The Home Office placed hundreds of asylum seekers in controversial military barracks following fears that better accommodation would “undermine confidence” in the system.  Critics say ministers were “pandering to prejudice” and jeopardising health for “political ends”.

Conditions in two Ministry of Defence (MoD) sites – known as Napier Barracks, in Folkestone, Kent, and Penally Barracks, in Pembrokeshire – since they were were repurposed for housing asylum seekers last September prompted campaigners, lawyers and humanitarian groups to report poor access to healthcare and legal advice, as well as concerns over coronavirus safety.

Bridget Chapman, of local charity Kent Refugee Action Network, said the Home Office’s decision to use “inappropriate and isolated” buildings as asylum seeker accommodation was a “deliberate choice to create a narrative of being deliberately tough on those seeking sanctuary”.  

An official document states that destitute asylum seekers are “not analogous” to British citizens and other permanent residents who are in need of state welfare assistance, and that the “less generous” support provided to this group is “justified by the need to control immigration. Any provision of support over and beyond what is necessary to enable the individuals to meet their housing and subsistence needs could undermine public confidence in the asylum system and hamper wider efforts to tackle prejudice and promote understanding within the general community and amongst other migrant groups.”

Sophie Lucas, solicitor at Duncan Lewis, a law firm that has represented a number of asylum seekers who have subsequently been moved out of the barracks, said the document insinuated that a less generous system for asylum seekers was a “legitimate response” to outcry from extremist groups.

“Instead of attempting to combat bigotry and hostility towards asylum seekers, the Home Office have pandered to prejudice. Penalising an already extremely vulnerable group of people in this way is unlawful,” she said. 

Chai Patel, legal director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said: “The government implied these cramped and disused barracks were being used as temporary housing because there was no alternative. But this document reveals that Home Office has been jeopardising people’s health for partly political ends – prioritising playing ‘tough’ on migration over the lives of extremely vulnerable people, who’ve been placed in conditions reminiscent of those they were fleeing.”

Naomi Phillips, director of policy and advocacy at British Red Cross, said the sites were “completely inappropriate and inhumane” as housing for refugees, and called for them to be close “urgently”.

Home Office put refugees in barracks after fears better housing would ‘undermine confidence’ in system | The Independent

Less than £12,000 of a £40m fund set up to compensate Chagos islanders who were forcibly evicted from their homeland by the British government has reached those living in the UK.

Four years after it was announced, the Foreign Office fund has distributed less than 1% of its budget in direct support to islanders forced from their homes in the Indian Ocean.

The limited Foreign Office funding used so far has been spent on interpretation services for Chagossians, many of whom depend on French creole translation, and modest support for community groups.

Money was also spent on scoping visits to the islands by government officials, with several hundred thousand pounds used for “heritage trips”, granting Chagossians short stays on the islands, often to tend to relatives’ graves. Chagossian charity groups have, however, described this use of the support fund as “disingenuous”.

Chagossian charities have been handing out crisis grants of £50 to families who are struggling to buy food or pay for funeral costs but have expressed frustration that the multi-million pound support fund is not being utilised.

The Conservative MP Henry Smith, whose constituency of Crawley in West Sussex is home to most of Britain’s 3,000-plus Chagossian population, said: “The £40m support fund was announced almost five years ago and it has been tortuous to extract money from it ever since…it’s outrageous that next to none of this funding has actually been utilised. The fact that this sort of funding hasn’t been deployed is another failure of Foreign Office promises over half a century to the Chagossian community.”

Just £12,000 of £40m fund for displaced Chagos islanders has been spent | World news | The Guardian

 Bursaries for poorer children to attend private fee-paying schools have been far too scarce to significantly open up access to them to the less affluent. According to new research on social mobility found that the bursaries could not “account for more than a minor share of the participation” of families with lower incomes.

Bursaries and grants “are relatively low in value and distributed to only one in five of families” outside the top 10% richest families, according to the research by University College London’s institute of education.

Bursary programmes have often been cited in response to criticisms that high fees continue to make the schools the preserve of the rich. The findings challenge the idea that such schemes have made a major dent in the exclusivity of private schools. The team also found a link between middle- and lower-income families with children in private education and housing wealth, suggesting booming house prices have helped them get access to private schooling despite higher fees.

“Though income progressive and related to need, bursaries and grants are relatively low in value and distributed to only one in five of families outside the top decile; they cannot, therefore, account for more than a minor share of the participation of these non-income-rich families,” the team concluded. “However, among homeowners, non-rich families with privately educated children have much greater housing wealth than families with children in state schools.

