Peers urged to wreck Asylum Bill

Charities are calling on peers to scupper government plans to end support for failed asylum families and potentially take children into care.

Campaigners say the plan will create legal chaos - and leave local councils footing the bill.

Ministers should also stop holding children within asylum detention centres, they say.

The fresh attacks on the Asylum Bill come weeks after ministers backed down on a controversial plan to scrap rights to appeal.

Under the bill, families could lose support if they refuse to leave the UK after a final rejection of their claim for asylum.

In some circumstances, the measure could lead to local councils taking children into care.

The government says the measure will help prevent people evading removal and that it also hopes it will make deportations easier.

Safeguards demanded

Nancy Kelley, chairwoman of the Refugee Children's Consortium, said: "It is hard to reconcile government arguments that every child matters with its threat to remove all support.

We could end up with endless litigation and local authorities would get it in the neck, having to pick up the pieces Alison Harvey, Children's Society

"The government should ensure safeguards for refugee children are strengthened and there is a full assessment of need."

Alison Harvey, of the Children's Society, said peers backing the campaign would seek either to throw out the proposal, or introduce new safeguards preventing loss of benefits.

"This month's bungled attempt at eviction of [asylum] families from new European Union states has resulted in chaos, confusion and litigation," she said.

"That is what we shall get under the measures in the new Bill - and children will suffer.

"We could end up with endless litigation and local authorities would get it in the neck, having to pick up the pieces."

Detained children

Opponents of the bill will also try to introduce measures to monitor children detained in asylum removal centres.

CHILDREN IN DETENTION 2003-04 Average detention 9.8 days (Mar 2004) 60 family beds at Dungavel, Scotland 42 at Oakington, Cambridgeshire Longest detention: 165 days Youngest: Seven months Oldest: 11-years-old Source: Home Office, Hansard, Bid

Figures recently disclosed to Parliament revealed 134 children had been held along with their parents during March.

Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons, called on the government in 2002 to introduce regular and independent assessment of the welfare and education of detained children.

Since then, she has toughened her position, saying children should only be held for the few days prior to a deportation.

Sarah Cutler, of Bail for Immigration Detainees, said the 28-day review rules needed to be replaced with assessments within a week of being held.

"It is difficult to assess how many children are affected by detention, because the government have failed to publish regular figures," she said.

"But if the figures from March are representative, there are a high number of children who are being detained."

Ms Cutler said they had found children who had been detained for up to 165 days and there had been a two-year wait for reliable statistics.

"The government should not be allowed to drag their heels over putting the most basic of safeguards in place."

Appeals process

In March ministers dropped plans to scrap extended rights of appeal for asylum seekers after concerted opposition.

Under the bill as it stood, asylum seekers would be allowed only one appeal to the body which turned down their application - and no recourse to higher courts.

A coalition of campaigners opposed the measure - and England's most senior judge, Lord Woolf, said the plans went against the basic principle of the rule of law.

Ministers say they still want to restrict asylum appeals - which can go on for more than a year - but the exact proposals are not yet known.