Climate Change: Migration

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and very much agree with his expressions of concern about our current family migration policies. I am sure the Government would like to claim to be the party of the family, yet we have migration policies that regularly separate refugees and other families on a huge scale. That is something that one hopes to see change in future. I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for securing this important debate. It is a pity that it comes at the end of a week when the House is exhausted by a deluge of government legislation, but it means that those of us who are here perhaps have a chance to take a broader view than is commonly possible.

I am going to start with a longue-durée perspective, inspired in part by recently listening to the University of Georgia academic Kalyani Ramnath, author of Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942-1962. It recounts how people from what are now India, Burma, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, who had traditionally moved freely around the Indian Ocean, were suddenly trapped—families divided, trade routes disrupted—by the imposition of the idea, imported from Europe, of the rigid Westphalian system of states. All of this is within living memory; a change from freedom to restriction and great suffering inflicted by borders.

It is a useful reminder that freedom of movement has been the normal condition for nearly all of human history. Our current rigidity is, on a global scale, an extremely recent development. We can all enjoy reading the travel narratives of Ibn Battuta or Marco Polo. Neither of them talks about significant border issues—or immigration issues at all. We have to ask the question about this rigidity: is it going to be fit for this age of shocks, of the climate emergency—the desperate urgency of which has been driven home to us again and again this year as the El Niño weather system has magnified the boiling of our world? Clearly, the rigidity is now a huge problem. The people of the Libyan city of Derna, formerly with a population of around 100,000, have so tragically suffered this week. Perhaps 20,000 people have been swept to their deaths, one description speaking of a seven-meter high wall of water surging along a valley in the city, gouging out whole neighbourhoods.

That is a powerful, tragic and little-covered reminder of a truth driven home to me a few years ago by a Women’s Environmental Network event on climate migration, which stressed that, while much of the debate around climate migration is “How do we stop it?”, the reality is that, for many, the inability to migrate is literally a death sentence. Being trapped in place that is literally unsurvivable is as much of a problem as being forced to move. Potentially, of course, it is a greater problem. That is not to say, of course, that the world must not do everything it can to mitigate emissions to reduce the scale of the coming disaster, but, as so many have experienced this year, there is already a great deal of disaster built in.

The Green Party position is absolutely clear. We want to create a world in which no one is forced to move by the climate emergency, or by other human-inflicted disasters, including war and conflict. We have the political vision to see that this is possible. But we also want a world in which people are free to move when they want. As a migrant who has lived on three continents, I had the privilege of my place of birth—a place stolen from its original inhabitants in hideous acts of genocide by incoming migrants who were my predecessors—which made it easy for me. We must work towards a world where everyone who wants it has the same freedom that I have been lucky enough to enjoy.

In the meantime, we have huge numbers of people trapped and dying at borders that are increasingly fortified to keep them out, from the charnel house of the Med to the desperate badlands of Mexico adjoining the US border, and across the border in states such as Arizona. UN figures from the first half of this year show that 11 children die every week attempting to cross the Mediterranean. Those figures came out just a month after an estimated 100 children died when a fishing boat sank off southern Greece. We should be putting significant pressure on the European Union to acknowledge the horrors that “Fortress Europe”—its policy—has created and to see a situation that provides an orderly, safe route for people to seek sanctuary. I am very proud that the European Green Party has been an absolute leader in fighting back against Fortress Europe and in promoting orderly, safe, just policies.

It is worth focusing a little on how the climate emergency interacts with, magnifies and even causes conflict. I will take the case study of Somalia, where there have been six failed rainy seasons in a row, which has led to three years of insufficient water and food insecurity. Since the middle of 2021, one-third of all the livestock in Somalia has died. Some 20% of its people are displaced, many of them heading to refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. Each week, 2,000 people from Somalia arrive at the Dadaab refugee camp alone. Some people in the UK like to talk about our alleged small boat crisis, which, in the first half of this year, saw 11,500 people arriving across the channel because no safe, orderly routes were available to them. That amounts to six weeks of arrivals at one refugee camp in Kenya.

The fact is that most refugees are either internally displaced in their own country or are in neighbouring countries that are massively wracked by poverty and inequality, and a global system that still sucks resources out of the global south and into the global north. I note that, this morning, your Lordships’ House discussed the Foreign Secretary’s speech in Africa, which, I was pleased to note, included a reference to the need to reform the international financial sector. Of course, looking at the issues of debt, this is still pumping huge amounts of money out of the global south and into the City of London, down the road. That is leaving people with no choice but to become refugees. Of course, in this context, I cannot avoid mentioning the cuts to overseas development assistance and the diversion of funds to be spent here in the UK, instead of for their proper purpose.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, gave us many of the figures and much of the scale of this, but it is worth focusing on the fact that some people, particularly on the Benches opposite, like to attack the idea of net zero by 2050. Of course, what we should be looking at for the UK is net zero by 2030, or by the early 2030s at the absolute latest. If climate mitigation measures are not taken, there will be a world of climate refugees. Middle-level estimates are that 216 million people could be forced to move within their own countries by 2050, but there could be an 80% reduction in that if the world—that is, primarily the global north—does what it needs to do now on climate. These estimates range from 25 million to 1.5 billion people being climate refugees. I would ask every person who questions climate action in the UK to consider what the impact of failing to act adequately on the climate, as we are now failing to act, will mean for that figure of climate refugees.

Cybersecurity

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point, and one I inquired about this morning. There is a considerable exchange of information with our friends and allies and other interested countries across the world. It is perhaps worth pointing out that the Department of Justice in the States has just reissued guidelines for prosecutions only. Guidance and prosecutorial discretion are major features of the American way of doing it; we are going a slightly different route and seeking consensus, but of course we will consult.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister may be aware of reports out this morning that Barts Health NHS Trust has been hacked, potentially by a ransomware group of thieves—I suppose that is the right word—and that 7 terabytes of data may have been taken control of, which of course may well involve confidential personal medical data. Does the Minister agree that it is really important that the NHS workforce plan includes and considers the NHS’s IT needs and IT skill needs? Is that something the Minister is talking about with the health department?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I have not spoken about it directly with the health department, but I note from other debates that we have had in your Lordships’ House over the past few months that a skills shortage in the area of computers, data and whatnot is a problem across all economies, not just ours.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid I disagree with the noble Baroness. The Home Secretary certainly has the greatest respect for the judicial system, as you would expect of a former Attorney-General. All she observed is that the legislation under which the decision was made is a topic of legitimate comment and she is entitled to reach a different view. Just because the Government appeal against a decision does not mean there is an attack on what the noble Baroness calls the rule of law. In this case, as the noble Baroness rightly observes, you win some and you lose some. The Government are confident that at the end of the day the correct decision will be reached.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement refers to public opinion, and I am sure the Minister is aware that polls show that the public is very strongly of the view that the Government will never send any refugees to Rwanda. More than that, a YouGov poll found that 58% of the public believe that Ministers should arrange safe and orderly routes for refugees to be able to come to the UK. Should the Government not stop pursuing this obviously failed and unworkable policy and follow public opinion by arranging those safe and orderly routes? Is that not the way to stop the boats?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