 Britain remained “distinctive” in the significant social and economic divide between private and state school pupils, describing it as “among the highest in the developed world”. While about 9% of adults have been to an independent school, private schooling remained “a significant pathway through which some families obtain long-term advantages for their children”.

The proportion of pupils helped with financial support has not significantly increased, despite the costs of private schooling rising considerably. By 2018, the average annual basic fee was £14,280 for day schools and £33,684 for boarding schools – a 60% real-terms increase from 2000 and three times the 1980 fees.

 Since 1997, they found that throughout the period, around 15 out of every 100 pupils received direct financial support. The value of financial support was around £4,900 in 2011–2018, little changed from earlier periods and “thus accounting for a smaller fraction of the fees: 35% compared with 57% in the first period”. 

The paper concludes: “The data could not conclusively support claims that the private school sector has widened access for students from low-income families through more generous financial support.”

Private school bursaries ‘still too scarce’ to tackle inequality | Private schools | The Guardian

The founders of the US Constitution accepted social inequality in many spheres, but they did insist on equality in one sphere. All citizens must be equal before the law. That is, the law must apply equally to all. No one must enjoy legal immunity, not even – indeed, especially not — those chosen to govern the country. For otherwise the new republic would have a government of men instead of a government of laws – the fundamental principle cherished by the founders.

One in four workers in the UK lack basic employment protection.

The TUC found that 7.5 million employees have no protection from unfair dismissal because of the law which says workers must be employed for two years to qualify.

Nearly half of hospitality staff and a third of people working in the retail, wholesale and vehicle repair sector have not been in their jobs long enough to qualify for unfair dismissal rights. All employees should have unfair dismissal rights from day one in a job, urged the union.

7.5 million UK workers lack basic employment rights as jobless rate set to rise | The Independent

At Biden’s inauguration Jennifer Lopez started off the festivities off with a rendition of Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land…but, of course did not sing all the relevant and pertinent verses of the original

No

As I was walkin’ – I saw a sign there

And that sign said “No trespassin’”

But on the other side …. it didn’t say nothin!

Now that side was made for you and me!

In the last year, Covid-19 has undone the economic, health and food security of millions, pushing as many as 150 million people into extreme poverty. While the health and economic impacts of the pandemic have been devastating, the rise in hunger has been one of its most tangible symptoms.

Income losses have translated into less money in people’s pockets to buy food while market and supply disruptions due to movement restrictions have created local shortages and higher prices, especially for perishable food.

Global food prices, as measured by a World Bank food price index, rose 14% last year. 

Covid crisis is fuelling food price rises for world’s poorest | Food security | The Guardian

 Yet another story of falling populations.

Russia’s population shrank by about half a million last year.

There were 229,700 more deaths between January and November 2020 than in the same period the previous year.

Putin has long called for greater efforts towards population growth. Last year, he blamed the trend on low incomes.

Experts say further causes other than the pandemic are the migration of younger, well-educated people abroad and the low birth rate.

Russia: Population shrinks for first time in 15 years | Russia News | Al Jazeera

 The US immigration detention system is the world’s largest and part of a for-profit prison industry.

“We’ve commodified human displacement,” said David Taylor, who has used drones to take aerial photography and video of 28 privately run Ice detention centers near the US southern border, in California, Arizona and Texas.

While accounts of abuse and exploitation from inside facilities appear in the news media, the detention centers are usually in isolated, underpopulated areas with access to photographers or film crews tightly controlled.

Between 2015 and 2018, as the administration began to ramp up its crackdown on immigrants, the targeted average daily population of detained immigrants grew 50%. Corporations won contracts from ICE worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

‘This is literally an industry’: drone images give rare look at for-profit Ice detention centers | US immigration | The Guardian

  A study, which surveyed almost 1.4 million adults aged over 55, provides fresh insights into why people of black and south Asian ethnic backgrounds have a greater risk of death from Covid than white people.

It found that for almost all ethnic minority groups, health-related quality of life was worse compared to white British people, with the average health of 60-year-olds belonging to five of the groups – Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Arab, and Gypsy or Irish Traveller – similar to that of an average 80-year-old.

Not only are people from these groups often poorer and more likely to suffer from underlying health conditions, they are also more likely to report worse treatment when visiting their GP surgery, and insufficient support from local services, such as housing and social care.

Study reveals depth of BAME health inequality in England | England | The Guardian