Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Baroness Bull Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I join others in welcoming the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, and congratulating him on an excellent maiden speech. In a crystal clear exposition of the Bill, he reminded us that the use in exceptional circumstances of children as covert sources, including those as young as 15, is already covered by law. This Bill would allow for them to be authorised, in exceptional circumstances that continue to be undefined, to commit criminal offences in order to integrate themselves into groups under investigation and provide intelligence that would not otherwise be available.

I am not the first today, nor will I be the last, to express concerns about the use of children as mechanisms for intelligence gathering, however valuable that intelligence might be. It stands in direct contradiction to what should always be our intention, which is to remove children from situations and relationships that promote criminality, and it almost certainly involves children from already disadvantaged backgrounds, further widening the inequalities between the lives and long-term outcomes of those who have and those who have not. We know that criminals prey upon vulnerable individuals, including children, using their vulnerability as a shield against law enforcement. It seems extraordinary that, rather than ending this exploitation, the law itself would become the next perpetrator of continued abuse through the recruitment of children and vulnerable individuals as CHIS. I argue that they should never be used in this way but, if they are, as the law already allows, every possible safeguard needs to be in place.

The revised code of practice includes several welcome improvements, but there are areas that still need to be strengthened. Clarity is needed on what constitutes an “exceptional circumstance”, and the code should be clear that the protection of an appropriate adult must be available to all children under 18, rather than on a case-by-case basis, as is proposed. This appropriate adult provision is standard practice for police interviews, even for the most minor transgressions. It cannot be right to fail to provide this support when children are taking the serious decision on whether to place themselves in harm’s way.

The revisions to the code add considerably to the section on juvenile sources but not to that relating to vulnerable individuals. The definition of a vulnerable adult fails to include victims of slavery or trafficking. Although paragraph 4.6 of the code stipulates that there must be an assessment of the juvenile’s ability to give informed consent, there is no such stipulation when it comes to vulnerable adults. Anti-Slavery International has questioned the extent to which someone who has been trafficked or exploited is able to give this informed consent, given their traumatic experiences of manipulation and control, and the long-term impact that this can have on their ability to make independent decisions.

There is also no reference in the code of practice to mental capacity and the ability of someone with impaired mental capacity to consent to acting as a CHIS. As mental capacity is not universal but specific to a given decision, and as it can change over time, it presents particular challenges and needs to be specifically covered. This omission is yet another example of legislation and statutory guidance failing to make provision in relation to mental capacity. I would be grateful if, in responding, the Minister could confirm that this omission will be reviewed.

I know that there will be some who argue that these safeguards are best placed in the code of practice rather than on the face of the Bill, but putting them on a statutory footing would send out a clear and unequivocal message about the importance that we place on our responsibility to protect children and the most vulnerable in our society. They are already a target for exploitation by criminals and they should be able to rely on the state, not only for protection but to help break a cycle of abuse that will otherwise echo on through the course of their lives.

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

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to add my name to Amendment 25, which brings together in one place my former professional life in the cultural sector and my current life within higher education. In noting that, I also note my interests as recorded in the register. In both those sectors, international mobility is crucial to success. Ideas and innovations, be they scientific or artistic, are no respecters of international borders. Indeed, it is well evidenced that international mobility enhances the quality of ideas and the impact of outcomes, with researchers and artists reporting that visiting and working in other countries helps them form collaborations, develop new ideas and gain new technical skills and expertise.

Universities are one of the best examples that we have of global Britain. According to the Higher Education Staff Statistics, nearly 30% of the academic staff in the UK are from overseas. The Government’s global talent visa is a very welcome recognition of the importance of international collaboration to research and innovation. Nevertheless, there are already a number of problems regarding the immigration status of academics, and, as we have heard, UK visas are among the most expensive in the world. The global talent visa costs 15 times more than a similar visa in Germany, and my noble friend Lord Patel has painted a very real picture of the costs for a young academic who wants to move their family here. Unless overall costs associated with visas are reduced to levels that are reasonable, proportionate and internationally competitive when compared to those of other research-intensive nations, “global Britain” risks becoming “little Britain”.

The concerns of the cultural sector about the loss of mobility beyond 2020 have been well rehearsed in this Chamber, and they have been laid out again today with great clarity by my noble friend Lord Clancarty. The continuation of short-term mobility between the UK and the EU emerged in an Arts Council survey of 1,000 stakeholders as a top priority post Brexit. It was more important even than the loss of EU funding, which has been worth approximately £40 million per year. The UK’s creative success has been shaped by the opportunities that mobility offers for UK creatives to develop their skills abroad and for UK-based companies to easily access talent from our nearest geographical neighbours. In the most economically productive parts of the sector, domestic skills gaps mean that up to 30% of staff have been recruited from the EU, and it is hard to see, even before Covid, how the creative industries will thrive in the new immigration regime that is in front of us today.