This Government already have a very considerable number of safe and legal routes. I need only remind the noble Baroness that we have had more than half a million people arriving on safe and legal routes in the past five years. We are one of the most generous countries in the world. The noble Baroness and those who sit on the Benches opposite never adequately explain why it is said that more safe and legal routes would stop people crossing the channel. The point is, as even the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury accepted, that if you impose a cap, the people who want to come here who are not accepted via a safe and legal route will simply take to the boats. It is no answer to say that safe and legal routes will stop the dangerous channel crossings. Our imperative is to save lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Baroness amply demonstrates the problem identified by my noble friend a moment ago: the difficulty with removing people is the overenthusiasm of our overdefensive decision-making, which frustrates removal in all too many cases. It is not helped by the fact that regular representations have been made to prevent the deportation of foreign national offenders by Members of the opposition parties. The Bill will address the problems that surround the removal of those who should not be in our country. I should add that among that cohort of foreign national offenders are those who have entered the country illegally and those who have claimed asylum. So, the noble Baroness cannot draw a clear distinction between foreign national offenders, asylum seekers and those who enter the country illegally.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I follow on from the noble Baroness’s question. Like her, I am afraid that I have not had time to read the full report, but some reports around it stress that there are huge problems with the management and reporting of data, the Home Office’s inability to provide reliable and consistent data, and management of information of particular concern. Can the Minister say that there are plans in place in the Home Office to improve the clear problem with its procedures?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Obviously, this is a Statement on the Rwanda judgment, but I reassure the noble Baroness that, in general principle, the Home Office is always evolving and studying its processes in relation to removals—needless to say, all the more so because preparations to operationalise the scheme in the Bill will involve consideration of these issues, as the noble Baroness would expect. I reassure her that all recommendations made by the independent inspector are taken very seriously, and the vast majority are in fact adopted by the department.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

125: After Clause 194, insert the following new Clause—
“Update on the Fraud Strategy
The Government must publish, and lay before Parliament, an update by July 2024, and annually thereafter, on the progress and effectiveness of the implementation of the commitments made under Pillars 1, 2 and 3 of the Fraud Strategy published in May 2023, and the impact of the commitments, as it relates to the reduction of economic crime.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Government provide an update on the impact of the Fraud Strategy of May 2023 by July 2024 and then annually thereafter.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I may be able to assist the House by moving Amendment 125—if no one yells at me, I will assume I am doing the right thing—in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, to which I have attached my name. I shall keep going. Noble Lords will see that this amendment calls for an update on the fraud strategy and for the Government to publish and lay before Parliament

“an update … by July 2024, and annually thereafter”.

We have debated at considerable length the fact that the UK is

“the fraud capital of the world”—

and there I am quoting the head of UK Finance. I attached my name to the amendment because, as I do not need to say to the House, the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, is absolutely our stalwart leader on these issues, so I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, for speaking to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and my noble friend Lord Agnew of Oulton for his amendment. These amendments seek to add further parliamentary scrutiny on economic crime matters.

However, I have been clear throughout the previous debates on this topic that it is the Government’s view that there is already more than sufficient external scrutiny in the areas outlined by the noble Lords. These amendments are therefore duplicative, and if accepted would lead to agencies and government departments being caught in resource-intensive reporting requirements that would have no real benefit to parliamentarians, detracting from their core roles of tackling economic crime. I have noted what my noble friend has said, and the Government are of course more than committed to doing the things he suggests.

Amendment 128 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, would require the Government to issue a report on the performance of agencies and departments in tackling economic crime. I am aware of the strength of his feeling on the resourcing, performance and co-ordination of operational agencies. I hope that the sessions we have facilitated for him with Companies House and the Serious Fraud Office will have gone some way to reassuring him on this.

I can also reassure him and the House that the Government are ensuring that the response to economic crime has the necessary funding. The combination of 2021’s spending review settlement and private sector contributions through the new economic crime levy will provide funding of £400 million over the spending review period. The levy applies to the AML-regulated sector and will fund new or uplifted activity to tackle money laundering, starting from 2023-24.

In addition, a proportion of assets recovered under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 are already reinvested in economic crime capability. Under the asset recovery incentivisation scheme—ARIS—receipts paid into the Home Office are split 50:50 between central government and operational partners, based on their relative contribution to delivering receipts. In 2021-22 this resulted in £142 million being redistributed to POCA agencies. That should provide the necessary reassurance on resourcing and funding. Given what I hope to have shown is a significant amount of reporting, external scrutiny and indeed funding and resource, I ask the noble Baroness, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, not to press Amendment 128.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I refer to a comment made by another Minister at the Dispatch Box that we will come back to economic crime and fraud again and again. I have no doubt about that. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 125.

Amendment 125 withdrawn.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 150, to which I have added my name, and indeed to all the amendments in this group—I will be very brief.

Of course it is right that we should get the backlog down, and of course it is right that we should have a steady state, if you like, and be able to operate an asylum system that is humane, speedy and efficient. It is none of those things at present and we do not show any great signs of getting there any time soon. That is one reason why we suggest that the provisions of this Bill should not come into force until that has been achieved.

I am, along with my noble friend Lord Carlile, a member of the Woolf Institute’s Commission on the Integration of Refugees. I am also Rabbi Emerita of the West London Synagogue, which runs a drop-in for asylum seekers on a regular basis and has done for more than 10 years. I also chair a small family charity that provides scholarships for young asylum seekers to access education, which they otherwise could not do because they cannot get student loans. The reason I raise those things is that they mean that I talk to quite a lot of asylum seekers, for a variety of different reasons. I have never yet met an asylum seeker who has managed to get to this country who does not want to work or is not willing to work. Most of them are in fact very talented; the students we support are unbelievably talented and have been through absolute hell, but nevertheless show incredible determination and eventually get serious professional qualifications and very good degrees.

It seems to me that what we need to do in this House is look seriously at what we want to achieve by an asylum system. Surely we want to achieve the allowing in of those who are genuinely in fear of persecution, as well as all the other reasons that we allow asylum seekers in, and create a refugee system. In so doing, however, we want to treat people humanely, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said; his was a very impressive speech. We want to have coming here people who want to be here and make a contribution. We need to think quite hard about what we are trying to do. There is no pull factor, really—it just is not evidenced—but there is a very large number of desperate people seeking asylum in this country. Those who are genuine and can prove it should be treated humanely, accepted and allowed to work even if their full refugee status has not yet been achieved.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly only to Amendment 133, to which I would have attached my name had there been space. In the interests of time, I will overlook the other amendments in this group.

