Under the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act asylum seekers are no longer entitled to benefits or support under provisions of the National Assistance Act. In its place, the Home Office formed a new department called the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) this offered help to asylum seekers outside mainstream UK welfare services. The introduction of the voucher scheme instead of cash benefits was one of the main measures of the scheme applying to asylum seekers who were either homeless or living in poverty, the vouchers were worth up to thirty seven pounds and used at certain supermarkets and charity shops entitling asylum seekers to buy particular products like food or clothing for which no change was given, also the vouchers was not redeemable. The voucher scheme was designed to stop the flow of asylum seekers entering the UK. To illustrate this point here is an example from Homeoffice fieldwork carried out by Andrea Eagle which highlights asylum seekers experiences of the voucher system. Quite often asylum seekers were enable to buy certain goods as some shop staff either had no knowledge or had a limited understanding of how to process the vouchers leading to longer queues causing the asylum seekers to encounter intimidation or abuse from customers and shop staff, (Eagle,2002:19-21).
Using the paper vouchers created huge embarrassment for asylum seekers as it revealed to everybody their identity making them feel inferior and vulnerable. The main problem of the voucher scheme was the strong restrictions placed on them making the vouchers insufficient as it failed to meet asylum seekers overall needs such as transport, medicine and warm clothing, also the goods the refugees really wanted proved too expensive and therefore ended up buying things that had no real value because of the unredeemable nature of the voucher. (newsvision.org.uk, 2002).
The voucher scheme came under heavy criticism by the Transport and General Workers Union Secretary, Bill Norris and Labour backbenchers like Diane Abbot. In addition, charity organizations like Oxfam argued that the introduction of the voucher scheme is blatant “penny pinching” because the refugees did not receive any change if the value of the vouchers exceeded the cost of the items the refugees were buying, (Solomos, 2003:72).
With continued hostility and influences from different groups including those just mentioned the unpopular vouchers was cancelled in April 2000, in its place came the cash vouchers which allowed the refugees to exchange their vouchers for cash at local post offices. The scrapping of the voucher scheme was seen as a triumph for the thousands of asylum seekers, the charity’s like Oxfam, refugee organizations and Bill Morris who openly opposed the voucher scheme for denying asylum seekers the right to cash benefits. (newsvision.org.uk/goodbye_to_food_v.htm, 2002).
The voucher scheme is an illustration of policy implementation in which the efficiency measures presented efficiency for the government but not for the asylum seekers, the cost of the scheme according to home office figures show that the vouchers were worth just over five million and cost over six million to set up. The Labour government hoped the voucher scheme would reach its objective of slowing down the flow of bogus asylum seekers, however with the scheme creating lots of opposition and outside pressures of racism and discrimination towards asylum seekers the original voucher policy was unsuccessful and was evaluated and changed. The original voucher scheme was seen as unethical and a legally backed up discrimination system which breached the asylum seekers basic human rights due partly to the restrictive nature of the original voucher scheme based on points which were highlighted earlier in this essay. (news.bbc.co.uk/hi/uk/.stm, 2001).
The Enforced dispersal was another key element of the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Seekers Act the aim of this act was to stop the flow of applicants, ease local authorities of the financial burden and relieve the housing and social pressures in London and sections of the South East, especially some regions in Kent. It signified the socially divisive dispersal scheme under which all new asylum seekers in the UK predominately London and the south east of England were relocated to different regions and not given a choice of where to go. These local authorities were certainly overstretched, but this was the result of the shift in responsibility for asylum seekers from central government to local authorities that occurred after the government had drawn from the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act, which undermined the appeals process and introduced a white list of countries in which there was deemed to be no serious risk of persecution and not necessarily because of the higher numbers of refuges seeking asylum here in the UK, ( Solomos, 2003:72-73).
A number of asylum agency workers have criticized the dispersal scheme for being a no-nonsense method of moving asylum seekers into areas of increased vulnerability to racist attacks and discrimination. (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1477491.stm, 2001).
An illustration of this is the Sighthill estate in Glasgow which witnessed the first murder of an asylum seeker there have been more than 70 racist attacks in that area alone and is home to more than 15,000 asylum seekers, (Solomos, 2003:73).
The UK takes in more asylum seekers than any country in the European Union; applications have risen across the whole of the EU. But across Europe, there appears to be a momentum towards recognizing migration as a pan-EU concern and example of this is already evident with the Labour government trying to come to an agreement with France, Italy and Bosnia, which is designed to prevent economic migrants making their way to the UK. Labour policies have drawn attacks from both sides those on the left criticize the system for doing nothing to help asylum seekers while those on the right say the government has failed to tackle the international racketeers profiteering from people who want to reach the UK for economic reasons, (news.bbc.co.uk/1hi/uk/1296044.stm,2001).
History has certainly played a part in policy making; the previous acts such as the Alien Act 1905, the British Nationality Act 1948 gave common British citizenship to all Commonwealth citizens, providing a labor source to compensate for the UK shortages. Workers from India, Pakistan and the West Indies were welcomed through the major recruitment initiatives by public bodies such as the NHS and London Transport. The immigrant’s enthusiasm to undertake in low paid work enabled Britain to compete in a competitive economy. (Kingdom 2003:194)
The Commonwealth Act 1962 restricted some groups of migration more than others. Since that period problems have increased for successive governments in the implementation of immigration policy, the break up of the Soviet Union saw a new wave of immigration as people fled from the horrors of war applications for asylum multiplied but with the 1999 Act the government implemented policy to decrease the numbers of bogus asylum seekers entering the UK by adopting restrictive social welfare policies. Labour in opposition believed the party could implement more effective migration policy than the Conservatives when in reality the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act can be seen as a continuation of Conservative policies in the area of “pre-entry controls and welfare support for asylum seekers”. This is the view of John Solomos Professor of Sociology at City University London.
In reality good evaluation policy takes time people need to know where the policy is going, if policy creates tension and discrimination then the social welfare policies are only going to present asylum seekers with limited choices strong debate is essential for a policy initiative to work effectively also its important for any kind of scheme to offer choice which was not evident with the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Seekers Act.
To sum up briefly the core argument of this essay suggested that the Labour government make an assumption that most asylum seekers were bogus based partly by the negative media reports which described asylum seekers as scroungers. With the social welfare policies in the 1999 immigration Act, the Labour government did not consider the ethical considerations of the policies making the asylum seekers feel vulnerable to discrimination and racism this was illustrated by the ill feeling towards the asylum seekers in Glasgow when people felt bitter by the hand outs in given to the asylum seekers in the way of housing. Instead the Labour government looked at the financial considerations with implementing the changes in the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Seekers Act.
