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Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, perhaps I should start my speech with, “As I was saying,” given that this is the fifth such Private Member’s Bill from these Benches since 2017. My noble friend Lady Ludford introduced numbers 3 and 4.
I declare an interest as a trustee of a trust established by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, which has introduced me to a number of young asylum seekers applying for funding to attend university. Like so many young refugees I have met, they have impressed me by their resilience and their determination to contribute to the UK.
The first purpose of the Bill is to provide in primary legislation, not just in amendable rules that can be changed without Parliament’s involvement or scrutiny, the rights of people who seek safety in the UK to be joined by their family. It is not enough to hope that the Home Office will use its discretion. The second purpose is to define “family”. It is an unambitiously narrow definition, in the hope that the Government will see this extension to enable children to sponsor immediate family to join them as modest and doable—she says looking straight at the Minister. The right to sponsor applies to people with protection status—that is, refugees—and those with humanitarian protection who are at real risk of harm if returned to their country of origin but not for the specific reasons which bring them within the refugee convention. I shall refer to them all as refugees. The third purpose is legal aid.
Since 2017, when the first Bill was introduced, the plight of refugees has not changed, nor have the UK’s moral obligations or the importance of family, which politicians continue to emphasise. However, the political context has not stayed still: the areas affected—afflicted —by conflict; the greater politicisation of immigration; the conflation of asylum and immigration; and small boats have succeeded the lorries and trains used by desperate asylum seekers. Last year, 7% of asylum claims were from unaccompanied children. The academic think tank UK in a Changing Europe reports that 33% of the public think that the figure is not 7% but 40% or more. There is a huge leadership role for government to be clear here.
This Bill sits squarely within calls for safe routes for refugees; I acknowledge that we have some, mostly very specific. I acknowledge that, under the new Government, families separated during the evacuation from Kabul airport will benefit from an expansion of the ACRS and that a child evacuated without his parents will be able to make a referral to relocate them or—GOV.UK says “or”—his siblings. But there is so much more to do to put safe routes in place.
Today is Anti-Slavery Day. We know the dangers of being in the hands of traffickers—a very real risk for children alone—and of extreme exploitation. The organisation Missing People is clear that being missing very often means harm. I hope the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, with her experience, will expand on this. Her report seven years ago found that closing off safe routes feeds the trafficking and smuggling networks.
Last year the Justice and Home Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House, which I had the privilege of chairing, published a report on family migration. We were all affected by the evidence about children seeking asylum. A young Eritrean reached the UK alone after the sort of journey that is hard to imagine. His brother made it to Libya, which is not a good place to find yourself; he was picked up by traffickers. His sister was picked up at the border of Egypt and imprisoned there for two years. That committee is one of a number—in the Commons too—to have called for an extension to family reunification.
The Government’s response was:
“Our policy is not designed to keep child refugees away from their parents, but in considering any policy we must think carefully about the wider impact to avoid putting more people unnecessarily into harm’s way”.
Well, they are in harm’s way at home. There are plenty of “push factors”, but that Government often deployed the “pull factor” argument. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, has said, it is “inherently implausible”. That Government’s attempts at deterrence in other contexts were not notably successful. We cannot prove a negative, but various respected organisations have reported that they cannot find support for the contention. It does not seem to me a compelling argument; indeed, there is evidence of children not wanting the Red Cross to trace their family in their country of origin for fear of endangering them.
What is compelling is the importance of family. They may not always be perfect, but being separated from your parents in childhood tends to have a significant impact on your mental health and well-being, indeed your very development. I know that other noble Lords will refer to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. Siblings, too, are hugely significant; what a difference it must make in a strange country if you are with your brother or sister.
Our rules reflect a very westernised view of family. In many cultures, it is common for children of both sexes to live with their parents until marriage, and for three or four generations to stay together as a unit. Dependants are not as limited a cohort as we think of them. I have been urged to add more relatives to the list, and I well understand that; my own aunts were hugely important to me. I have said that the Bill is deliberately unambitious but, under it, the Secretary of State could add to the categories: criteria would include risk to physical, emotional or psychological well-being, and the interests of the child. I have heard the term “unexpressed grief” in connection with mental health, and “the freedom to be a child”.
There are benefits to society of supporting the integration of refugees. A moment’s thought will confirm what being settled means, in the non-technical sense, for refugees and for the rest of the population. It means stability; you can focus and achieve. If you are a child, you can focus on your education rather than being one of those described as “challenging” because you are always on edge, hoping your mother might be able to phone you.
Would there be a cost to the UK? Common sense tells me the contrary. Parents can take care of their children. We all know of the costs to local authorities of looking after children they are required to accommodate and support.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
Perhaps the noble Baroness could inform the House how many people she envisages, on an annual basis, would be granted refugee family reunion status under these measures.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
I will not go into that now; I do not have it in my speech. I am time limited and conscious of other people’s need for that time. I will happily tell the noble Lord later. From the tone of that question, he obviously opposes what I am saying. I will go into that with him later, but he does not have his name down to speak.
