Straw ends handouts for asylum seekers

BY LUKE COPPEN
THE GOVERNMENT has announced tough new measures to cut the backlog of asylum seekers.
Home Secretary jack Straw presented the new White Paper on Asylum and Immigration to Parliament on Monday.
The White Paper removes refugees' entitlement to cash benefits and replaces it with a voucher system for food and clothing.
It also envisages a national body to house asylum seekers at immigration centres around the country. Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue, chairman of the Bishops' Conference Migrant Committee, said that the White Paper contained both positive and negative elements.
He welcomed the amnesty for 10,000 pre-1993 asylum applicants and the granting of exceptional leave to remain to a further 20,000.
But he expressed concern about increased use of detention centres. "They are thinking about management of refugees rather than care," he said. Churches and voluntary organisations could not support asylum seekers indefinitely the bishop warned.
The Catholic Westminster Diocese Refugee Service said the government had betrayed its moral duty to asylum seekers.
"A cash-based system is not only the cheapest system but also the most effective and dignified way of supporting people," the service's director Michael Feeney said.
The Refugee Council said the new arrangements would be costly, cumbersome and chaotic.