It is a regime that promises access to the brightest and the best, but which defines those qualities on the basis of salary and a points-based system that is ill matched to the characteristics of the sector, in which low pay does not equal low skills and where the training routes—I speak to this personally—do not lead to postgraduate qualifications that are points-scoring. It is also a regime that yet again ignores the importance of freelancers, who offer vital flexibility to a sector that is made up almost entirely of businesses that employ fewer than 10 people. As we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, those organisations will be hard pushed to meet the financial and administrative burdens associated with the employment of freelancers.

The UK’s creative sector is often pointed to as a major agent of soft power, but its contributions extend beyond global reputation to the economy and to employment right across the UK. The Centre for Cities reports a disconnect between the Government’s levelling-up agenda and the new immigration system, with cities in the greater south-east expected to gain the most from the new rules for so-called high-skilled migrants. Understanding the impact of this immigration regime on a sector that, unlike most, is delivering growth in almost every region of the UK, becomes even more important in the light of this.

I am afraid that I have seen little to reassure me that, across either research and innovation or the arts and culture, there is genuine understanding within government of the nature and specificities of these sectors, their workforce and the structures and systems on which success has been built. This amendment seeks to ensure that proper focus is given to the impact of reduced mobility on two sectors that we can truly claim are world leading, and will help to ensure that they remain so into the future.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to support this amendment and Amendment 25. Although my main interest is in the life sciences sector, as a patron of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, I want to say something about the need for musicians and other artists from the EU to come to the UK, and vice versa. Despite the welcome support of the UK Government through their Culture Recovery Fund, the orchestral sector in particular is under severe threat. Yet, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, suggested, we should never underestimate the power of the UK’s world-class orchestras and other artistic ventures to contribute to renewal and innovation in our society.

So far as this immigration Bill is concerned, out of the CBSO’s 75 musicians, three come from Germany, and one each from France, Ireland, Romania, the Netherlands, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, the Czech Republic and Denmark. I understand from the Association of British Orchestras that that is on a par with most other orchestras. Surely it is essential that, in future, musicians from the EU can continue to come and play in our orchestras and join in other artistic ventures, just as we want British artists to be able to go and work in the EU.

The Association of British Orchestras reports that a major issue for most of its members is how non-UK musicians can come to live and work in the UK as freelancers, given that the majority of orchestral musicians in the UK are self-employed. Under the points-based system there is currently no such route, even if their combined earnings from freelance engagements are above the salary threshold, because they do not have an employer who can sponsor them. There is tier 1, but the bar has been set at an exceptionally high level where a musician has to satisfy an “exceptional talent” test. The Government have talked about introducing an unsponsored route, but for only two years. Practically, orchestras need this to be up to five years, as with employed musicians, and we have no timetable for its introduction.

I turn now to the life sciences sector. Again, it is world beating and I want to echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. It is vital that any changes that are made to the immigration system protect our excellent life sciences and the UK medical research establishment. This is contingent, as Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and others have said, on the maintenance of the UK’s world-leading research environment and our continuing ability to attract, recruit and retain global scientific talent at all levels.

As I said in Committee, 31% of the UK’s Nobel Prize winners in science were born outside the UK. That is an absolute indication of the power of life science in this country and of our historic ability to attract the brightest and best from abroad. It is vital at not just that level but the technical level as well that we continue to do so.

In Committee, the Minister said that we should really depend on the impact assessment prepared by the Home Office and the Migration Advisory Committee —but I think we need to go further. Both these sectors are the sort of sectors that any Government would want to support, and they both need reassurance. The amendments before us are very mild. The noble Earl has said that he will not press his amendment to a vote, and I understand that, but the Government need to reciprocate and at the very least show that they understand that these sectors need to be protected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Oates, has, in his opening contribution, clearly outlined many of the arguments why this simple, short amendment on physical documentation should be accepted by Her Majesty’s Government. It is only five lines long, but within those five lines, so much future heartache and pain could be averted—averted for the most vulnerable in society.

As we have heard, this amendment is tempered and moderate. The words

“and who request such proof”

in subsection (1) show how measured this cross-party amendment, proposed by a grouping of the noble Lords, Lord Oates, Lord Polak, Lord Kerslake and me, is an attempt to be. I hope that the Minister can be as accommodating as we have been.