I do not know how many noble Lords took the opportunity of our lunch break to join the British Red Cross, which was holding an event with its VOICES Network downstairs. It was launching an excellent report that I commend to your Lordships’ House, We Want to be Strong, But We Don’t Have the Chance: Women’s Experiences of Seeking Asylum in the UK. A large number of the contributors to that report were at the event. It is of particular relevance to Amendment 133 that one of the first things one of them, a very senior medical professional—again, like the right reverend Prelate, I am going to anonymise this as much as I can to make sure that I do not identify anybody—said to me was, “I want to work”; we know how much need we have for her professional skills. Another, a business master’s graduate, also said to me that they wanted to work. These are people who are experts by experience, and that is one of the first things they say when they have an opportunity to speak to a politician.

I also want to make a point that no one else has made; I saw the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, earlier so he may have made this point already but I will make it in his place. In responding to the Migration Advisory Committee’s call for evidence in relation to shortage occupations in the UK, the Welsh Government stressed that asylum seekers should be allowed to work. Their submission said that

“asylum seekers bring with them a wealth of experience, skills and knowledge, and as such it is a missed opportunity to not allow asylum seekers to work. We urge the UK Government to reconsider its decision”

on this issue.

We have been talking in the abstract a lot so I want to draw on one other account—a piece of practical evidence of actual individuals. We have heard a lot about the housing of asylum seekers in hotels and, I am afraid, seen a great deal of horrific attempts to stir up xenophobia and local concern about that. However, I want to tell the story of the 100-plus asylum seekers who have been housed in a hotel in Thatcham in West Berkshire for up to a year. They started a litter-picking group, and then a broader volunteering group. Each charity shop in Newbury and Thatcham now has one or two asylum seekers there regularly to help out. They are a great example of people contributing despite our attempts to stop them doing so; indeed, they have won a local award recognising the contribution of their volunteering.

This is particularly relevant to Amendment 133 when we look at what those asylum seekers who have been litter picking and volunteering in charity shops are. They are doctors, teachers and engineers. They are making a wonderful contribution but surely it would make more sense to allow them to work.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly to the two amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Coaker. The new clause proposed in Amendment 139FA

“requires the Home Secretary to establish a process to fast-track asylum claims from safe countries”,

while the proposed new clause in Amendment 139FC

“seeks to require regular reports from the Secretary of State on progress toward eliminating the current backlog of asylum cases”.

As of March, there were 172,758 asylum seekers in the UK waiting an initial decision on their case, with 128,812—that is 75%—waiting longer than six months. The backlog is so extreme that the Government have tried to quietly drop a key measure of the Nationality and Borders Act to speed up 55,000 people who have arrived over the past year.

The purpose of these two amendments is first to re-establish, if you like, the fast-tracking so that the people who are very likely to succeed in their appeals are dealt with as quickly as possible and, secondly, to monitor the situation to see how it is progressing. In the press I read that Robert Jenrick, the Immigration Minister, said he believes that reducing the backlog would increase the pull factor for those seeking to apply for asylum. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government’s view is that by decreasing the backlog you are increasing the pull factor? People taking part in today’s debate would be very sceptical of that, but I wonder whether the Minister can confirm that that is indeed the Government’s view.

We have had a wide-ranging debate, and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, that the debate has gone far wider than the Bill and has been focusing on right to work and issues such as that, but what I seek to do in this brief contribution is to talk specifically to the amendments in my noble friend’s name, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to deliver safe and legal routes and I support Amendments 128B and 128C, which help deliver that commitment.

There are numerous details and duties in the Bill on how illegal and unsafe routes will be stopped, but little on how safe and legal routes will be opened—so how and when? The number will be decided by the elected Parliament, but I would welcome clarity from my noble friend on whether country-specific, at House of Commons or listed schemes will be included, as I do not really understand how the system will work if that is the case. So I support Amendment 128B.

We have had various ideas about the mechanism, and a point has been made about the UNHCR resettlement scheme. Can my noble friend explain how the Government envisage that the scheme’s safe, legal and deliverable routes will work?

On timing, which I do not think has been mentioned before, the Minister has previously given verbal reassurance that these safe and legal routes will be opened by 2024. I think we all agree that they should be opened, but that does not really deliver the balance and the overall approach that is needed in the Bill. The plan is that, by the end of this year, the Bill will be law and the plans the Government have designed to stop the boats will be actioned. We are assured that the backlog is being dealt with, so safe and legal routes should be open by then, too.

The Minister has rightly highlighted the frustration that many people in this country feel about the unfairness of illegal immigration but, to make it fair, not only must we stop illegal and unsafe routes but we must open safe and legal ones. Amendment 128C does that.

The Bill is full of obligations and duties to stop the boats and to close illegal and unsafe routes. I hope the Government will agree to include the same obligations and duties to open safe and legal ones.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise with great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, who raised some of the points on which I am going to focus about balance and the importance of all of this group. I offer Green support for all this group. In saying that, particularly looking at the exclusion of the Ukrainian, Afghan and Hong Kong BNO schemes, I should declare my position as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong.

That word “balance”, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, is terribly important. There is a real reflection to be made. We often hear in your Lordships’ House great praise for the Act passed through this Chamber centuries ago on the abolition of slavery. Yet there is a great deal of concern about the fact that there was just one very short paragraph that addressed what would happen to the former slaves, and paragraphs and paragraphs addressing compensation for the slave owners. That has had a very long historical tail that still rebounds today. I suggest that the Bill as currently constructed, with its extreme focus on attempts at deterrence and at treating refugees—desperate people—really badly, has real echoes of that, and that the Committee might like to reflect upon those parallels.

We have had a lot of discussion about terminology. The term that I prefer and will try to always use for what we are talking about in this group is “safe and orderly routes” for people to reach refuge in the UK. There is no such thing as illegally seeking asylum, and no person is illegal. That really needs to be stressed.

I pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, about our overseas development assistance and the way in which we are utterly twisting the classification as well as cutting the total sum in a way that will only produce more refugees, as well as more death and suffering around the world. In that context, I have to mention a briefing that I attended this morning from a brilliant organisation, the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership—GARDP—which is working on sepsis in infants around the world and on drug-resistant sexually transmitted diseases. A comment was made that we put less money into that scheme than Germany does, despite our claims of world leadership in the pharmaceutical area. That is something to which some of our ODA money could, and should, be going.