In 2018 the UK Government requested information from EU member states about the impact of their family reunion policies. The UK is quite an outlier in Europe. There was little assessment about public services or the costs to Governments, but Italy reported that it had seen no financial effect on public resources. If the noble Lord who has just intervened is worried about numbers, he might think about costs, which are another factor. I can tell the noble Lord that the Refugee Council and Safe Passage estimate an additional 240 to 750 visa grants—not sponsorships—a year.
I turn lastly to legal aid. Yes, of course, there is a shortage of lawyers, but family reunion needs to be in scope. Exceptional case funding is so exceptional as to be well-nigh invisible. The current rules are a maze, almost impenetrable to applicants and to many lawyers.
I urge noble Lords to see this Bill all the way through, and the Government to accept what it provides. At the last iteration, the Labour Front Bench was very supportive. I will not name the spokesman for fear of embarrassing him, but he was very senior.
I have received a lot of support from outside the House. The International Rescue Committee says that it
“welcomes and strongly endorses this Bill which would see children and young people, who have fled conflict and persecution, finally reunited with their loved ones in the UK”.
In 2020, 14 children from a London primary school who had read the book The Boy at the Back of the Class—I commend it to noble Lords—told me how sad they were about the plight of lone refugee children. The boy at the back of the class was an unaccompanied asylum seeker. They were happy, though, that the book had a happy ending. In fact, the fiction involved the intervention of the late Queen Elizabeth. One child wrote:
“It must be very scary … to be in a big new country surrounded by new people. A strong country like ours can help”.
I beg to move.
Baroness Mobarik (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on putting forward this important Bill and on her eloquent and forceful introduction. I intend to make just a few remarks with regard to unaccompanied refugee children having the right to bring their siblings or parents to join them, something currently disallowed under the refugee family reunion rules. My immediate concern on learning of this was that it would potentially be a pull factor, something we can little afford considering the current stresses and strains of migration.
However, looking at the facts and figures, it became clear to me that this reaction on my part was a reflection of the general narrative in recent years on the issue of migration. In fact, a report by the House of Lords European Affairs Committee categorically came to the conclusion that there was no evidence provided by EU member states where children are allowed to sponsor family members that they had in some way been coerced into going ahead with the rest of their family to seek refuge, and for others to follow on the back of that. In other words, there is no evidence to support the pull-factor premise. In fact, this gap in the UK family reunion policy of refugee children in the UK being unable to sponsor any family members under the Immigration Rules is out of step with every country in the European Economic Area other than Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
The Bill would expand family reunion and allow refugee children to sponsor their parents and siblings. Importantly, in 2016 the Home Affairs Committee recommended this policy change, as did the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee in 2023. We may ask what the estimated result would be in terms of numbers if this rule were to be implemented; the noble Lord asked that very question. On average it would increase family reunions by as many as an additional 750 visas. To put that in context, that is around two people in each of the council areas in England and Wales. However, statistics obscure the reality of the people behind them and how they are affected. There are many examples of depression and thoughts of suicide.
Any such measure would of course have to be carefully monitored, but I hope it will be given serious consideration. This change to the refugee family reunion rules would have a huge and positive impact on the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our country.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as vice- chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation.
Unaccompanied refugee children, the subject of the Bill, are not well cared for in this country. There are many dangers for all of them. There is a particular danger for a certain group of the children about which we should all be very concerned: the possibility of being exploited and trafficked. This is not a vain concern; it happens, and that is what the Government need to recognise. Between 2021 and 2024, such children were being placed in asylum hotels, and 440 children disappeared, 132 of whom have not yet been found. Where are they? Almost certainly they have been trafficked.
There is very little help at the moment. Asylum hotels are not used, and local authorities are expected to take over the children. Anyone who reads the news knows that Kent is completely overwhelmed and unable to deal with the children who flow into its care. It cannot look after them. These are all unaccompanied refugee children.
There is what is called a national transfer scheme, but it is utterly inefficient. Children are not kept track of. Independent child trafficking guardians—something Lord Field put forward in the report of 2019, with which I was involved and which, thank goodness, the previous Government took on board—do not look after refugee children. They look after them in Scotland, so why on earth do they not look after them in this country? There are not so many such children that there could not be guardians to do it. In Scotland that is done extremely efficiently; not everything in Scotland is, but that certainly is.
The previous Government had a series of adverse High Court decisions that it would be illuminating for the present Government to read. These children need families, not care homes. It would save a lot of money if the present Government looked at the cost to the country of the care of each individual child.
This is a situation that is drifting. The Bill is timely, welcome and important. Not only should this Government listen; they should act.
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield
My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for bringing forward this important Bill, and I acknowledge the work of other noble Lords on similar Bills.
