‘Right To Jobs For Asylum Seekers’ Plan Is Scrapped

Plans to give asylum seekers the legal right to work have been put on ice by the Scottish Executive. Present UK laws ban asylum seekers from taking paid jobs but allow them to carry out voluntary work.

The Executive hoped to create a separate policy in Scotland to allow the nation’s 5000 asylum seekers to take paid employment while their legal status is being settled. It is a move that would have needed ratification by the Home Office as it is currently a reserved matter.

But the plan expected to have been drawn up by the end of last year has failed to materialise in the wake of concern that it would lead to Scotland being flooded by bogus asylum seekers. The Home Office confirmed yesterday that there were no proposals to relax regulations and allow people seeking asylum to work either UK-wide or for Scotland alone.

The Executive was expected to produce a report in November that would include proposals to demand the right to work for asylum seekers in Scotland in consultation with the Home Office. It has never seen the light of day. The Executive has since gone cold on the idea and confirmed yesterday that it will not consider any plan until after the election.

The Scottish Refugee Council, which provides support for asylum seekers, was disappointed by the development, saying there is no evidence that allowing people to work leads to abuses of the system or is a pull factor for coming to the UK to seek asylum.

Sally Daghlian, chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council said: “Many of the asylum-seeking families in Scotland have been caught up in a bureaucratic and ineffective asylum system that, in some instances, has taken years to deal with their claim – they shouldn’t be penalised for this. The Scottish Executive has a clear policy for integration, regardless of where people are in the asylum process. Permission to work would be the next step to make this integration policy fully achievable.”

Linda Fabiani MSP, the SNP spokeswoman for social justice, has consistently supported the right of asylum seekers to work. She said: “Yet again Jack McConnell has raised hopes only to have them dashed down again with no apparent reason except that the Home Office says no.”

Last Friday, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR), a committee of MPs and peers, said ministers were deliberately making vulnerable asylum seekers destitute because of a policy of refusing benefits to some combined with the ban on legal working. It recommended that the immigration rules be amended so that asylum seekers may apply for permission to work when their asylum appeal is outstanding for 12 months or more and the delay is due to factors outside their control.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Immigration rules apply throughout the UK, including Scotland, and there are no plans to allow asylum seekers or failed asylum seekers the right to work. Giving asylum seekers permission to work may result in creating an incentive to remain in the UK when we expect all unsuccessful applicants to return home.”

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, the independent immigration watchdog, said the move to allow asylum seekers to go for paid work would have been a ‘serious mistake’. “That would only encourage still more asylum seeker claims,” he said. “A better course would be to deal with asylum seekers’ applications more quickly which is what the government is doing.”