There have been calls under previous amendments for physical documentation to be automatically provided for all. I have sympathy with that call but, in the hope that we can get to a position where our amendment could be accepted by the Minister and Her Majesty’s Government, the words

“and who request such proof”

have been added. It would be a very sad day if the Minister cannot accept this short and sensible amendment.

In rereading the Commons Committee debate and previous debates on this amendment in your Lordships’ House, like others, I am still at a loss to understand why the Minister feels she cannot accept or support it. The arguments against have been, at best, vague. When responding on 14 September, the Minister said, when referring to the Home Office letter:

“I must say, it is not proof; it is confirmation. This should reassure individuals about their status when dealing with the Home Office in the future”—[Official Report, 14/9/20; col. 1094.]


Well, no. It is the issuing of the physical proof that is vital and will give those individuals the reassurance they need. We all heard the noble Lord, Lord Russell, in his contribution on Amendment 16 talking about the issues surrounding the Home Office. It is vital for so many reasons—for work, for housing, for the feeling of belonging.

Like many others who spoke earlier, I fully support the digitisation and the move to online processing and ordering, but there are issues and concerns with the only form of access to proof being digital and online. We have heard some of those. What happens if the online systems fail—like our voting system last Wednesday, when it was critically and crucially needed? Only this weekend, we have seen the failures in relation to Covid testing and the errors that have occurred with the digitisation there. But it is not just the errors: there are also those who are not digitally literate. What support will the Government offer to them, if they will not accept the amendment?

I hope that, with the cross-party support of this simple, short amendment, it can be accepted and introduced.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I fully support all the points so eloquently argued, once again, by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. I will speak briefly only to reiterate the points I raised in Committee, which were not fully addressed by the Minister in her response.

My first point relates to people in abusive and coercive relationships. I pointed out then, and remind the House now, that a common strategy in coercive control cases is to deprive the victim of access to phone and internet use. This raises the question of how someone who escapes a relationship with a coercive partner will be able to prove their status in future if, as is likely, it was the abusive partner who managed the process of claiming settled status in the first place. In seeking to rent a safe place to live, or to get a job in order to pay the rent, they would be obliged to contact the partner they are likely to have struggled so hard to leave. This is not a sidebar issue. Coercive control is now, quite rightly, a criminal offence in the UK. In the year to March last year, there were 17,616 offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. Can the Minister explain what protection there will be for victims of coercive control or abuse, so that they are not forced back into contact with their abuser in order to prove their immigration status?

My second concern is for people with impaired mental capacity, who are unlikely to have been able to navigate the application system alone, or to have been able to enter into mobile and internet accounts in their own names. Given the fluidity of the social care workforce, there is no guarantee that, at a later point in life when they are applying for a job or to rent a home, they will still be connected with the carer or caseworker who provided assistance. Mental capacity changes over time. Someone who has mental capacity when they apply may lack it at a later date, without the moment at which this change takes place being immediately clear. Can the Minister explain how people who lack mental capacity, now or in the future, are to be protected?

In response to these concerns, which I articulated in Committee, the Minister reiterated the Government’s commitment to

“delivering a service that reflects the diverse needs of all users.”—[Official Report, 14/9/20; col. 1094.]

Given everything that noble Lords have argued on this question, this evening and previously, does she not agree that delivering a service that reflects the diverse needs of all users will include, first, an assessment of which members of society would be disadvantaged by the lack of a physical document; and, secondly, an assessment of the impact of accessibility issues on all potential service users?

I know that the Minister will agree that equality of access should be at the heart of every government policy. This tiny amendment—a simple slip of paper and only if requested—does nothing more than ensure that this is the case. For this reason, it has my support.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on his rather brilliant introduction of this amendment, which I strongly support. The case for it would be made very succinctly were John Stuart Mill or Jeremy Bentham with us. The task of government is to engender the greatest happiness for the greatest number. People want physical proof and, as the noble Lord, Lord Polak, said, our inboxes demonstrate how unhappy so many are at the prospect of being denied it. I can understand why.