The sustained interest in a Bill of this kind should tell us something: that the current route to family reunion is unduly restrictive and prohibitive. Government data shows that in 2023 there were over 7,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the care of local authorities in the UK, 141 of those in the communities that I serve as bishop in Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield.
Despite the best efforts of dedicated professionals and public agencies, the care system is simply not the right place to house children, least of all children seeking asylum. It is deeply regrettable that so many are in care when they have family members only too willing to come and look after them—if the family reunion routes only made that possible.
These are just the children we know about—just the children on the books, as it were. The risk that unaccompanied children will go missing outside the legal process, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, just reminded us, and fall into the hands of exploitative gangs is horrendous and simply unacceptable.
Of course borders need to be managed. The strains on host communities are real, and we should not minimise or overlook them. Resources are needed to help host communities and incomers to live with dignity side by side and integrate well. However, the reality is that families can be separated on their journeys to safety, and we strengthen communities when we strengthen families.
In July this year the Government allowed children who were separated from their parents during the evacuation from Kabul in August 2021 to apply to have their parents join them in the UK; the last Government deserve credit for that. Will the current Government afford that same right to children from other countries?
I very much support the Bill and hope it makes good progress through the legislative process.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hamwee on introducing this Bill. Her commitment and that of my noble friend Lady Ludford to the cause of those seeking refuge in our country is as impressive as it is long- standing.
Over the many years that I have been involved in advocating for those entangled in the immigration system, I have been baffled by its unfathomable complexity and its inability to resolve cases, leaving applicants in limbo. Applicants are told one day that they have been granted refugee status, but the next day that that was an error. People are told that they have the right to work, then that they do not, and then told again that they do, but it will take months to get the residence card they need. In all these unfathomable difficulties, I have always been grateful for the help of the former Immigration Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe; and now the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, is proving very helpful as well.
Above all, I have been disturbed that often the system seems so disconnected from human feeling or human understanding. Nowhere is that lack of human feeling more apparent than in the effective prohibition of children granted refugee status in the UK sponsoring the immigration of their close family members. It is hard to imagine the deep emotional trauma that this must cause for child refugees already traumatised by the process that led them to seek refuge in the first place, now discovering that they are barred from ever reuniting with close family in the UK. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, gave us compelling statistics on the real consequences of this in terms of children who have gone missing.
The position taken to date by the UK Government goes entirely against the interests of these children and is in contravention of our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UK’s own expressed policy that the best interests of the child should be the primary consideration. We have already heard that the reports of the Commons Home Affairs Committee in 2016, the European Affairs Committee and, most recently, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee have concluded that this change in the law is essential and there is no evidence to support the argument that this would be a pull factor.
My noble friend described this as a modest Bill, but it would restore some humanity to our immigration system, and as such I warmly commend it.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I begin as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, did by suggesting that I could say, “As I was saying before”. I was delighted in 2022 to bring the Green group’s strongest possible support to the Bill presented then by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. We are now in a new political environment. I would have hoped that I would not have to be here strongly backing the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, but that I would be able to welcome a government Bill to deliver the same things as this Bill. As that is not the case, however, I can promise that we will work as hard as we can to promote the Bill’s progress and hope to see it on the statute book as a Private Member’s Bill.
While I have the Minister’s attention, I should like to raise an issue about not refugees but workers who came to the UK before 11 March. These are workers who, because they had sole responsibility for children, had the right to bring their children with them. I met the group Women of Zimbabwe, part of the Care for Someone charity, and met scores of mostly women to whom the Home Office is clearly unjustly and inaccurately refusing the right to bring their children.
This is relevant to the Bill because, in the Tory Government’s response to this debate last time, we kept being told, “There is, under exceptional circumstances, the possibility that the Home Office will provide legal aid and support”. But I am afraid that this case—of workers rather than refugees—shows that the Home Office still cannot be trusted to behave with humanity and justice. Therefore, we need this legal provision.
I shall make one more point, which I am not sure has already come out in this debate, powerful though it has been. It is a simple fact that the UK has far fewer rights for child refugees than nearly all of the rest of Europe. That point needs to be hammered home. I said last time that we were
“world-leading in cruelty to child refugees”.—[Official Report, 8/7/22; col. 1237.]
I very much hope that the new Government do not want to keep that same label.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hamwee on introducing this Bill, which I support, and assure the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that I will carry on hammering the point. Since the Children Act 1989, all legislation must primarily consider the best interests of the child. This comes almost word for word from Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK has long been a signatory.
However, this does not always underpin policy. Article 10 of the convention states that
“applications by a child or his or her parents to enter or leave a State Party for the purpose of family reunification shall be dealt with by States Parties in a positive, humane and expeditious manner”.
Current policy is not humane. Under Article 22, Governments must help refugee children separated from their parents to be reunited with them. That means they should get legal aid too. As we have heard, currently the UK is the only major European country that refuses this, and it is directly at odds with the best interests of the child.
