4. What progress is the Welsh Government making in implementing its policy on asylum seekers and refugees? OAQ52009

The Welsh Government has worked closely with stakeholders to co-produce a plan to improve outcomes for asylum seekers and refugees. The draft 'Nation of Sanctuary—Refugee and Asylum Seeker Plan' addresses issues raised by the Equalities, Local Government and Communities Committee last year, and is out for consultation until 25 June.

Thank you for that. Cabinet Secretary, more broadly, growing up in Newport, I know many people who are part of the Windrush generation, having come to Wales from the Caribbean post second world war, and made huge contributions to our communities, our economy and, indeed, our public services. I share the current outrage at the way that the UK Government is conducting checks on the status of those who migrated to the UK from Commonwealth countries between 1948 and 1971, resulting in a number of them being informed that they do not have the right to access public services and, indeed, may be deported. Will you, and the Welsh Government as a whole, Cabinet Secretary, continue to press the UK Government to right these wrongs as a matter of urgency, and to stop the current situation, and reverse the current situation, where these members of our communities are being subject to gross indignity and a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety?

Yes, I share the Member's concern. I think this was the subject of a number of exchanges yesterday, here in the Senedd as well. I fully support the First Minister's position, as outlined in the letter that I hope all Members have now seen copies of. It is crucial that the Home Secretary puts in place a simple, quick and effective process to support all of these members of our communities. I have seen the new website that's been put up, and I don't think it's quick, easy or simple, I'm afraid, so we will be writing again to say that it's great that the website has been put there, that people are allowed to access it, but it should be made a lot more accessible. I don't know if Members have had a chance to look at it, but it's very off-putting and quite scary in some of its language, so it needs to be made a lot more simple.

And then of course only this morning it became clear that the embarkation documents have been destroyed, taking away some of the last pieces of documentation that some of the people caught up in this fiasco had, and that those whose embarkation documents were destroyed have been receiving a line that simply says, 'There is no record of you in our records, in our files', which is just not an acceptable situation at all. So, now that that's come to light, we will be writing further to highlight our shock that that's been done and to ask for further details about what's to be done to right it.

One of the priorities in the Welsh Government's asylum seeker delivery plan was to find increasing opportunities for access to higher education for asylum seekers, and very specifically in that plan it mentioned that Welsh Government will enable monthly surgeries with Cardiff Metropolitan University to provide advice on possible routes to universities for refugees and asylum seekers. You can probably see where I'm coming from as a Swansea representative yourself: are there any plans to roll this out to other parts of Wales?

Interestingly enough, this came up in—. I chaired the inter-faith forum earlier this week and it had a conversation about refreshing this strategy and what we can do to ensure that asylum seekers with professional qualifications, which are obviously of huge use to both them and to our economy, can make the most of those qualifications. The discussion was highlighted around the successful campaign to make sure that people who are qualified medical doctors could have their qualifications recongised swiftly and be working in Wales, and a number of—forgive me, I can't remember the exact number—a large number of people had gone through that programme successfully. So, we are in the process of looking to see what we can do to refresh that programme, not just in the universities, but across the board for people with professional and other qualifications that they could use.

I'm doing a lot with asylum seekers and refugees, both in Neath Port Talbot and Swansea, and it seems to me there's still quite a lot of issues with regard to isolation and transport issues. Some of the people I meet are actually single mothers with three or four children and they find it increasingly difficult to get different children to different places at different times, and get themselves then on to English for speakers of other languages classes or to college access courses.

So, I was wondering if you could look more into this particular issue, as well as the second issue that I'd like to raise with you, which is the fact that research that I've carried out shows that asylum seekers can't do voluntary work in the private sector. I've talked to some asylum seekers in Swansea who want to volunteer at a local hair salon because they are interested in developing their skills in this area, but they're being told, because of Home Office regulations, that they can volunteer at a charity but they can't volunteer at a business. That's confining their personal attempts to expand their horizons. They know full well that they can't work for money, but they want to be able to work on a voluntary basis in a local business. So, if you could look at those two aspects, I'd be very grateful.

Yes, I'm aware of both of those aspects already. In a recent refugee and asylum group that, again, I chair, that was raised and we raised with the Home Office unintended consequences of some of their policies, because some of these things are happening because of the issue about no recourse to public funds until you've got various levels of status. Unfortunately, we're seeking to extend free transport to all asylum seekers and refugees in Wales, but we need to be sure that that won't then be added to the list of public funds to which you have no recourse as soon as we make that statement. We are in the process of actually working through some of the complexities of that, so I'm very well aware.

In my own constituency, I have a number of people with whom I'm working who have a very similar problem. Similarly, with the voluntary work, we think it's an unintended consequence of the hostile environment, now called the compliance environment, that the UK Government has put in place, but we think it is actually an unintended consequence of it, so we're looking to see what we can do to draw that to their attention and get those rules changed.