Asylum Seekers

Part of 2. Questions to the Leader of the House and Chief Whip – in the Senedd at 2:36 pm on 18 July 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:36, 18 July 2018

I couldn't agree with you more, Bethan Sayed. We would very much like to extend a number of public funds to asylum and refugee peoples, but, unfortunately, we come up against the Home Office system of 'no recourse to public funds' very often. I can assure you that we are currently actively working very hard to put a scheme together to ensure that, in Wales, we can give people access in a way that's compliant, of course, with the current law, but which also allows the access to happen. There is a raft of very complicated arrangements in place where funds are added to the list of 'no recourse to public funds', and we need to make sure that we don't unnecessarily have funds added to those because of the way we construct a scheme, whilst at the same time assisting all of the people who have come to live with us here in Wales to access the education that they, of course, rightly deserve.