Bluemerle

We all now know from numerous press reports that the government have
not the faintest idea of how many asylum seekers are in this country
but it may come as a surprise to read the requirements that the Home
Office insisted on as minimum standards for housing them when Mr David
Blunkett was Home Secretary, and are still extant. You are not
supposed to know this, as all involved have had to sign the Official
Secrets Act, but one local councillor was so disgusted he has gone
public, as you can read below.

SPECIAL HOUSING REQUIREMENTS FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS

Secret Tenancy Agreement

A secret 26-page document the Revised Tenancy Agreement April 2001 -
produced by the Secretary of State for the Home Office, acting through
the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. Its very existence is
supposed to be secret, Section 3 (p), on page 8 has this warning for
people or companies thinking of making money out of housing asylum
seekers:

The Landlord's attention is drawn to the Official Secrets Acts
1911-1989. The landlord shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that
all individuals engaged on any work in connection with this Agreement
have notice that these statutory provisions apply to them and shall
continue to apply after the expiry or termination of the Term.

I don't know whether there is anything to make a reader who is not
planning to be a signatory to the document subject to the provisions of
the Official Secrets Act. I don't know, and I don't care. This document
is so shocking that the truth about it has to be told. All I will say
is that this article is published here solely on my authority, so if
some Home Office legal bigwigs wants to prosecute over this shockingly
democratic breach of their veil of secrecy, they know where to find me.

The anti-free speech restrictions continue on page 9, although by this
time the section numbers seem to have become somewhat confused and very
unclear. The actual meaning of Section (a) (iii), however, is all too
clear:

The Landlord shall ensure that no press release or other public
document containing Confidential Information is issued and shall not
make any public statement concerning Confidential Information without
the prior written approval of the Directorate and the Tenant Company as
to its content and the manner and extent of its publication.

This is the answer to one key asylum mystery. This is why local
councils and private companies alike, which are providing accommodation
for 'refugees', continually refuse to comment or lie about their role
in housing asylum seekers. Once they've signed up to this Agreement,
they simply don't have a choice.

Detailed list of items for asylum seekers

So what doesn't the Home Office want you to know? Take a look at
Schedule 1 on page 14, and you can see for yourself:

This list of requirements for any property being used to house asylum
seekers begins, reasonably enough, by insisting that it shall be fit
for human habitation, and have adequate light. Let us ignore the fact
that many hundreds of thousands of our own people are either homeless
or live in houses which are unfit for human habitation because,
according to central government and local councils, there isn't enough
money to deal with all the problems.

By the time we get to Section 1.3, the secret Agreement begins to lay
out requirements which are beyond the reach not just of a relatively
small number of the homeless or desperately poor:

all meters shall be of the quarterly type, the use of card or key
meters shall not be allowed.

Isn't that nice? If you and your family fall into arrears on your
utility bills, particularly electricity, you have to agree to the
installation of a card meter set at such a rate that it gobbles up
money. British families with children can't be officially cut off but
if they run out of meter credit, their lights and heating go off anyway
and they have to go to bed at dusk in the winter to try to keep warm.
Such hardships are unacceptable, however, when it comes to asylum
seekers.

Section 1.7 insists that The Property shall have a full and safe
central heating system installed. Paraffin or bottled gas fed heating
systems shall not be used. Perish the thought! Such devices are fine
for British pensioners and young families shivering on the poverty
line, but far too smelly, inconvenient and dangerous for Mr Blunkett's
favourites.

New electrical goods

After laying down requirements on issues such as fire safety, the
Schedule reaches Point 10: All electrical appliances in the Property
shall be either new or, if second hand, shall be supplied complete with
a twelve month guarantee. Well, I don't know about you, but when my
wife and I got married and set up home, we had to get our first
electric cooker and heaters from an auction, completely without any
guarantee at all. And, of course, ordinary British youngsters moving
into places of their own still face the same choice between paying
through the nose for new equipment or going without guarantees.

Pages 15 and 16 go on to provide a long list of the things needed in
the kitchen, living room, bedrooms and bathroom of each asylum
property. As you're probably expecting by now, this features everything
from chip pans to teaspoons, from an easy chair for each bed space to a
Boots first aid kit.

The long 'General' list in Section 1.13 even proves that the popular
observation about new net curtains showing that asylum seekers are
moving in is true, since landlords are ordered to provide net &
drawable curtains to all living rooms and bedrooms. They get
everything, in fact,
including the kitchen sink.

Free colour TV and licence paid!

One item does, however, stand out:

For Each Living/Dining Room

1 new twenty inch screen colour television complete with licence which
shall be renewed at each annual anniversary of the Start Date
throughout the Term.

Native Brits, of course, have to wait until they are 75 to get a free
TV licence, and non-payment of this iniquitous tax is the biggest
single 'crime' that puts British women in prison.

Many of those women can't afford a TV licence because they are
struggling to bring up young families on pitifully low incomes. As a
result, they are also often unable to afford proper child safety
equipment. No wonder, then, that the Home Office bureaucrats being so
generous with our tax money wanted to keep Section 1.20 secret:

Where there are to be children living in the Property, the Property
shall include:

Adequate cot and high chair facilities;
Appropriate sterilisation equipment;
Child safety gates on all stairways;
Childproof resistant devices or casement stays on all windows;
Appropriate play areas both inside and outside the Property.