I will focus in particular on Amendment 129 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, who has already outlined it very powerfully. I was pleased to be able to attach my name to it—it was one of the few that had space. It is about refugee family reunion, and I have two reflections on this. I am sad that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, is not currently in her place, because I will first reflect on the work of the Refugee Rights Hub at Sheffield Hallam University, which is part of the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice. It has a scheme—a very innovative one, particularly following the cuts in legal aid to refugees, which were discussed earlier in Committee on a group when I am afraid I was not able to be present—in which 50 third- year undergraduate law students and two postgraduate interns work to help refugees already here to arrange family reunions. It is worth reading the accounts of those students and their experiences. They realise, “Wow, she is just like my sister”, or “Wow, he acts like my brother”. People who have heard lots of nasty things about refugees on social media, and in so much of the media bombardment we are subjected to, realise that they are doing something wonderful and amazing and how much they are enriching our whole society.

We really have not thought enough about the joy that a family reunion brings and the way in which it enriches our whole society. If a child comes and joins a school and brings all their experience and knowledge, or if an elderly parent comes—as proposed under this amendment—and a family is reunited, just think about how we are adding to the richness of our society and of the world. I do not think that we have talked about that very much.

I would love to stay hopeful but I cannot, so I will turn to the other side of this, which is the most recent report from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration regarding the Home Office’s management of the current family reunion schemes. A report in 2019 said that there were serious problems and made recommendations for addressing them. Sadly, what we had from the report of what happened from June to September last year is that the performance of the family reunion scheme has in fact deteriorated. The chief inspector reported that the system is “beset with delays”, the team is “ill-equipped to manage”, there is a “backlog of … almost 8,000” cases and it routinely takes double the standard 60 days to manage an application for family reunion. There is no evidence of prioritisation based on vulnerability—it is very often the intervention of an MP that makes a difference—despite the commitment and hard work of the staff.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

The strongest argument, apart from the legal and moral arguments, is the practical one that has just been made. How do you persuade victims of slavery to come forward and assist in a case if, when they do so, they are declared inadmissible and dispatched abroad? It is simply counterproductive and destructive of the whole basis of the Modern Slavery Act.

I would like to start as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, did, by pointing to the Government’s announcement last week—there seemed to be some other things going on at the end of last week. It would have been better to make the announcement in this House, but it slipped out that the two-tier system for handling asylum introduced by the Nationality and Borders Act was being abandoned. We spent weeks pointing out that it would not work. However, better the sinner that repenteth, and I warmly welcome the Government’s decision to drop it. I think they were absolutely right.

The asylum queue now, at about 178,000, is 20,000 longer than when, with objections, we passed the Nationality and Borders Bill. A principal reason for it getting longer is the two-tier system that was introduced, which is administratively unworkable. I warmly welcome the Government changing their mind, but it is a shame that it remains a stain on our statute book—a clear breach of the UN refugee convention, as the UNHCR confirmed at the time. Of course, it was a smaller breach of the refugee convention than this Bill, as the UNHCR has confirmed.

If I could have the Minister’s attention, I ask him to at some stage correct the record on the UNHCR’s role in these matters. In the first day in Committee, asked about its views on the Bill, he acknowledged:

“Some parts of the UNHCR have views on the Government’s position”


but said that the UN

“is not charged with the interpretation of the refugee convention”.—[Official Report, 24/5/23; col. 968.]

He might want to reconsider that. Under Article 35 of the convention, the duty is laid on the UNHCR of supervising the application of the convention and all parties to it have an obligation to co-operate with the UNHCR. As for “some parts” of the UNHCR commenting on the Government’s position, it has published and formally conveyed to the Government its formal position and legal observations on the Bill in the exercise of its responsibilities under Article 35. That is what it is required to do and what it has done. To suggest that criticisms of the Bill come from “some parts” of the UNHCR but are not its institutional view is wrong.

I come back to the modern slavery amendments. Mine was taken in the middle of the night, unbeknown to me as I rashly went home shortly before midnight. One of the charms of being a Cross-Bencher is that you never have the faintest idea of what is going on. The usual channels rarely have a tributary around these parts. My amendment was crucial, but it would be out of order for me to speak to it now. However, I can praise the Joint Committee on Human Rights for its magisterial report that came out over the weekend. Its conclusion on the clauses we are looking at is exactly the same as that which the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, came to:

“It is, in our view, wholly inappropriate to categorise victims as a threat to public order by the mere fact that they arrived … through an irregular route”.


It says—correctly—that Clause 21 breaches Article 10 of the convention against trafficking and formally recommends that it should be removed from the Bill. I agree. It seems to me that that is what we should do, so I shall support the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, when we consider whether it should stand part.

My general view is in line with that of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack: I do not like this debate, for a number of reasons, partly because the best debates have two sides to them. This is tennis with nobody on the other side of the net and I am fed up with it.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I agree with him about that form of tennis and, seriously, about both the timing of the Government’s announcement of their plans for the Nationality and Borders Act and the fact that this is a U-turn that needs to be applauded. If the Government point themselves in the right direction, people should not jump up and down and point a finger and go “U-turn, U turn”. It is better than not U-turning. We have heard many powerful speeches in this debate, but I think the Committee will join me in commending all Members on the Government Benches who have shown both courage and compassion in getting up and opposing the Government’s plans for victims of modern slavery.

I agree with both the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that the whole Bill should go, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that all these clauses should go, but I actually signed a number of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker—a package which has helped us interrogate what the Government are now doing and the impact that it will have. In that light, I shall ask the Minister three specific questions that in some ways draw on what has been said before, but also go in slightly different directions.

My first question concerns the situation if the provisions under the Bill, as the Government plan, essentially end the protection for victims of modern slavery. Imagine a police officer now, crouching down beside, say, a frightened young man who has been forced to work in an illegal marijuana farm, behind locked doors where the whole thing could have caught fire and killed him at any moment; a young woman forced by threats to stay in a nail bar; a young man who has been trapped for months in horrendous conditions at a hand car wash; or indeed a young woman who has been forced into sexual exploitation. Currently that police officer can crouch down beside them and say, “It’s all right, you’re safe now”. What does the Minister think a police officer would be able to say if the Bill goes through as drafted? What could that police officer say to the victim of modern slavery? I ask the Committee to think how the police officer might feel about being in that situation.

My second question concerns one of the things that that police officer would probably do, perhaps not immediately but soon after that. They would start to say, “Can you tell me what is happening here? Please, tell me what is happening. A bit down the track, would you think about testifying against the person who put you into this situation?” If we think about even the intelligence gathering, let alone the prosecution, what would the passing of this law do?

My third and final question is: have the Government really considered this? Let us think about the kinds of illegal operations I referred to—illegal enterprises that are a stain on our communities, that compete with and thrust out honest, decent businesses, that are a rotten core in the community and have all sorts of nasty effects. What will allowing those operations to continue, which is what the Government’s plans would do, do to our communities?

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I declare my interests with RAMP and Reset and, like the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, did at the outset of the debate, I hope that will stand for the other times I speak later on different groups.

