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Herald Scotland
December 10, 2013
Asylum seekers will be given the right to work in an independent Scotland while awaiting a decision on their application to stay in the country.
The plans are part of a new strategy to end the “ghettoisation” of refugees and asylum seekers by encouraging better integration into communities over the next three years.
The Scottish Government plans will include improved access to English classes and putting key workers in place to help support families, as well as encouraging entrepreneurship and enabling quicker access to benefits once an asylum claim is accepted.
Work will also be undertaken to look at widening the “dispersal” of asylum seekers from Glasgow, by providing support for asylum seekers and refugees in other communities across Scotland.
The Scottish Government’s blueprint for independence, published last month, embraced the principle of opposing Westminster’s “aggressive” approach to immigration, asylum seekers and refugees and instead encouraging more people to live in Scotland.
The launch of the “New Scots: Integrating Refugees in Scotland’s Communities” strategy tomorrow will flesh out that stance. External affairs minister Humza Yousaf said that an independent Scotland would “enable asylum seekers to work while waiting for a decision on their application”.
He said: “It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that we have people here who have qualifications, degrees and skills and are wanting to work and to contribute via their taxes – yet we are putting up a legal block for them doing so.
“It is just beyond logic. When you speak to someone who is opposed to immigration and asylum, one of the things they often say is, ‘They take all our benefits’. It is a common misconception. If that is your misconception, why on Earth would you not want those people working so they can pay towards taxes?”
Immigration and asylum are reserved to Westminster and current rules mean the majority of asylum seekers are not allowed to work. Limited exceptions are only made in cases where someone has been waiting for more than 12 months for a decision on their claim.
The Scottish Government’s White Paper on independence proposed setting up a separate Scottish Asylum Agency, with the present approach of “promoting the integration of refugees and asylum seekers from the day they arrive” set to continue.
Yousaf said further details of the plans to allow asylum seekers access to jobs would be announced as the date of the referendum approached.
But he added: “Currently there are other European countries that do it well. Usually there is a three-month period in order to get people settled and language skills if that is needed.
“There can sometimes be restrictions on what kind of job, if there are certain jobs that need filled. But in reality it should work just as anyone else who is wanting to work in the country does – they have to go through the same process and there is no preferential treatment.”
Yousaf said the aim of the new integration strategy was helping current asylum seekers to better integrate into the community, particularly when their legal cases could take years to resolve.
“I’ve seen myself a fair number of cases that have taken years and years. It makes no sense whatsoever for them not be integrated into communities from day one,” Yousaf said.
“Essentially [under the present system] you having people living in almost self-contained ghettos and that is not what we want at all.
“We have seen how that can be very damaging, not just here in the UK but across Europe.”