Another thing that ordinary families on average incomes find a big
problem is the occasional cost of major repairs. Asylum seekers have no
such worries. Under this Agreement, the Landlord is bound to do all
repairs within seven days, and to provide an emergency repair service
(Section 1.23) where a threat to health and safety is apparent. The
rest of us have to turn to Yellow Pages or pay for call out insurance,
but it would be unfair to expect asylum seekers to do the same,
wouldn't it?

Similarly favourable treatment is also specified in the Letting
Provisions, Section (f) of which commits the Landlord to redecorate all
parts of the Property in the third year of the Term. The rest of us may
have to fork out down at "Do It All", but not Mr Blunkett's special
guests.

Perhaps most ludicrous of all, however, is the next section (g) of the
Letting Provisions, whereby the Landlord agrees: To have the exterior
of all windows of the Property cleaned once every twelve weeks. I kid
you not, it's there on page 7. What would George Formby have had to say
about it?

Who pays?

So what do all these mod cons and services cost the lucky occupants of
such premises? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. When various bleeding heart
liberals tell us how asylum seekers only get basic income support
payments, they don't tell us about the Letting Provisions on page 4 of
the Home Office's Revised Tenancy Agreement, do they? Yet these show
that not only do asylum seekers get their TV licences paid for them, we
also pick up the tab for their rent, water rates, gas, electricity and
council tax bills.

Surely, you must think, these people must want to spend night after
night on the phone to all their friends and family back home, telling
them all about the wonders of Soft Touch Britain? A lot of their pocket
money must go on paying the phone bill? No, as you probably guessed,
they don't have to pay a penny. Section 1 ((b) of the Letting
Provisions sets out the fact that the Tenant Company (funded by the
taxpayer) agrees to pick up the phone bill for every single property
provided by the Landlord in question to asylum seekers.

Don't forget that every single council or housing association in this
land which is housing asylum seekers has signed this document.
Thousands of councillors in the ruling party in Labour, LibDem and Tory
councils alike have either read this document or studiously avoided
seeing it so they didn't have to.

TonyG

That is a ******* disgrace!

__________________
If you don't think you can change the world, who do you expect to do it for you?

----

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mkpdavies

Sorry, but this is utter hogwash.

Straight out of the Nazi propaganda machine.

__________________
http://brits4ronpaul.blogspot.com/
http://wokinglibertarians.blogspot.com/
http://lpuk.org

My ignore list

Labour, Lib Dems

Keyser Soze

I got an email this afternoon telling me to ignore it as it's straight off the bnp website.

Bluemerle

This came from Tory activists.

I don't care if the BNP have it on their site. It just proves that they are more on the ball than others.

I am also told that depending on what ethnic grouping they are in, if they have to cook over a flame, then a gas cooker has to be installed.

Robin

I would like to see if this could be verified or not. I would not be too suprised to see that it`s true.

From what I know, they get their heating and lighting paid for for six months.
They can get up to £2000 to buy a car.

mkpdavies

It is made up, not on the ball.

Telling lies to win is something I expect of New Labour.

Pathetic.

__________________
http://brits4ronpaul.blogspot.com/
http://wokinglibertarians.blogspot.com/
http://lpuk.org

My ignore list

Labour, Lib Dems

Alex McKee

It's BNP propaganda, that's all.

Robin

What`s all lies, what I posted or the first post ?

I`m told on good authority by someone well within the system about the heating bills.
The money for the car comes from four different people. One is a used car trader.

What`s needed is for the government to print exactly what benefits asylum seekers and others are entitled to.
I heard on the Radio from a fluffy journalist that they were only entitled to £35 a week. Is that what they are only entitled to, or is it topped up with other benefits?

Independent UKIP

I have done a little bit of googling on this. In 2001 the Joseph Rowntree Trust commisioned a report which came to be called 'Dispersed: A study of services for asylum seekers in West Yorkshire' by Ruth Wilson. I have tried to find this report online but have not found it. Perhaps someone either has it or can gain access to it.

In a story of 13th July 2001 ramproject.org.uk "Promoting best practice in media representation of refugee and asylum issues" made the following comments on the report:

http://www.ramproject.org.uk/bulleti...ate=2001-07-13

This was of course from 2001. The BNP statement (supported by a couple of dozen pdf pages (which I have NOT read)) refers to a supposedly blank agreement in April 2001. I believe there have been numerous legal changes in relations between Landlords and Tenants and the legal requirements required for property to be offered for rent since 2001 (ie the BNP stuff is well out of date if it was accurate in the first place).

As I have not seen the report mentioned and do not know the source of the BNP statement I am unable to make any conclusions either way other than that an alleged blank agreement from 2001 is way out of date & will have at the very most very little legal relevance in 2007. As ramproject implies, perhaps someone should FOI request any relevant 2007 documents.

(This is from a bit of very brief research by me. I am very happy for anyone to correct/update/add to all of the above) Ta.