I
THIRD REPORT FROM
THE HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
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17. The Home Office and Department of the Environment should examine with the refugee agencies and local authorities what sorts of service the agencies could provide for authorities with few Vietnamese and how such services should be paid for, and the Department of the Environment should circularise local authorities with the conclusions. (Para 76).
18. The Home Office should establish a working group to formulate its long- term policy towards the more scattered Vietnamese, and to assess the relative cost- effectiveness of attempting to provide services to many scattered groups as opposed to assisting the rehousing of those who would prefer to move to the cities. (Para 77).
19. The scale of the refugee agencies' Vietnamese programme should be increased, and its funding should be continued for as long as necessary to achieve its objectives. (Para 78).
20. The Home Office and Department of the Environment should promote the provision of community centres or access to community facilities shared with other groups in the main centres of Vietnamese population. (Para 80).
21. The DHSS should give financial support to Ockenden Venture's work in relation to Vietnamese mental health, including further research and training of specialist personnel, and should give serious consideration to the establishment of a central facility for severe cases, and an official or officials within the Department should be designated as having a responsibility for research and planning in respect of Vietnamese mental health. (Para 86).
Part 3: ASYLUM PROCEDURE
22. The Home Office should decide in principle to extend the right of appeal to all asylum applicants, and, for types of case where the applicant currently lacks a right of appeal exercisable within the UK, to establish procedures by which leave to remain is withheld in obviously bogus cases and by which such refusals of leave can be rapidly reviewed if appealed against; and should set up a working party to determine how such procedures would operate. (Para 105).
23. Whenever possible, asylum applicants should be interviewed at Lunar House or by Lunar House staff, and Immigration Officers should conduct asylum interviews only if they have been trained specifically for that purpose. (Para 106).
24. Asylum interviews should be recorded either on tape or as a full written record signed by the applicant. (Para 108).
25. In normal circumstances, asylum seekers at ports of entry who would otherwise be detained should be granted temporary admission to a refugee hostel or other suitable and accepted accommodation. (Para 109).
26. The Home Office should ensure that all unsuccessful asylum applicants have access, and are aware that they have access, to oral, off-the-record, reasons
or refusal. (Para 110).
27.
(i) The Home Office should make a commitment to adjust the staffing of the Refugee Unit whenever necessary in response to changing levels of work, to prevent undue delay to asylum applications. (ii) The Home Office should set itself targets for lengths of time taken to determine initial applications for asylum and use these to monitor the adequacy of the Refugee Unit's staffing. (Para 113).
28. Maximum permitted times should be established within the Immigration and Nationality Department for routine operations in connection with asylum applications, such as notification of decisions, and excessive delays should be monitored and acted upon to prevent backlogs. (Para 114).
29. Asylum seekers whose initial application has not been determined within six months should, if they request it, be given an insurance number and permission to work (Para 115).
30. Persons who begin a course while their application is pending should be retrospectively treated as home students if their application is granted, and the DES should issue instructions to this effect to local education authorities. (Para 116).
31. The Home Office should re-examine the extent to which it reveals the sources of its background country information and the ways in which such information has affected the appellant's case, and should make greater use of presenting officers specialising in asylum cases. (Para 119).
32. There should be a presumption in favour of giving permanent settlement to those with exceptional leave to remain after seven years. (Para 123).
33. The DES should issue instructions to local education authorities that those with exceptional leave to remain are to be treated as favourably as those with full refugee status in allocating grants. (Para 124).
34. Sympathetic consideration should be given to granting British citizenship to children of those with exceptional leave to remain, or with asylum without settlement, who would otherwise be stateless. (Para 124).
35. Statistics relating to immigration and those relating to the granting of asylum should be clearly separated, if possible in separate documents. (Para 127).
36. The Government should promote and participate fully in international co- operation and consultation concerning refugees. (Para 128).
Netherlands
ANNEX
European Visit Monday 19 October-Friday 2 November 1984
On Monday 29th October the Committee visited the refugee reception centre at Apeldoorn, in the company of officials of the Ministry of Welfare, Public Health and Culture. The aim of reception policy in the Netherlands is to make the refugees independent, both financially and mentally, as soon as possible. Time spent in the centre
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