We are talking about people—some are vulnerable, some short of digital skills—who are now all already facing a period of unexpected but inevitable uncertainty. Every time they want to apply for a job, rent a place to live, seek medical help, or board a plane home, they, and the potential employer, landlord, healthcare provider or foreign airport employee, will have to go through a multistep process involving passport, date of birth, a unique, one-off, code sent to a phone, and the email address and business details of the employer, landlord, doctor or airport employee. They will both, separately, have to access the Government’s website, relying on having all the relevant information to hand, the wi-fi signal being good and the website not going down. It is hardly surprising that some of these people worry that the employer or the landlord would prefer to skip the hassle and instead take on someone who has physical proof of their status.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I wish to speak in favour of Amendment 20, which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham—he regrets that he is unable to be with your Lordships today—has put his name to, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who has just spoken, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull.

The process of detention is an intensely dispiriting one. It is often accompanied by a physical denial of hope and attendant mental distress. We have heard of extensive periods of internment, just as we have heard from the Minister of expeditious dealing with detainees. We have heard, too, from her that detention cannot be indefinite because the Secretary of State’s power is constrained by common law. That is undeniably correct. However, for an individual who is affected by this and who might be unaware of how and when a caseworker will weigh the different elements of Hardial Singh, that is no comfort.

The Government are right in saying that detention is subject to the courts. However, although the application of common law brings many benefits—and there will be those in your Lordships’ House who will think it little enough used—those who are subject to sudden detention are not the sort of people who can summon the resources to apply to a court for redress. That is a key failing of any attempt to justify the present arrangements. The problem with the immigration and asylum system is not, as some allege, overtly complex legal safeguards for unworthy individuals; it is less contentious and more straightforward than that—it is simply that too few individuals have the resources to access the legal help necessary to ensure them fair consideration. The number of cases which the Home Offices loses and which go to tribunal demonstrates the human cost of that. It is an indictment that this inhibits the operation of justice for all.

The Government have had ample opportunity to bring forward their own amendment to put the terms of detention on a statutory footing. In the absence of that, I trust that the House will take the opportunity to give this amendment a generous consideration. I shall vote for it.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in support of these amendments, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and so well supported, not only across all parts of this House and the other place, but by legal and medical experts, civil society organisations and religious leaders, and by the Home Affairs Select Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

These amendments respond to the moral imperative to treat people fairly according to principles of non-discrimination. Having a system that departs from the principles of the UK’s criminal justice system, in which judicial oversight is required after days and individuals are released from detention after 96 hours without charge, is antithetical to the principle of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that:

“All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.”


Setting no time limit on immigration detention impacts on some of the weakest members of society, who already have fewer rights and have likely been under extraordinary physical, mental and economic duress. It effectively pushes people into limbo, taking away their agency and capacity to ensure the well-being of themselves and the people they love.

The negative impact of immigration detention on mental health is well documented in research, with the duration of detention associated with severity of symptoms. A systematic review of the literature found that asylum seekers are likely to have a pre-existing vulnerability to mental health problems, which will be further exacerbated by detention.

As we have heard, the Minister said in Committee that setting a detention time would “encourage and reward abuse” of the immigration system. This proposition tears at the presumption of innocence, replacing it with suspicion and an assumption of guilt. It risks lawmaking being in the service of punishing the many for the crimes of the few. We are not talking here about offenders who should rightly be dealt with by the criminal justice system; we are talking about people who have suffered unimaginable hardships and have come to the UK to escape violence and persecution, in the hope of a better life. Detaining them with no prospect of when they might be released is not the behaviour of a democracy. We are better than this, and it is surely not how we want British citizens to be treated elsewhere.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, who spoke very eloquently. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was also very eloquent, in spite of her brevity. This Government are famous for their hostile environment. This is really the most inhumane immigration system, and Britain deserves better. We do not even have parliamentary oversight of this system, which is an appalling lack of democracy. I have signed three amendments in this group, all of which are valid and should be taken seriously by the Government and put into the Bill. Amendment 20 is particularly valuable, and my noble friend Lady Bennett and I will be voting for it.

Moving on from the concept of parliamentary oversight, we need a few things in the Bill. We need time limits on detention and a test of necessity and proportionality. People should be detained only when necessary. As we have clearly heard, detention is often unnecessary. We need a right to bail, with a process in place to facilitate it, and a ban on solitary confinement unless absolutely necessary—and I do mean absolutely necessary. These measures should be applied to all immigration detention, and I call on the Government to bring a Bill to reform the whole system. They have already said that they will do that, but I think the reform I have in mind is not what the Government have in mind. I just repeat that the system we have is inhumane; we need one we can feel proud of.

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

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

There are shadowy figures who get appointed and seem to run things but never appear in this or any other House, but I am sure that the Minister could do it if she wanted to. I think that this is a single thing that the Government could do.