This policy is leaving some of the most vulnerable children separated from their families at a time when they need their parents most. It puts child refugees in the care of local authorities, which, as we have heard, can ill afford to support them. This leaves parents with an impossible choice: never to see their closest family again or to embark on a dangerous journey to try to reach them. This is contrary to the Government’s own policy of reducing the incentives for people to attempt to enter the UK illegally. The Government have recognised these children as refugees, stating that it would be unsafe for them to return to their country of origin, yet, unlike adult refugees, they are denied the opportunity to be joined by their closest relatives.
Child refugees should at least be treated as equal to adult refugees under the Government’s family reunion policy. Indeed, they have more need for family reunion than any adult. The last time this was debated, the government spokesman claimed that a similar Bill would undermine government “safeguarding responsibilities”. I believe it would do the opposite. Having one or more parents with them in the UK is more likely, as long as checks about their best interests are made, to improve the safeguarding of children who are vulnerable, as we have heard, to recruitment by criminal gangs for modern slavery, sexual exploitation or illegal work.
The UK Government have argued that changing the rules would encourage parents to send their children on unsafe journeys to secure refugee status to enable families to join them. There is no evidence to support this argument. Family separation is not only not in the children’s interests, it is not in anyone’s interests.
Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I very much welcome and support the Bill. It takes a common-sense approach to the definition of family—what the person on the Clapham omnibus would reasonably consider, were the family to be in the United Kingdom, to be a family member who should be with other members of the same family. The public would, I believe, regard any of the family members described in the Bill as “close” rather than “extended” family.
There are not enough safe and orderly routes. According to the family reunion in the UK organisation, outside the three nationality-specific schemes, fewer than 500 people were brought to the UK by any other safe route in the year ending June 2024. The International Rescue Committee is clear that expanding safe and orderly routes, such as family reunion provided by this Bill, is the best way to ensure that people can safely access protection in the UK so that they do not have to resort to dangerous journeys.
To suggest that allowing those aged under 18 to bring close family members to this country will encourage parents to endanger their own children’s lives—sending vulnerable people on perilous journey’s just so that, if their children make it, they can apply to bring their parents to join them—risks further demonising asylum seekers as heartless, reckless and less worthy of our compassion. As a number of briefings that we have helpfully been provided with say, there is no evidence that families are sending children as—I think the word is regrettable in all the circumstances—anchors, as the House of Lords European Union Committee termed the alleged practice in its 2017 report Children in Crisis. The noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, mentioned this.
Asylum seekers, by their very nature, at the very least in the early stages of their time in this country, are likely to be unfamiliar with the legal system that stands between them and family reunion. Therefore, there is a compelling fairness argument that legal assistance to help refugees navigate this system should be provided.
We need asylum seekers who have been given refuge in this country to feel welcome as full members of society and to be fully integrated, enjoying the same entitlements and privileges of those around them—including being able to be with close family members. They are likely to be happier, more productive and more loyal members of society if they can have their close family members with them, not to mention reducing the dangers of trafficking and exploitation highlighted by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.
Not only is the Bill common sense in its scope and the legal aid it seeks to provide, it is common sense in ensuring those granted sanctuary are even more loyal and productive, and in helping to put the criminal people smugglers out of business by providing a much-needed safe and orderly route for refugees’ close family members.
Baroness Neuberger (CB)
My Lords, I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in the Bill—again. I will say something about why it is important. We know that, for children, bringing in family members—notably parents, but sometimes siblings—would make them feel safer. We have heard why that is important in graphic detail. It would allow them to thrive. I declare an interest as chair of the Schwab and Westheimer charitable trusts, which give young people access to education. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I too have been impressed by the resilience in appalling circumstances of some of these young people, many of whom came on their own without their parents.
This problem will not go away and the Bill will not solve it for everyone, but it will help some children significantly and it takes note of the best interests of the child. It would not only allow children to sponsor parents and siblings but allow legal aid for family reunion purposes. It is not a big ask, and here is why we should do it. In the case of the Kindertransport, so often cited in this House as astonishing British generosity before the last war—bringing 10,000 children to this country from Nazi Europe—we often hear those who came, grateful as they are, ask why the Government could not have allowed their parents to come too. In the memoirs of many of those Kindertransport children, they never got over their parents not getting out.
Andrea Hammel of Aberystwyth University puts it brilliantly, stating that
“in the last 20 years, extensive research has shown that the legacy of the 1938/39 Kindertransport should be seen in a more critical light … Most of the children who travelled to the UK on Kindertransport left their parents behind on the continent … only about half … saw … their parents again … Where parents and child refugees were united after 1945, it was not usually a straightforward happy ending. In most cases … children and parents had lost their emotional bonds and common cultural and linguistic backgrounds … Even those families that were able to reunite were often broken beyond repair”.
