Helping the dispossessed children

But while the constitutional settlement may not have shifted, the minister insisted yesterday the politics has.

In an exclusive interview with The Herald, she set out several areas over which the executive can act immediately, naming the welfare of children living in Scotland as her overriding concern.

The most significant of these will be to fund university places for asylum seekers who have been here longer than three years, regardless of their immigration status. Though the exact number of successful applicants this year will only emerge by September, research by Careers Scotland indicates there will be between 17 and 25.

Another element will be to work with Glasgow City Council to provide more nursery places for asylum seekers' children aged three and four. Though they are legally entitled to a place in Scotland, a report by education inspectors highlighted this as a weakness.

Ms Hyslop also revealed she had met Liam Byrne, the Home Office minister responsible for immigration, earlier this week and was seeking further meetings with him and Ed Balls, the minister responsible for young people, over summer.

On the agenda will be alternatives to detention, including the use of hostel accommodation instead of removal centres such as Dungavel in Lanarkshire.

Scottish ministers will also call for "legacy" cases - those involving asylum applications rejected prior to the introduction of a new "fast track" system in March 2006 - to be given the right to remain and for adults to be allowed to work. There are some 1400 such families in this category, some of whom have been in the asylum process for more than five years, mostly living in Glasgow.

Following the lead of Kathleen Marshall, Scotland's commissioner for children and young people, the executive will press for the UK to fulfil its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, from which the UK is exempted in connection with asylum-seeker children.

"We recognise our responsibility for all children in Scotland, our obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child, and we are clear that the welfare and rights of all children is paramount. It is enshrined in Scots law and that is the principle of our consideration of asylum matters," Ms Hyslop said.

Part of the early work of taking power has been a "forensic examination" of Scots law to see what legislation can be used to aid the welfare of asylum-seeker children. University funding is one of the first areas to be identified, but more may follow.

And while the number of potential students may be small, it may yet prove contentious. The minister acknowledged yesterday that it could create conflict with the Home Office if students funded by the executive are detained and removed by immigration officers.

"I would have concerns about any removals during a period of study. But I also think that if the assessment was such that they had to be removed, on return to their country they will have been equipped as best they could while under the care and protection of Scotland," she said.

Following the intervention of Jack McConnell, the former first minister, Home Office guidelines were redrawn to recommend that children should not be detained and removed while they are taking exams. But those guidelines stop short of recommending that any pupil should automatically not be removed.

Ms Hyslop expressed particular concern about the treatment of Merita Hazizi, an Albanian student studying at Strathclyde University whose case has been highlighted by The Herald after she was twice detained and subsequently released by immigration officials.

Ms Hyslop rejected previous criticism that giving university places to asylum seekers would act as a magnet for other people seeking to come to the UK. "These are people who have been in Scotland for more than three years. The fact the Home Office's new asylum model will be dealing with asylum applications within six months completely removes that source of concern," she said.

In a slight to the previous administration's efforts on asylum, Ms Hyslop said she had discovered since taking office that an agreement drawn up by Mr McConnell and Tony McNulty, the former immigration minister, in March 2006, aimed at making the removal of asylum seekers more sensitive, had not been finalised until December and is yet to be implemented.

The arrangement for "lead professionals" overseeing asylum families is now due to be implemented in September. Ms Hyslop placed blame for the delay on the Home Office, praising the efforts of Glasgow City Council and the previous administration on the matter.

But relations with Westminster are not entirely antagonistic. In their brief conversation, Mr Byrne said the Home Office was looking at piloting alternatives to detaining families prior to removal - the "dawn raids" policy vigorously opposed by the SNP in opposition and in power. "That was obviously welcome," she said.

Allowing asylum seekers to be treated as domiciled Scottish students - so that they do not need to pay course fees - will require primary legislation amending the latter definition. But though this may take until the 2008-09 academic year, Ms Hyslop said the executive would put short-term funding arrangements in place with the Scottish Funding Council to ensure that any student given a place can take it up this autumn.

The move was welcomed by Universities Scotland yesterday. A spokesman said: "This is such a small step but will make an enormous difference to people who have not been given an awful lot of opportunities in their lives."

But there was a less cordial response from Mr Byrne, who said in a statement: "We have no plans for an amnesty, which I have condemned as wrong. This has always been our position and remains the case."

Whatever its effect in the future, Scotland's influence on the UK's "robust" asylum policy has evidently failed to bite so far.