documentation. A consistent date is required for Benefits purposes. Where the children’s services authority has accepted an ‘age-disputed’ minor as a child, it is likely that an exact date of birth will have to be agreed and accepted by the Home Office prior to the issuing of a NINO. A letter from the Home Office accepting a revised date of birth and accompanying the previously issued documentation would be acceptable.

Please note now that, for security reasons, National Insurance cards can only be sent to residential addresses, and not to social services offices.

If the young person does not have a social worker but needs a NINO, the Juvenile Contact Centre can be contacted on: 0845 9157006.

Refugees do not have it at all easy in Britain

SO THE cat’s now well and truly out of the bag. The TUC/Refugee Forum campaign to allow asylum seekers the right to work, featured on the BBC’s Politics Show, has shown that far from living a lavish existence “at the expense of UK taxpayers”, people in our region fleeing persecution and abuse are barely surviving on a weekly £35 supermarket voucher.

That is it. No ‘free mobile phone’, no trips to holiday parks, no subscription to Sky Sports 1 or even Setanta.

The reality for asylum seekers is that their lifestyle in the UK is pretty grim. We offer safety and security, something of which we should be proud. The fact that the UK is a well-established, mature democracy in which people can and do expect to live free from fear is part of our natural assumptions of citizenship. Although this has been earned over generations of struggle we now take it for granted. Many asylum seekers are here for pursuing such aspirations in their own country.

The right to work affords a certain level of dignity, status and respect. I’ve heard first hand the frustration and confusion experienced by people who want to work, who have the skills and talent we need in this region, but who are prevented from being able to work by a government policy that makes no sense at all.

Doctors, electricians, plumbers – all highly committed and desperate to make a contribution – are unable to do so. I heard the story of ‘Mary’, who has completed A-levels, finished a successful chemistry degree and would want to move into teaching “to give something back”, but is stopped from doing her PGCE because it involves working in a school – yet we’re short of science teachers!

This not only flies in the face of some of the more rabid discourse that accuses asylum seekers of “sponging off the state”, which is patently untrue, but preventing people from working also panders to these prejudices. Arguably, in times of economic downturn focusing on challenging these myths and supporting individuals in need is even more important. History tells us that recessions provide a breeding ground for racism and xenophobia, there are nefarious interests that do prey on insecurities to seek support for their own divisive agenda.

Clearly we must, and are, taking what steps we can to protect workers and employers from the worst effects of the economic turmoil. I believe these global dynamics will impact relatively less in the North East and we will recover relatively quicker than other areas.

We must also guard against exploitation of these current economic insecurities by the likes of the essentially racist BNP. Their pattern is to identify people’s anxieties and to place the blameon groups and individuals they hate, like asylum seekers. This doesn’t help at all and plants the seeds for an unstable, divided community that perpetuates rather than resolves the challenges we face.

Source : nebusiness