I support all the amendments, but I am speaking in support of the proposal of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that Clauses 21, 25, 26 and 28 be completely removed. This is supported by my noble friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, who we heard earlier is unfortunately unable to be here today. Bishops across England have had the privilege of working very closely with the large sector of faith-based charities and projects that work with victims of slavery. We have heard a lot about the Salvation Army, but I want to highlight the Clewer Initiative, which is our own project raising awareness and helping support victims. The feedback that has been coming from the Salvation Army, from Clewer and from other groups in relation to the modern slavery provisions of the Bill ranges from trepidation to outright horror.

Rather euphemistically, the Explanatory Notes refer to what is proposed in this and the following clauses as “a significant step”. I suggest that the complete disapplication of all support, replaced with detention and removal, is drastic in the extreme. I cannot see how such a step could be justifiable, but for it even to be defensible would require the most robust and extensive level of proof of its necessity. I do not think that has been shown.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I would be happy to do that too, as I said.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I asked the Minister three questions and, not to my great surprise, I did not get answers to any of them. To focus on one of them: will the famous impact assessment include consideration of the damage to UK communities—or “potential damage”, if the Minister will not acknowledge the damage—done by the failure to be able to prosecute illegal enterprises engaging in modern slavery in the UK?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid I cannot comment on what might or might not be in the impact assessment.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I was going to ask this question in the next group, but it is more appropriate to ask it here. It was raised by Doctors Without Borders in its damning briefing: what specific care will be provided for children with pre-existing or emergent health needs?

Also, following on from my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, I have been in correspondence with the UNHCR about the different interpretations of the UN convention and the refugee convention that came up when I asked on our first day in Committee why we should accept the Government’s interpretation of the refugee convention over that of the body which has global responsibility for it. The Minister was rather dismissive of the UNHCR, which, in response, highlights that its position on the Illegal Migration Bill—one diametrically opposed to the Government’s—is that it will go against the obligations under the refugee convention. The UNHCR’s institutional position has been conveyed to the Government in the exercise of its responsibilities under Article 35. It does not accept that this is a legitimate interpretation of the refugee convention.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendment 69 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and others. My intervention is prompted by a meeting I had earlier today with the disabled Greens group, specifically on the question of meeting the needs of disabled asylum seekers and refugees. That caused me to look up the details of the UNHCR Detention Guidelines, specifically point 9.5, which says that states may be required to make reasonable accommodations to ensure that they meet the specific needs of disabled asylum seekers. It says:

“As a general rule, asylum-seekers with long-term physical, mental, intellectual and sensory impairments should not be detained”,


and that accommodation needs to be accessible.

The disabled Greens raised with me their particular concern about the barges, about which the Government seem very enthusiastic and to which they have been paying a great deal of attention. It is difficult to see how those barges could possibly meet the accommodation requirements of disabled asylum seekers.

A number of noble Lords referred to the historic situation at Manston, but we have seen the Chief Inspector of Prisons expressing great concern about what is happening there right at this moment. The focus has very much been on children but, if we are not able to identify and assist children appropriately, I really wonder whether we are also able to identify and assist refugees with disabilities, who may have specific needs. Can the Minister say how the Government will ensure that they meet the needs of asylum seekers with disabilities?

Finally, without in any way daring to intervene in a discussion between two lawyers on a fine technical point, I just note that Article 35 of the convention, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, says that:

“The Contracting States undertake to co-operate with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees”.


The relationship does not look much like co-operation at the moment.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid I rise again to make a point that really should not have to be made. I made the point on a previous group that we are a dualist state where international law is not part of domestic law unless and until it is so incorporated by this Parliament. Later, perhaps in a question, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, rather poured scorn and said that this was some sort of technical dualist point. It is not a technical dualist point; it is a fundamental part of our constitution.

Another fundamental part of our constitution is that, when we sign up to international treaties such as the Vienna convention, we have to look at what they actually say. This is not an Oxford Union debating point for two reasons: first, it is far more important than that; and secondly, I have never been a member of the Oxford Union. Article 31 of the Vienna convention, on the interpretation of treaties, says:

“A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose”.


Each state therefore has to interpret its obligations under a treaty.

Some treaties, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, have a court attached to them. If you sign that treaty and sign up to the court, you are obliged to abide by the rulings of the court, in so far as those rulings emanate from the treaty. For example, Article 46.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides that the UK has to abide by any judgment given against the UK by that court. That is what we signed up to in the treaty. The refugee convention does not have a court attached to it. Therefore, this country, like every other, has to interpret the treaty bona fide—in good faith.

What, then, is the position of the UNHCR? It is exactly as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, read out from the treaty, but it is not the gloss that she put on it. The word “interpret”, which she used in her speech, does not appear in the treaty. That is not an accident, because the states were not going to give the UNHCR the power—[Interruption.] I will give way if the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, wants to make an intervention; otherwise, I cannot hear her.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I am sorry that I did not answer that question. The relevant provision is in Clause 13 of the Bill. We will come to discuss it in the 11th group of amendments. Perhaps that might be the moment to explore those detailed points more thoroughly.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, may I press the Minister on the issue of disabled asylum seekers? I raised this specifically in terms of what is happening in general provision, what is happening at Manston, how the Government foresee—or not—disabled asylum seekers being accommodated on barges and whether they foresee provision in the new arrangements under this Bill complying with UNHCR detention guidance for disabled asylum seekers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 60 and 65 in my name. I thank my noble friend Lord German and the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for adding their names to these amendments.

Because of the lateness of the hour, I will not add to the very powerful speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, and give all the reasons why increasing child detention time limits is a bad thing to do. However, I want to go back to what so many noble Lords have asked during this Committee stage: where is the evidence that this is required? The Government have not given any evidence or any reason why 24 hours-plus is required. Since the time limits for unaccompanied children were introduced back in 2014, there has been no empirical evidence and no indication of problems that have arisen which have caused either a pull factor or a push factor for child migration to this country. What is the problem? For a change of policy of this significance, which affects some of the most vulnerable children in the world, the scale of the problem and what problem this will solve have to be put before this House.

We could make the comment that so many noble Lords have, and which I am sure the Minister might: in due course, it will be in the impact assessment. However, the real issue is this. When the Minister stands up at the Dispatch Box, the reason and evidence for this, and the problem it is going to solve, need to be placed before your Lordships, otherwise we cannot in any conscience extend the detention limits.

It was a great part of our history when the Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition Government, Nick Clegg, insisted that children, for immigration purposes, should not be detained, and the Conservative partners in that coalition Government agreed. Noble Lords can see that nothing has changed, so the Minister has to explain what the problem is, what has changed and what problem this will solve.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and to speak specifically to the amendments in this group to which I have attached my name and to the general tenor of this. I did consider not rising to speak at all, because the incredibly powerful speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, and her proposition that the words “detention” and “children” do not belong in the same sentence, can be said to sum up all of this debate.

