Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Dubs

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it was my pleasure to attach my name to Amendment 24 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I express my support for all the amendments in this group, including, as has been said, the very creative Amendment 31 in the name of the right reverend Prelate.

I am following five eloquent and powerful speeches, so I do not feel the need to add a great deal. Those speeches, collectively and individually, have utterly put paid to any suggestion that the UK is generous to people who come to our shores fleeing war or repression and desperately in need of sanctuary. As other speakers have made clear, we are an international outlier in our restrictions on work, to which these amendments refer. I am sure the Minister will recall that she very kindly took the time to hear from me about the circumstances of the asylum seekers in Urban House in Wakefield and the conditions in which people are living.

We all know that the hostile environment of the Home Office is very often chaotic. People are trapped, often for years, living in inadequate privatised housing with the desperately limited sum of £37.75 a week to try to get by on and denied the opportunity—which so many of them are desperate to take—to work. I cite a young woman I spoke to some years ago who made a huge impact on me, so eloquent was she about the situation she found herself in. She was, you might say, an extreme case, but sadly a not at all uncommon one. She had come to Britain as a young woman of 18 or 19, having been a political activist in Zimbabwe— I have no doubt that she was a victim of torture. Some 10 years later, we have still not given her status. She was studying for a degree through funding and support from a voluntary organisation, but she told me what her situation was like:

“I feel like I’m in a cage. I can see the door, and people keep walking back and forth in front of that door with a key in their hand, but they never stick the key in the lock and let me out.”


Leaving people in that situation is torture. We are talking about people who are often already victims of torture. Any of these amendments would be a significant improvement. The three-month amendment is obviously the best one. The current situation cannot continue; it is damaging to all British society as well as to individuals. I commend these amendments to the House.

[Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I support all these amendments very happily. I appreciate that the Bill is concerned with EEA and Swiss people, but there is a point of principle which goes wider than the limited scope of the Bill. Some of the arguments we are using apply to that wider point of principle. The first three, Amendments 22, 24 and 29, are all similar, except that they vary on the length of period necessary before permission to work is granted and/or whether one needs to apply separately and additionally to the Secretary of State or whether the right to work is automatic.

We hear the arguments about pull factors. I think every time I have been involved in debates on immigration, asylum seekers or refugees, I have heard the phrase “pull factor” used to rebut any argument used. It is a stock response from the Government and I am not convinced that it is all that powerful an argument. Sometimes it does not apply at all. I have on occasions met people desperate to work. I was in south Wales not quite a year ago and met some asylum seekers. They had two requests: first, could they be helped to learn English because, secondly, they wanted to apply for work. Work was the key thing for them.

There is another group of people who are victims of lacking the right to work: children who come here and reach the age of 18 without having had their status confirmed. There is a later amendment which will give me the chance to develop this argument further. Such people are then in a very vulnerable position. Not only do they not have a full right to stay in this country but, as I discovered from some social workers who begged me to say that they have got these young people, they are not allowed to work and are stuck in complete limbo. I am sure we can all produce other examples of people we have met who are desperate to have the right to work. I think that, statistically, 61% of all asylum seekers have waited over six months to get their status determined. That is a higher proportion than any since records began. Reference has already been made to the Home Office review, allegedly started in 2018; I hope we can learn more about what has happened to it.

I will mention briefly some of the benefits of people being allowed to work, many of which have been referred to already. Above all, there is self-respect. We want people in this country to have a sense of their own worth and self-respect. To deny that to our fellow human beings is pretty appalling. It is a matter of integrity that people should be allowed to work. It is a way out of poverty. Public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of having people here who work rather than eking their existence out of virtually no benefits—even if they were on larger benefits, public opinion would still support the right to work. We are dragging well behind comparable countries. If there is a pull factor, it is those countries that will attract people rather than this one. Above all, people want to contribute to society. Talk to any asylum seeker and they will say that they want to contribute to this country and our society.

These amendments are really important. They add to the dignity of our fellow human beings. I hope that the Government will see their way to being supportive of them.