Various people have talked about it being a two-tier system. My noble friend Lord Paddick said it would mean that people with settled status would be in a position different from that of other people. They would be, and they would sometimes be worse off in some respects compared with some citizens of the European Union. For example, those who come here to work after the end of June next year will need a work visa. As I understand it, they will have a passport and the work visa will be stamped in it. They will be okay. They will say, “Look, I can work”, whereas those with settled status will have to go through the long and complex system that has been described to us by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

My other question concerns transactions, whether relating to employment, housing or other things—odd jobs and so on, with people doing work for others. If the European Union person with settled status, who might be on either side of the transaction, is the provider of the facilities or services, will they have to show that they are entitled to be here and to provide those services to their customers or whoever they are providing them to? That is a question for the Minister.

It seems a bit ridiculous in some cases, such as odd-job men. Somebody comes around—they may be a traveller or just an ordinary odd-job man—and says they will mend your roof by putting the tiles back on or will set up a window-cleaning round. If you employ them to work for you, and pay them to do it, but they are not entitled to work in this country, will you be breaking the law in some way—or is it all on the side of the person providing the service?

I have been trying to get my mind around the worst-case scenarios. If you want to rent a new flat and you are leasing it from a big landlord, who is highly reputable and provides high-quality accommodation, you will be okay. They will have all the computer systems, will know how to do it and be used to it. It will just go through. But you may be renting an attic from an old lady who has lived in the house all her life but does not know what a computer looks like or how to operate that kind of system. She does not work through an agent or anybody like that; she just does it. You may be a lodger or a tenant. Under those circumstances, you need a physical document.

I can think of loads of others. Think of the gig economy. Lots of it is highly organised and computerised, and will easily be able to cope—driving for Uber, running webinars or whatever it is. But a lot of the gig economy is short-term jobs, such as working at a bar, doing delivery rounds, music gigs or all sorts of things, as we all know. We should not expect this system to work under circumstances where people do not have a physical document. It is simply not going to happen; it is not going to work.

Then there is the question of self-employed people—your classic Polish plumber, or whoever it is, whatever they are doing. As I suggested before, they may have come to mend your roof or sort out your heating. This is a self-employed person, a sole trader. They may or may not be operating properly within the tax system, but there are loads of such people. How will they cope with this? Some of them have devices with them, but lots will not want to worry about computers. If you are employing these people, as I said before, is it your responsibility to check that their settled status is bona fide?

The more I think about, the more circumstances there are where it will simply not work. It might work in 90% of cases, but there are lots where it will not. Simply having a physical document means that the system can work. It does not mean it will, but it means that it can, so that people on all sides of the transactions can cope. I return to what I said before: this is simple. I cannot understand why the Government will not do it. They should go away, design a scheme, come back and tell us what they are doing, and we will cheer them to the rooftops.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I too speak in support of Amendment 49. Like other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on his comprehensive introduction and on continuing to press this important issue. Equality of access and opportunity should be at the heart of every government policy, yet denying EU citizens this physical back-up to prove their status opens avenues for the exact opposite. It raises barriers that may unfairly hamper their ability to lead fulfilling lives and to carry out basic tasks, such as seeking job opportunities—as we have heard— finding a place to live, opening a bank account, getting medical treatment or safely returning home after travelling abroad.

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

Baroness Bull Excerpts

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

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, while I associate myself with all the amendments in the group, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 69 and thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for introducing it so comprehensively. In the UK’s creative sector we have something that really can claim to be world-leading. As we have heard, the sector makes a significant contribution to the UK’s GVA, to employment and to services exports. Also, unlike many parts of industry, this sector has for some years been growing in every region of the UK. Therefore, in addition to its considerable contribution to the UK’s cultural, social and economic well-being, the creative sector can play an important role in the Government’s levelling-up agenda.

Yet it is a sector at risk, because its success has been built over the last three decades or more on the four freedoms enabled by membership of the EU, with ease of mobility the freedom most highly prized by artists and cultural organisations. I worked in this sector for over 30 years as artist, producer, commissioner, manager and director, and I lived the benefits of that mobility. It enabled me to develop my artistry and skills within different environments and in front of different audiences, to build valuable creative networks, to be challenged and inspired by artists trained in different ways, and to innovate in the spaces where different voices, values and views come together. The UK’s artistic and cultural success has been underpinned by these easy interactions across borders.