We know this about separated children and about long periods of separation. Why, then, will we not accept the evidence and put it into policy, allowing children to sponsor parents and siblings, giving them legal aid to do so, and allowing family reunion that way round? This is a relatively small ask of the Government, who, in opposition, sponsored this move. I very much hope they will still support it.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee and I have played a relay with Private Members’ Bills on this important subject of refugee family reunion. She has explained the history, going back seven years and now five Bills. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield noted, the sustained interest in this cause should tell the Government something. My noble friend’s expertise and commitment to this cause, and many others in the field of asylum and immigration, have inspired me and continue to do so.
The Bill would address some of the key gaps in eligibility and remove some of the existing barriers to family reunion. Notably, it would enable child refugees to sponsor their close family members—parents and siblings—as well as cautiously expand the range of family members that adult refugees are allowed to sponsor to include siblings, parents and adult dependent children. The core proposition is that families belong together and that we should do what we can to mend the effects of war and persecution that tear them apart. It is simply inhumane to keep families apart.
This Government are, thankfully, committed to the European Convention on Human Rights. What about its Article 8, on the right to family life? What about the Convention on the Rights of the Child? My noble friend Lady Walmsley asked why the Government are not prioritising the best interests of the child.
Family ties are a key reason why people risk their lives on dangerous journeys to reach the UK, so safe and legal family reunion routes provide a vital alternative to life-threatening channel crossings, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—still my friend—stressed. Restricting family reunion drives vulnerable women and children into the hands of ruthless people smugglers and traffickers, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, so forcefully reminded us. Family reunion accelerates refugees’ integration in the UK. Permitting a refugee to be with their family will greatly improve their chance of leading a stable and productive life, without threats to their well-being and mental health. Imagine trying to move forward with your life and work while worrying about the safety of family back home.
Family relationships can be key to the psychological recovery of a child refugee. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, referred to the grief of the Kindertransport children. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reminded us, family unity may save the public purse; it costs £30,000 a year to look after a child in a residential home or foster care who might be supported by parents and other relatives if they were allowed to come to the UK—memo to Rachel Reeves.
In 2022, the previous Government demonstrated an admirable awareness of how refugees need their families by introducing the Ukraine family scheme, as has already been referred to, which allowed Ukrainians to sponsor a wide range of extended family members. This Bill suggests definitions of family that are not nearly as broad as the Ukraine scheme.
The previous Government defended the ban on child refugees sponsoring their parents or close family members to join them—in which we are an outlier in Europe, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, stressed—by claiming that it would act as a pull factor, encouraging more children to make dangerous journeys to the UK. As the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, and my noble friend Lord Oates cited, in 2016 the EU Committee of this House categorically concluded that there was no evidence provided by EU member states operating the family reunification directive, which permits children to sponsor family members but which the UK declined to opt into, that children had been exploited by being sent ahead for other family members to join them. Its report on child migrants said:
“We received no evidence of families sending children as ‘anchors’ following the implementation of the Family Reunification Directive by other Member States”.
The Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place reached a similar conclusion under the chairmanship of the right honourable Yvette Cooper, now Home Secretary. In any case, the deterrence argument assumes it to be morally as well as legally sound to block the right to family reunification in order to send signals to prospective immigrants to give it up. This is surely not going to be the new Government’s position.
It is important to note that, while the Bill would make a big change for the families able to be safely reunited, the increase in the number of refugee family reunion visas issued would be relatively small. My noble friend answered the noble Lord, Lord Murray, who made an intervention without a speech. The Refugee Council and Safe Passage have estimated that allowing children to sponsor close relatives could result in between 240 and 750 family members being granted visas each year.
Just over two years ago, during Second Reading on a similar Bill that I introduced, there was an important contribution from the then shadow Chief Whip—I will name him—the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, now the actual Chief Whip. He said:
“I support the Bill and hope that we will get a positive response from the Minister … This issue is not going to go away until the Government deal with the question of how we can have proper safe and legal routes and deal with the criminal gangs. This Bill is one attempt to deal with those problems”.—[Official Report, 8/7/2022; col. 1242.]
I rest my case. This remains the case in October 2024. If the new Government are serious about strengthening safe routes, supporting women and children, endorsing family life and tackling the smuggling and trafficking gangs, they will back this Bill. I sincerely hope that the Minister can give us a positive response today to this modest and doable Bill, as my noble friend says.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who has been a very strong advocate for family reunion over many years and a number of Bills. She will recall that the previous Conservative Government did not support this or other similar Bills, and we still have concerns about the likely impact of this Bill. This is on the grounds that it would potentially jeopardise vulnerable children’s safety, as well as having substantial implications for our already stretched public resources, including legal aid and other budgets.
I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, that families belong together, but our view in government was that this Bill is too wide in scope because it gives the Secretary of State enormous discretionary power to grant people leave to remain in this country. The Bill is not limited to granting leave to enter to family members but also to any
“such other persons as the Secretary of State may determine”.
Clause 1(4) says that
“‘protection status’ has the same meaning as in the immigration rules, meaning a person with … permission to stay as a refugee … humanitarian protection … temporary refugee permission, and … temporary humanitarian protection”.
