We shall be judged by them

Politicians should make tea for a month in a refugee centre to see what loss of a homeland means

YOU SHOULD have been there, Jack. It would have warmed your weary soul, especially as it has fallen upon you to save us from children who kick our shop windows in or hang around sweet shops when they should be eagerly imbibing education, education, education.

Here we were this Tuesday at the National Union of Teachers building in London with over 300 bright-eyed teenagers who spent five hours talking about the importance of human rights. The day was organised by the United Nations Association to commemorate 50 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Without looking bored, and even more miraculously, without a single jaw juicing a chewing gum either, they spoke up so passionately that they made Mary Robinson, the UN Human Rights Commissioner wet around the eyes.

But Jack, maybe it was better you weren't there after all. What with Pinochet giving you such a headache, it would have been an additional burden to hear how these kids feel about torture, freedom, and most of all asylum and how badly we as a country are still behaving towards those who need our compassion and help.

Molly, 17, from Birmingham wanted to know why her friend Omar, who is half way through his A-level course and is waiting for his refugee status, has had all his money stopped so he can't carry on. Fifteen-and-a-half- year-old David from Toxteth wanted to know why we aren't doing any more to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo or to take refugees in from that area.

I am only hoping that these wonderful, idealistic kids did not run into the foul front pages of the Daily Mail (whose recently deceased editor in chief, David English was hailed as a hero by our own Prime Minister) the day after this optimistic event. "Brutal Crimes of the Asylum-Seekers" it yelled out at all those who rushed to buy it, adding even more combustible fuel to the fear and loathing for asylum-seekers and refugees.

If you talk to the Southall or Newham Monitoring groups today, they will tell you how, on estates and at schools, asylum-seekers and refugees have become hate targets. The paper has orchestrated this vendetta for years and it appears to spring from some genuine paranoia plus a very unhealthy relationship between its journalists and some members of the Immigration Service Union who have self interested motives in keeping up fears about refugee numbers.`

The danger is that such campaigns do influence politicians more than they should and that this is why New Labour is still not plucking up enough courage to overturn the hideous, racist, anti-asylum legacy left behind by the Tories, especially under the distasteful Michael Howard. None the less, this government is a vast improvement on the last on this issue.

The White Paper proposing a faster, firmer and fairer approach to asylum is in parts a good document. What is most admirable are the steps to open up the processes to the public and to inform people of what is happening in countries experiencing unrest. Since this summer, assessments of asylum- seekers' countries of origin are being provided by the Home Office and previously secret guidelines to immigration staff have been made available on the Internet. The word "bogus" has been abandoned by the department although the replacement "abusive" is arguably no better. More people than before are being given refugee status after years of languishing in limbo.

But I believe that other policies are in danger of being seen as a continuation of the malignant Tory policies and attitudes, not an overturning of them, which is what Labour promised in opposition. There is a danger that in succeeding in becoming fast and firm - very much the focus it seems to me - they will come up with something that is less fair than we should expect from a Labour government, even a recast one.

Too many people are still being detained - the number in Campsfield detention centre has gone up to over 200. These people have not been convicted of any crime and natural justice demands a judicial hearing before incarceration. Inspections by independent sources have expressed concern at the mental and emotional condition of inmates. Yet this government is considering "an increase in the detention estate" to control immigration.

When filming a programme for Heart of the Matter I met people who had been detained. They were deeply damaged by the experience, especially if they had escaped from state terror in the first place. One man with 70 burn marks could not convince an immigration officer that he was a genuine applicant.

Even more alarming are some of the proposals for financial and other kinds of support for asylum seekers. The rules say that unless you claim asylum at the port of entry, you cannot get any income support or housing benefit. You might think these regulations may not have reached the hills of Kosovo or the killing deserts of Algeria and that being otherwise preoccupied and often very frightened of officials, those in flight may not announce their needs straight away.

The irony is that the cheats and scoundrels who have made themselves into advisors do know the system all too well and can play by the rules for a few thousand pounds. If you fail to register, you get into a maze where local authorities are obliged to provide you with minimal accommodation and food until your case or appeal is heard. You cannot work for the first six months and after that you can seek permission to do so which may or may not be granted. You are damned if you live off the state and damned if you work.

There are day centres in London - one more is due to be opened next week by Trevor Phillips - where adults arrive on foot from miles away to eat hot soup and be with others like them. I have met ex-diplomats and mothers who have had to leave their children behind at these centres. Every politician should be forced to make tea for a month in these places to see what the loss of a homeland means.

And now the Government wants to force these people to disperse - an ugly idea that was tried with dramatic unsuccess in the Eighties with Vietnamese refugees and us, the Ugandan Asians. It also wants to have special financial arrangements whereby adults will be given vouchers, not money, with pressure put on asylum-seekers to get community and family support where possible. So an Iraqi will be put into a white village in Wales, where there are not too many more like him. He will have a voucher - not the dignity that money, however little, gives - and then he will be expected to ask his uncle, who has been placed in lily-white Huntingdon, to send him a small corner of his voucher. Is that it?

We need to rethink how refugees and asylum-seekers are viewed before governments can be released from the pressures that generate such policies. Refugees are some of the most talented people in this country. There are Bosnian doctors in our hospitals, and computer wizards from Iran - not to mention the cleaners and decorators and minicab drivers we all use. A refugee brought us Marks & Spencers. But more than anything else we need to remember what that great man Rabbi Hugo Grynn used to say: "We will be judged by how we are to people to whom we owe nothing."