However, I did want to give voice to someone else in this debate—the voice of a nine year-old who was held in immigration detention previously in the UK before the laws were changed. When asked how detention made her feel, this nine year-old said very simply, “Sad and angry. Feel like screaming or breaking something”. That is a nine year-old, talking about the kind of experience that we could again be subjecting children to in this country if the Bill goes through.

To put that in terms of a 2009 briefing paper from the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the Faculty of Public Health:

“Reported child mental health difficulties include emotion and psychological regression, post-traumatic stress disorder … clinical depression and suicidal behaviour.”


A more recent paper, published in 2023 by Tosif et al, entitled Health of Children Who Experienced Australian Immigration Detention, said it showed devastating impacts on children’s physical and mental health and well-being and on their parents’ parenting capabilities. I wanted to allow that voice to be heard and to share that medical reference.

I just want to make one final reflection. There is a hashtag I use on Twitter quite often, #CampaigningWorks. Sometimes people say, “Well, it should have worked indefinitely. Why do we have to fight this same battle again?” I think that what the Government have got this evening is a very clear message that this battle has been fought before. We have learned a huge amount and got all the evidence from last time, and it is going to be fought again, even harder, from all sides of your Lordships’ House, to stop this element of child detention and to stop this Bill going through.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow a number of the contributions to this debate. I shall concentrate on Amendments 59, 63, 64, and 67 by the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik. These, along with some others, are the most important amendments in this group, and we support what she has said.

I am a proud Labour politician, but I am not someone who thinks a Conservative Government have never done anything that deserves recognition or praise. The Modern Slavery Act is one such thing; the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and I do a lot of work with respect to modern slavery, and we know that to be the case. Another, under the prime ministership of David Cameron, was the ending of child detention for immigration purposes. That Government —to be fair, they were a coalition Government—deserved an awful lot of credit for that, since it was an affront to our country that it was happening in the first place.

So it is a great surprise to us to see this Government, in their desperation to do something about the small boats crossing—which we all want to see something done about—driving a coach and horses through that. I would have thought they would have said, “This is something we are proud of. This is what we stood up for. Whatever measures we take to try to deal with small boats, we will not abandon that principle”. I know the Minister will say that the Government made a concession in the other place and came forward with a regulation-making power that will allow exceptions to be made and so forth, but that is not good enough.

The noble Baroness’s amendments are supported by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, my noble friend Lady Lister and many others, and I hope the Government listen. Whatever else we would wish to see done in order to tackle the problem that we face with respect to small boats crossing the channel—and there is a problem—I do not think any of us want to see children used as one of the ways of doing that. To be fair, I do not believe the Government would wish that either, but the fact is that the legislation as it stands means that unaccompanied children will be detained, and most of us find that unacceptable. That needs to change. We need to go back to the situation that existed before, as suggested by the amendments by the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik.

I have a specific question for the Minister. Many of us received the briefing from the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, which says:

“If the Government’s intention is to detain and remove those arriving on small boats, then more than 13,000 children may face detention annually under this government proposal”.


Is it wrong? If so, it is incumbent on the Minister, if not now, to look at the way in which the organisation has arrived at that figure and tell us why it is wrong. Thirteen thousand children annually facing detention under the Government’s proposals is a significant number of children.

If that figure is wrong—this goes back to the problem of the impact assessment—then what figure are the Government using? The Minister says, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, referenced this, that there are no unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in detention at present. What assumptions are the Government working on here? They must have some figures somewhere for their expectation of the number of children who will be impacted by the proposed legislation as it stands. It would be helpful for us all to know what the Government’s assumption is of the number of unaccompanied children who may be detained as a result of these measures. Presumably they have scoped out the regulations that may be necessary which the Secretary of State may pass in future, so what is the number that the Home Office is working towards?

Secondly, what is the number of children who would be detained under the measures as currently drafted in this Bill who are with a family? I think it would be extremely helpful to all of us to have some sort of understanding of the number of children the Government are expecting their proposals to impact.

We have heard movingly from the noble Baronesses, Lady Mobarik and Lady Helic, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark about all the moral reasons for which we should not proceed with the Bill as it is currently laid out in respect of children. I think that the country would be in a situation where it would say to our Government that, whatever they do to control small boats, not to do it at the expense of children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I begin with an apology to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, because, had I spotted Amendment 76A, I would certainly have attached my name to it. I judge from its numbering that it was a relatively late arrival. Having addressed the detention of pregnant refugees at Second Reading, I saw that Amendments 68 and 70 had full, cross-party and non-party support—including from the Lords spiritual—so I could not attach my name to them. I certainly would have done so otherwise. The case for all these amendments—certainly for not making things any worse than they are now—has already been overwhelmingly made.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, took us gazing into the abyss; I am afraid that I am going to look even further into the abyss. I have specific questions for the Minister. Throughout these many long hours of debate, we have heard again and again that the Government are determined to remove people with great rapidity—that is, that they are going to detain them for just a few days and then remove them. We have all heard the expressions of doubt about that. I want to ask some questions about the Government’s intentions for the removal of pregnant refugees.

I have looked at the NHS guidance on travelling when pregnant; for the assistance of the Minister, the website is fitfortravel.nhs.uk. It says that flying during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is risky because of the risk of miscarriage. It says that most commercial airlines accept pregnant travellers up to 36 weeks if it is a single pregnancy or up to 32 weeks if it is a multiple pregnancy if the pregnancy is uncomplicated and the pregnant person is in good health. This advice also notes that, in the post-partum period, the risk of deep vein thrombosis is significantly elevated. My question for the Minister, because I think that it needs to be raised in this context, is this: is it the Government’s intention to remove, presumably by flying, pregnant refugees, risking their health and that of their unborn babies?

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I have co-signed Amendment 68, which, as we have heard, would keep the existing protection of a 72-hour time limit on the detention of pregnant women for immigration purposes. I appreciate that the Minister will make a similar closing speech to the one for the previous group, but I want to make some different, practical points on pregnant women specifically. I believe that there is a case for special treatment here.

In our debates on previous groups, my noble friend the Minister warned against introducing loopholes that could be exploited. I do not believe that that will be the case here. This is a narrow amendment. It does not seek to exempt pregnant women from the other provisions in this Bill, such as the duty to remove. It simply ensures that their and their babies’ health will not be put at risk by being detained with no time limit.

There is no evidence to support the suggestion that maintaining the time limit will result in more pregnant women crossing the channel. Women’s groups and experts working in this area do not believe that it will increase the number of pregnant women making these journeys, so I do not believe that there will be an incentive effect. I am not really clear on the reasoning behind that argument. I do not think anyone is suggesting that this will incentivise women to get pregnant so that they can claim asylum. Nor will women take the decision to put themselves and their unborn baby at risk of a dangerous crossing and eventual deportation just because they will not be detained on arrival for more than 72 hours.

