“Fairer Pathway to Settlement” for Migrants and Refugees
Fundamental concerns with UK Government proposals
We are urging the UK Government and our MPs to reconsider the proposals for the following reasons:
Our collective, over-riding objective should be to make our communities safer, more cohesive, and our economy more resilient.
We fear these proposals will do the opposite by:
- Discriminating against people that already face multiple structural barriers to integration;
- Failing to invest in the systems and services that enable people to make effective contributions and to overcome barriers to inclusion and integration;
- Placing unfunded burdens on a multitude of public and third sector support services that protect the health and wellbeing of individuals and families;
- Undermining people’s right to international protection, they will drive a coach and horses through the New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy.
In terms of the specific proposals linking volunteering to earned settlement, we have the following deep concerns:
- Volunteering to help out in your community or to help a cause, is – by definition – a choice. But these proposals would effectively make volunteering a necessity for people seeking citizenship. Encouraging people to consider volunteering is to be welcomed: coercing people to do so is morally repugnant and increases the risk of exploitation (see the joint STUC and Volunteer Scotland Charter and our own guidance).
- Many groups already face barriers to participation in volunteering and in the absence of sufficient support services to overcome these (such as flexible childcare or English language and literacy support for learning) these proposals will widen those inequalities and effectively punish those that need more support.
- These proposals are already placing an unfunded burden on our partnership work to make it easier for people to volunteer with a focus on inclusion. Since the proposals were first announced, we have seen at least a doubling of the number of people booking to attend monthly volunteering information sessions that are hosted by Scottish Refugee Council and supported by Volunteer Glasgow and a wide range of opportunity providers. We have had to close the online booking system far in advance of each session to manage the sessions safely: many more people than double are likely to be trying and failing to book a spot.
- We fully endorse the position of the UK Volunteering Forum in its opposition to the proposals
- And we have grave concerns about the Home Office measuring and verifying people’s volunteering. We believe that’s a breach of people’s privacy and freedom to volunteer. We also have little confidence about the capacity of the Home Office to design and implement any such system.
This is a joint statement from Scottish Refugee Council and Volunteer Glasgow.
Scottish Refugee Council and Volunteer Glasgow have worked together with a wide range of partners to enable New Scots to volunteer for over 25 years.
We believe in the health, wellbeing, integration and employability benefits volunteering brings to people that volunteer and to the population as a whole; and the much wider, positive impacts for the beneficiaries of people’s volunteering across virtually every aspect of society – for everyone.
We are determined to offer all possible assistance to policy-makers with the expertise we have derived from our organisations’ work in furtherance of our charitable objectives.