That is potentially a very large—indeed, an almost impossible to predict—number of people. The Library briefing note has published data released by the Home Office on family reunions. It shows that 16,244 people were granted family reunion visas in the year ending June 2024, which suggests that the system is not as dysfunctional as has been painted.
We are clear that significantly expanding our policy to enable children to sponsor family members goes against our safeguarding responsibilities. It is highly likely that, if passed, the Bill would create further incentives for more children to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their families and risk extremely dangerous journeys to the UK in order to sponsor later relatives. I accept that the committee has said that that is not the case, but it is very interesting that a number of the EU countries that it cited as providing no evidence are, as we speak, busily setting up what they are calling return hubs. Poland has shut its borders, and France, Italy and Germany are all looking at these sorts of things. I suggest that what they are doing and what they are saying are not necessarily entirely the same.
Of course, it is not possible to prove this—as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, you cannot prove a negative—but she should be under no illusions that the criminal people smugglers will be watching developments with considerable interest and an eye to profit. I was watching Sky News recently and one Yemeni male said, “The previous Government, they wanted to deport us, but now they are making the process easier”. What happens here is noted and it does change behaviour. As we have seen—including, I believe, overnight—that can have fatal consequences.
As we have seen in a number of EU states, rules such as the one this Bill seeks to implement would open up children to huge exploitation risk. That completely contradicts the hard work and commitment of the previous Conservative Government in protecting children from modern slavery and exploitation. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, illustrated some of the practical difficulties with regard to this work—work that I know the current Government are committed to maintaining and no doubt building upon. We refused to play into the hands of criminal gangs, and therefore we should not extend this policy to allow child refugees to sponsor family members into the UK.
On legal aid, I reassure noble Lords that the Conservative Party fully supports the principle of family unity and shares the concerns for those families who have been separated by conflict or oppression. The Bill proposes reinstating legal aid in family reunion cases, but I remind noble Lords that legal aid for refugee family reunion may already be available under the exceptional case funding scheme. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that that was very difficult to access, but again the statistics surely indicate that it is not that difficult if 16,244 people were able to achieve family reunion visas in the year ending June 2024.
Failure to provide legal aid would mean risking a breach in the individual’s human rights, subject to the means and merits test. In 2019, the previous Government amended the scope of legal aid so that separated migrant children are able to receive civil legal aid for applications by their family members and extended family members. This includes entry clearance and leave to enter or to remain in the UK made under the Immigration Rules or outside the rules on the basis of exceptional, compassionate or compelling circumstances. We must remember that legal aid is paid for by taxpayers and resources are not limitless. It is important that it is provided for those most in need, including those who seek protection.
I shall finish here, but on the subject of scarce resources I will stray a little from the brief, if I may. I was reading yesterday that the Development Minister is on record as saying that the Government intend to reverse the previous Government’s policy of using some development aid to pay for migrant and refugee housing. That is allowed under the rules. Nevertheless, the previous Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, provided a top-up to mitigate some of the effects. Will the Minister shed any light on the Government’s intentions in this area? Will development money be used? If yes, will the Treasury provide a top-up, as has reportedly been requested by the Foreign Secretary? I mention this against the backdrop that I was reading that hotels are being reopened and, no doubt, the daily costs are rising.
This country has a proud record of supporting refugees, from the Kindertransport, as has been mentioned, to the Homes for Ukraine scheme and ACRS, but we must ensure that the rules are not abused. We must also ensure that the safeguarding of children is enabled by our legislation and that taxpayers’ interests are paramount. For the reasons I have set out, we on these Benches will be unable to support the Bill.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for bringing the Bill before the House today. I feel a bit of a latecomer to the debate, having heard that there have been four or five previous attempts to cover this issue, before my membership of this House—indeed, before my membership of another place ceased in 2019. I appreciate the tenacity of the noble Baroness and will certainly reflect on the comments made not just by her but by Members across the House today.
This Government are trying to reset the debate on migration issues as a whole. We are undertaking some significant policy changes which will come before this House, on a range of issues to do with gangs, boat crossings and border security, which will reflect the change of tone in the approach to tackling some of these difficult migration issues. I understand and respect the reasons why the noble Baroness has brought this Bill forward today and hope I can answer some of the points that she raised.
Perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that we are still in the 106th day of the Government. There is therefore an opportunity to look at a four-year plus programme, not just at what happens in the first 106 days, which have already been a time of significant challenge for the Home Office on a range of issues and will continue to be so.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for raising this very important issue. I thank noble Lords for their thoughtful and passionate contributions to our debate today and for their analysis of some of the reasons why those drivers are present. I reassure all noble Lords that the Government fully support the principle of family unity and share their concerns regarding families who have been separated by conflict or persecution. It is for precisely that reason that the Government support what has been referred to already: an existing comprehensive framework for reuniting refugees with their families in the UK. I emphasise to the House that this framework is set out in the Immigration Rules, which a number of noble Lords have referenced today, and in our refugee family reunion policy.