If the broader measures in the Bill work as the Government intend and people are swiftly removed to another country, we will not see people traffickers seeking out pregnant women to make the crossing, exploiting a loophole, because they will not be exempt from removal. The risk of the very small number of people on whom this will have an impact absconding is very low, given the desire and need for healthcare when pregnant. Further, where there is a real risk of absconding, Section 60 allows for detention to be extended with ministerial authorisation.

Despite the same arguments being made when this issue was debated in 2016, the 72-hour time limit placed on pregnant women’s detention has not had an incentivising effect on women claiming asylum. Unfortunately, the Home Office does not collect specific statistics on the number of pregnant women claiming asylum, but the number of women claiming asylum annually prior to the time limit was about 7,000. This figure has stayed broadly the same post time limit; there has not been any increase.

Secondly, there is the argument that there will be sufficient protection for pregnant women thanks to existing or updated guidance. I do not believe that that will be the case either. The existing “adults at risk” level 3 does provide some guidance but, as we saw before the Immigration Act 2016, with just guidance, pregnant women were being detained on a far more routine basis than they should be.

During the passage of the Immigration Act 2016, the original proposition was for pregnant women to be protected through guidance but ultimately it was recognised that that just would not be robust enough, and we saw the introduction of the time limit. I appreciate what my noble friend the Minister said in the previous group about updating the guidance following this Bill, but the gap between policy and practice was really only closed through the introduction of a clear time limit in primary legislation which reduced the elasticity of or room for interpretation of guidance. This protection should remain in primary legislation.

There is widespread support for this amendment from across this House, from the other place and from organisations such as the End Violence Against Women coalition, which is made up of 143 specialist women’s support services and experts, from Refuge, the largest domestic abuse organisation in the UK, from medical professionals, and from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. I will not detain your Lordships by reading out their supporter quotes but, believe me, they are very supportive. I am happy to share them at a more appropriate time.

This is a narrow amendment that would impact just a small number of vulnerable women and keep the protection against detention that pregnant women currently have. It would not create loopholes as it would not exempt women from the duty to remove. The known negative impacts of detention on pregnant women outweigh the un-evidenced—and in my view, incorrect—argument that this will incentivise women to cross in small boats.

This amendment is about protecting women, not putting them at further risk. It would maintain current protections that have been widely acknowledged as working well. If my noble friend the Minister still believes the current time limit should be removed, I would welcome an explanation of the specific reasons for that. I ask him to take into account the widespread support for this narrow amendment and to consider its merits ahead of Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, this group deals with the detention of pregnant women and the use of reasonable force to effect the detention and removal of children and pregnant women.

Amendments 68 and 76A deal with the detention of pregnant women. Before getting into the specifics, it is worth briefly reiterating some general points made by my noble friend Lord Murray when he responded to the previous group. Our aim is to ensure that no one is held in detention for longer than is absolutely necessary to effect their removal from the United Kingdom. The scheme is designed to be operated quickly and fairly, but holding people in detention is necessary to ensure that they are successfully removed under the scheme. The duty on the Home Secretary to make arrangements for the removal of all illegal entrants, save unaccompanied children, back to their home country or to a safe third country will, we calculate, send a clear message that vulnerable individuals, including pregnant women, cannot be exploited by the people smugglers facilitating their passage across the channel in small boats on the false promise of starting a new life in the United Kingdom. The only way to come to the United Kingdom for protection will be through safe and legal routes. This will take power out of the hands of the criminal gangs and protect vulnerable people.

I am happy to repeat for the benefit of the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Chakrabarti, the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and my noble friend Lady Sugg that we must not create incentives for people-smuggling gangs to target pregnant women or provide opportunities for people to exploit any loopholes. I assure the Committee that pregnant women who have arrived illegally will not be removed from the United Kingdom when, based on medical assessments, they are not fit to travel. I offer that assurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Before the Minister continues, can he tell me where that will appear in writing? An assurance in the Committee at 12.43 am, is one thing, but where will that assurance be written down?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

It will be in Hansard, the official record.

The document from which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, quoted, referring to guidance from the NHS website, provides that, with the proper precautions, most women can travel safely well into their pregnancy. However, in any event, we will remove only persons who are fit to travel.

There has never been a complete bar on the detention and/or the removal of pregnant women, such as Amendment 76A seeks to provide. The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, referred correctly to the situation as presently advised, with a 72-hour period and a seven-day maximum detention thereafter. In answer to the noble Lord, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, and other noble Lords, that will continue to apply to women who have not arrived illegally on these shores.

Under the Bill, detention is not automatic. The Bill provides power to detain, and the appropriateness of detention will be considered on a case-by-case basis. We expect that a woman who is in the later stages of her pregnancy and who cannot be removed in the short term would not be detained, but instead released on immigration bail. That matter would of course be assessed by the body hearing the application.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lady Meacher, my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I begin by referring to a meeting that my noble friend Lord Singh and I held with Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, quite recently. She had personally seen children coming off the boats. The Refugee Council found that, of the 45,000 people who made the journey in 2022, some 8,700 were children—one in five of the overall number. In response to the questions put by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, perhaps the Minister could confirm the numbers.

Dame Rachel has also visited the accommodation in which many of these children are placed. I would like to ask the Minister a number of questions. When the Children’s Commissioner was consulted, was she consulted about this Bill? How did she respond? How does he respond to her view that the Bill drives a “coach and horses” through the Children Act 1989?

The position of children should certainly concentrate our minds. My noble and learned friend perhaps knows better than anyone in this House, as a former head of the Family Law Division, how important it is that we have proper cognisance of the effects of law on children. I asked Dame Rachel about the origins and stories of some of the children whom she had met, to which my noble and learned friend referred as well. Some had travelled from Sudan, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Iran; some had taken journeys that lasted a whole year; some had been left as orphans; and some had been traumatised by war. Many told horrific stories. For instance, she described the story of an Iranian boy who watched his parents being killed and who made the long and arduous journey here to safety. She also referred to a Down’s syndrome child left on their own. She said that decisions about their treatment and future were being taken by inappropriately low-ranking officials who had “no understanding of safeguarding”. Will the Minister urgently look into this question about whether safeguarding criteria are different from the safeguarding used in children’s homes? Are the provisions in the Bill compliant with the duties contained in the education Acts, and are they Gillick compliant? Does the Minister recognise the Children’s Commissioner’s description of the Bill as a “traffickers’ charter”?

No child should be assumed to be an adult—a point made very well a moment ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. There is no cliff edge. There seems to be an assumption woven into the web and weave of this Bill that there is a magic moment when you cease to be a child and become an adult. The position of children should certainly be put into the impact assessment, which we all wait to see with great anticipation. But it is not simply an impact assessment that has been missing from the legislative scrutiny to which I referred earlier. Only one Select Committee—the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member—has had the chance to scrutinise this Bill, and it has had to do so at a crazy pace, with many of our meetings clashing with the Bill’s proceedings. All being well, it will reach its final iteration tomorrow—not, I am glad to say, “in due course”. This is simply no way to make legislation. When we legislate in haste, we end up repenting at leisure.

At Second Reading, I referred to my misgivings about a number of aspects of the Bill, and among these was the treatment of children: the subject of these amendments. They are affected by every aspect of the Bill, which clearly infringes the rights of children set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, referred to by my noble friend Lord Hannay.

The Home Office says, as its justification for doing this, that it is protecting the best interests of children by seeking to deter them and the adults accompanying them from embarking on these journeys in the first place. This is a straw man argument. It relies on the assumption that the child or adult knew in advance how dangerous the journey would be and assumes that, in any event, the journey would be less dangerous than, say, staying in Sudan, where millions are now displaced; or think of the plight of women in Iran; or think of those in Nigeria who are facing execution because of their beliefs or orientation, or facing genocidal attacks from Boko Haram. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does not revolve around such calculations.

The desire for deterrence cannot negate or supplant the duty of the UK and this Government to protect all children—every child, whatever their origins—within our jurisdiction. How a country treats its children is a mark of whether that country deserves to describe itself as civilised. How do convention duties square with indefinite detention in whatever place the Secretary of State and her officials deem appropriate and for however long she decides is reasonably necessary before she maybe decides that they should be cast out? How can our convention rights be squared with dispatching children to far-flung places without any true idea of what circumstances will await them there? Who will verify that appropriateness? What will be the criteria? How will such assessments be undertaken?

Too many of the Bill’s provisions relating to children are vague and insufficiently rigorous. The Bill puts on to a statutory footing the provision of accommodation for unaccompanied children, but then fails to define what form such accommodation must consist of. It is as if we have learned nothing from the endless ordeals of children in institutional care. I repeat: why is Home Office accommodation not being made subject to the duties set out in the Children Act 1989? Why are standards or requirements not set out in the Bill itself? I ask this against a backdrop of the Home Office accommodating unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hostels since 2021. Can the Minister remind us how many of those children have gone missing? How many remain missing? How can the Minister justify the provisions to take a child from local authority accommodation, which is subject to the 1989 Act, and put them into Home Office accommodation, which is not? There are also convention implications from age assessment, not least invasive body searches of children who may have undergone trauma or have been subjected to abuse. Is that Gillick compliant?

We should be clear that these and other provisions mean that the Bill is likely to fall short of compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is also likely to fall short under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and potentially Article 3, which deals with prohibition of torture, inhumane and degrading treatment. Has the Minister also considered Article 22 of the convention and any use of powers to remove a child without first considering their asylum claim? These are crucial questions; if they cannot be resolved here in Committee, they will certainly have to be resolved when we reach Report. I hope the Minister will be able to give the Committee the courtesy of a reply to some of these questions today.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise with some hesitation after so many speeches—such powerful speeches—from every corner of your Lordships’ House. Having attached my name, however, to two amendments here—Amendment 17, in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and Amendment 27, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—I will make two points.

First, I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that no children who arrive as refugees should be covered by this Bill—indeed, no one should be covered by this Bill—but there is a special case to be made for unaccompanied children who have no adult with them to support them. I invite Members of your Lordships’ House to consider what it would be like if, tomorrow, you were dropped into a foreign country where you do not speak the language—or speak it very imperfectly—you have no resources and you know nobody. While you have decades of life experience, think how difficult it would be to cope. Then imagine what it would be like for an 18 year-old who has known only a life of war, torture and suffering; who thought they had found safety but then were thrown out again.

Secondly, I want to pick up a point that the Minister made in the previous group. He suggested that this Bill was the result of an emergency situation that had suddenly arisen overnight and that this was the excuse for why we did not have an impact assessment. Of course, what we have is a situation that has been developing over a decade or more. We saw people seeking to come across the channel, including—since we are focusing on the many unaccompanied children—people getting underneath the axels into sealed lorries or under trains and, all too often, dying as a result.

I am going to go back to 2016—seven years ago—when I went to a memorial service for one of those people, a 15 year-old called Masud. He was an Afghan who died in the back of a lorry trying to get to the UK to be with his sister. This picks up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about the lack of means for such children to get here legally. Masud should have been able to get here, but he could not. He took his chances and he died. Had he made it, think about where he would be now. Masud, as a 15 year-old, would have had three years—or maybe more—in our education system. He would have been part of our society and contributing. Imagine, however, a Masud who arrives here after this Bill comes into operation—this picks up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, among others. What is Masud going to do just before his 18th birthday? What would any of us do? He is going to have to go into the black economy or the grey economy, which we know our hostile economy has thrust so many people into already: into the illegal car washes or into the illegal marijuana farms, where recently we saw four Vietnamese men, almost certainly victims of modern slavery, die in horrific conditions. Thrust into the gig economy—there has recently been coverage about this—you can rent an identity to be a delivery driver for a night, all under the carpet and all open to abuse and exploitation. Is that what we really want to do to children? Is that what we really want to do to our society: to make a society in which that segment of it grows and grows? As others have said, there is no way that the Government are going to be able to make the removals that they say they are seeking to do.

Net Migration Figures

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I agree with some of what my noble friend has said. There is a measure of agreement across the House that the issue of salary discounts is very much in need of consideration. Of course, as the House will be aware, the Migration Advisory Committee is undertaking its review into the shortage occupation list, which I referred to a few answers ago. The Government asked the MAC to consider the 20% salary discount as part of the review when it commissioned it last year. We expect a report in the autumn, after which the Government will respond to any recommendations that it makes.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in the migration figures out this morning, the figures for the asylum backlog—the number of people who have been waiting more than six months for an asylum decision—show that, despite the promise from the Prime Minister to eliminate much of the backlog by the end of this year, the figure has increased by 10,000. There are now more than 128,000 people waiting more than six months for an asylum decision. Would the Minister promise the House that the Prime Minister’s pledge will be met by the end of this year, given that we are now at the end of May? Surely it is time to allow those people to work—indeed, some of them could be working in the hotel to which the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, referred.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As the noble Baroness knows, the Government are taking immediate action to eliminate the backlog of people waiting for initial asylum decisions by the end of 2023. The Home Office has already doubled the number of decision-makers and the number will double again. To further accelerate decision-making, the Home Office is driving productivity improvements by simplifying and modernising the system. We have doubled the number of decision-makers in 2021-22, as I said, and we will continue to do so.