The Government fully recognise that families will become fragmented and that the nature of conflict and persecution, referred to by a number of noble Lords, will continue to cause difficulties. However, the family reunion policy allows those with protection status in the UK to sponsor their spouse or partner and children under the age of 18 to join them here in the family unit, when an individual has fled their country of origin to seek protection in the UK. That family reunion policy has seen more than 62,605 individuals reunited with their family members in the last decade, when the party of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, was in power. Over half of those individuals are children and this significant number highlights the policy’s success in providing a vital safe route.
There is no fee for family reunion. Sponsors are also not required to meet any financial or maintenance requirements. Immediate family members, such as partners and children under 18, are entitled to that sponsorship and protection status. It is very important to recognise the baseline from which this House begins, which is that the UK’s refugee family reunion policy is in this regard at least as generous—in some cases, more generous—than European and non-European countries.
I also invite noble Lords to consider the range of routes across the Immigration Rules through which family reunification can be sought. In addition to the refugee family reunion policy, the UK wants to meet its international obligations, and this Government certainly want to continue to meet theirs, so that close relatives with protection status in the UK can sponsor children where there are serious and compelling circumstances. This can be in situations where the child has no family other than a non-parent relative in the UK, who they could reasonably expect to support or care for them. Furthermore, individuals with that protection status can sponsor adult dependent relatives living overseas to join them as well.
There are issues already in place where those international obligations can be met and, in line with those obligations, this Government recognise that some applicants do not meet those current rules. None the less, in exceptional circumstances their applications will be granted by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, where a refused application would mean a breach of their family life and responsibilities. I recognise the difficult situations for people whose protection status in the UK means that they find themselves across the world from their family members. I take this moment to make clear the Government’s commitment to reuniting families whose lives have been disrupted due to conflict or persecution.
Ministers always come to a “However”, and I now come to mine. However, there are challenges in this Bill that the Government need to reflect on, some of which were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, in his contribution. I see some of them in the Bill. The focus of today’s debate has been on children; I understand that, but the Bill is about not just children but the wider family, and there is no assessment or acceptance of what the parameter of that might be. That needs reflection by the Government as part of their consideration of today’s debate. It is essential that this Government take time to reflect on the issues that have been raised in this House, give thoughtful consideration to them and look at them in the context of the wider government policy we are now undertaking.
This Government are trying to establish a border force and put some real action against the criminal gangs to stop them operating. They are trying to disrupt the gangs through ways that have not been utilised before. They are trying to ensure that we have in place a speedier, more efficient and more effective asylum and refugee system than we had previously. They are trying as well at making sure that we look at using immigration for the wider good of the economy. All those issues are currently on the table, and it is important that we examine the concerns that a number of noble Members have raised in this House in the context of that wider policy. In looking at any policy changes, the Government have to strike the right balance between what they want to do as the right thing—ensuring the protection of children and reuniting refugees and their family members in the UK—and, difficult though it is to say this from the Dispatch Box, the issues around local authorities, public services and the pressures on them. They have to take into account the way this Bill will impact the wider government policy on asylum, migration and the other issues before this House today.
Expanding the policy to extended family would—undoubtedly, in my view and in those of my colleagues across the Home Office—have a significant and difficult impact on stretched public resources. It would also mean that we have to bring more people into scope of the policy, including those who may not necessarily need international protection themselves. I want to make sure that we examine in detail the points put before the House today and the points in the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. We need to do that in a way that makes sure that we maximise the best use of our resources and efficiencies within the complete picture of the Home Office’s approach to this issue.
We are clear that significantly expanding the policy to enable children to sponsor family members would also potentially cause difficulties around safeguarding responsibilities. Again, I am acutely aware of and have looked at—and will look again at —the issues raised by committees of this House and the Home Affairs Select Committee in another place. But on our 106th day in office, it would be rash to take those steps today without a reflection on that as a long-term responsibility. It is important that we make sure that we safeguard our own responsibilities, as well as safeguarding the children who will come here as refugees, by looking at that in a clear and open way.
While the issue of children being sent as a magnet for their parents may be controversial and have no merit—some discussions may be needed—it is important that we reflect on that and look at it in detail. We must make sure that the policy we bring forward as a Government meets the obligation of safeguarding children while meeting our international responsibilities and doing what we said we would do: ensuring that, wherever possible, family reunion is important. Again, there are criminal gangs which will watch this debate and the Bill’s progress and seek to exploit these issues. It is important that we reflect on that in a sensible and productive way, hearing what the House has said while looking at that in detail downstream.
Family unity is a key priority under the Government’s policy and there are ways through which we can do that. Mention has been made of Article 8 of the ECHR. I am proud to say today that this Government will not withdraw or scrap the ECHR; we are committed to its implementation. The right to family and private life is a qualified right, however. It is therefore the prerogative of a responsible Government to consider the economic well-being of the country and to balance Article 8 with the interests of maintaining effective immigration control and protecting the public purse. That is not to say that we rule out the points made by the noble Baroness, but we have to reflect on them, look at them and understand what the Bill means in practice.
The Bill would reinstate legal aid in family reunion cases. I remind noble Lords that legal aid for refugee family reunion can be applied for under the exceptional case funding scheme, where failure to provide legal aid would risk breaching an individual’s human rights. Under the scheme, separated migrant children are able to receive civil legal aid for applications made by their family members and extended family members. This includes support for entry clearance and permission to stay in the UK made either under the Immigration Rules or outside the rules on the basis of exceptional circumstances or compassionate and compelling circumstances. However, as has been mentioned, legal aid is paid for by the taxpayer. As noble Lords will understand, we will shortly come to a Budget and resources are not limitless. It is important that we examine the demands made today in the light of those resource pressures, ensuring that we still support those who need and seek our protection.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, made some points on discussions that he has read about overseas aid and development. Some of those points relate to Budget discussions and, again, the House will understand that I am not at liberty to discuss those today, but I will reflect on what the noble Lord said. If there are points that I can share with him, I will certainly write to him in due course.
As I set out, the Government’s family reunion policy is designed to welcome the immediate family members of those recognised as needing protection in the United Kingdom. We also provide protection to the most vulnerable people in areas and regions of conflict and instability. That global humanitarian need will continue to grow: the UNHCR has assessed that, by the end of June this year, more than 122 million people around the world had been forced from their homes, with 37 million of them now refugees.
This Government have a generous UK resettlement offer, which is an integral part of our challenge in addressing the needs of vulnerable refugees. The UK will continue to provide safe and legal routes for tens of thousands of people to start new lives here through the UK resettlement scheme, as well as community sponsorship and mandated resettlement schemes. Take the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme as an example: it has now provided support for more than 28,000 people, including women and children. The Ukraine family resettlement scheme and the Homes for Ukraine scheme have also enabled hundreds of thousands of individuals to seek sanctuary in the United Kingdom.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for raising this issue and thank noble Lords for contributing to our thought-provoking discussion today. This will remain an emotive issue—one that it is important to consider and one on which the Government, in particular the Home Office, will reflect in future. I look forward to continuing the debate and listening further when this Bill progresses in this House.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in support of the Bill. I know that, for at least two, being here was not straightforward. I also put on record the support that I have been asked to mention by four who have had to be elsewhere—the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and the noble Lords, Lord Dubs, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Purvis of Tweed.
I thank the organisations that have briefed Peers for this debate and the individuals in them for all their work in the sector. I know how pressed they are. I will not name them all, other than to thank the Refugee Council—Jon Featonby has helped me so much to get this Bill and its predecessors to Second Reading.
I am sorry that, over the years, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, and I have been put into oppositional positions, as it were. It is not something that I wish at a personal level. He said that the system is not as dysfunctional as it has been painted, but I think that it is dysfunctional for the children whom we have been talking about.
The noble Lord also talked about playing into the hands of smugglers. It is widely regarded that establishing safe routes is the best way to address smuggling. I and the whole House look forward to a policy from the new Government on this. The Minister referred to a change of tone; I look forward to a change of policy and a change of law. The Government accept the importance of family reunion, but it is more than children joining their parents. It is illogical that it does not apply the other way round.
The term “exceptional” is prayed in aid, in respect of both legal aid and how the rules can be disapplied. I think that this separation should always be regarded as exceptional; it is the separation that is exceptional. I hope that there may be an opportunity to reflect with the Government, not against them. I anticipated a number of the objections that were made but, on resource pressures, several noble Lords made it clear that those pressures are best reduced by simplifying the rules and procedures. My noble friend Lord Oates referred to the processes; if they were smoother, that would save everyone an awful lot.
I am not going to take the time to refer to all the points that have been made but I realised that, since I have to wear spectacles, I could not see that I had rather more time left at the beginning. So I will take a moment to share with the House the responses that I received from the Migration Observatory, which I contacted to ask about numbers in preparation for this debate. It said that, as so many factors influence asylum migration, isolating the impact of family and reunion rights on asylum flows would be difficult statistically. However, it gave me two examples that it thought were instructive.
In 2016, Ireland changed domestic policy to enable children to sponsor family members and saw no significant change in numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the two years following the change. Very properly, the Migration Observatory said that one could always argue that, absent the change, numbers would have been smaller, but this is again impossible to verify statistically.
The example of Norway, which has family reunion for these children, suggests that a small share sponsor family members to join them—just 12% from 1990 to 2015. The Migration Observatory also refers to a report by the Refugee Council and Safe Passage, which said that this small percentage is supported by anecdotal evidence from service providers in the UK, which say that separated children are often unable to locate their family members. This makes sponsoring them very difficult. I beg to move.