That success has also been underpinned by ease of access to talent from our nearest neighbours. A quarter of the occupations on the tier 2 shortage occupation list are in the cultural and creative industries. In the most economically productive areas of the sector, domestic skills gaps mean that 30% of staff have been recruited from the EU, while EU workers fill gaps in less lucrative subsectors like my own—dance—and museums. The skills gap is so pronounced and so specialist that, even had we started on the day after the referendum, we would still not have been able to train up a homegrown workforce to fill the gap by the time the current supply route closes down.

We have heard repeatedly that this new points-based system will allow access to so-called high-skilled workers and the brightest and the best. This amendment creates an obligation on government not only to test that assertion but also to test the impact on the bright young talents of the future. According to the latest report from the Migration Advisory Committee, several creative and artistic jobs may be deemed “high-skill, low-pay occupations”—something you do not really need to tell me. Many young artists like me do not train at universities, let alone go on to the postgraduate qualifications that would earn us an additional 10 points, and our salary levels are certainly not a proxy for our skills.

Given this, emerging artists are unlikely to accrue the necessary points for entry. I have known several dancers from EU countries who took jobs at the bottom of the ladder at basic salaries, spoke little English and certainly had no PhD, but we had the privilege and the pleasure of watching them develop from promising talent to international superstar, becoming valuable agents of soft power for the UK and, in some cases, achieving the status of national treasure. However, if they were applying for entry next year, I am not sure that they would notch up the crucial 70 points that they would require.

The Government have also been clear that they do not intend to create an immigration route for the self-employed. The creative workforce is 38% freelance and we have heard, over and over again, in this Chamber about the critical role freelancers play in the cultural ecology. The Creative Industries Federation has said that:

“Given the project … based nature of our sector”


and its scale, bringing the route for temporary workers from the EU in line with rules currently applying to non-EEA nationals will be,

“hugely damaging for the creative industries … 95% of creative businesses employ fewer than 10 people”.

These businesses are reliant on specialist temporary workers to provide essential services on an occasional basis, often at very short notice. As the cost for each individual temporary worker’s visa is likely to be over £200, the financial and administrative burden this presents could be overwhelming.

An Arts Council survey of almost 1,000 stakeholders found that the top priority for arts organisations, post Brexit, was to ensure the continuity of short-term mobility between the UK and the EU. This was even more important to them than replacing EU funding, even though this has been worth approximately £40 million each year.

In leaving the EU, we are leaving behind our automatic right to work across borders. That was our decision, and the curtain has fallen on that particular debate. This amendment would shine a spotlight on the impact of this decision on one of the UK’s most productive and successful sectors and help ensure we do all we can to sustain and enhance its success into the future. As someone whose career owes so much to that easy and reciprocal mobility, it was a pleasure and indeed an obligation to put my name to this amendment.

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, I too have considerable sympathy with all the amendments in this grouping. However, I am happy to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, as a co-mover of Amendment 97, and will confine my remarks to that new clause. This is, as the right reverend Prelate had said, a probing amendment. We hope that the Government can use this debate to clarify the next steps and perhaps give us some idea of a timetable.

I appreciate that the definition of faith communities may give us some difficulties but, as a Roman Catholic, I wish to present some of the challenges facing the Catholic Church in relation to the changes being introduced in this Bill. The Catholic Church is, after all, a very international body. Movement between different countries within religious orders, and for educational and other purposes, is an integral part of that internationalism.

In the course of preparing my brief for this debate, I have learnt a lot about the various categories of visas, something I was previously unaware of. I can fully appreciate what a struggle it is to cope with all the requirements. As the right reverend Prelate has said, most Catholic diocese have previously used tier 5 religious worker visas, for the reasons that he stated. Supply placements are essential, as they allow us to continue attending mass, while also keeping parish activities running smoothly. The new requirement, introduced in 2019, was for anybody who was preaching to use tier 2 minister of religion visas. That has more than doubled the cost incurred by parishes arranging supply cover. For some parishes, this is unsustainable and that of course compromises people’s opportunity to practise their faith.

Furthermore, seminaries that conduct formation in English are not necessarily recognised by the Home Office as meeting the English language requirement under the tier 2 route. This means that many priests, who may have been educated to postgraduate level in English, are nevertheless required to take a language test, with extra logistical and cost implications. Unless some changes are made, the situation will of course be further aggravated as a result of the end of free movement following Brexit. Priests coming from European Union countries to provide supply cover will now also be subject to the same regime.

This new clause is intended to give the Government the opportunity to keep Parliament informed, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister about government thinking on this issue.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it hardly seems possible that this issue could have assumed greater significance now than when it first came to public attention in 2017, but this pandemic has highlighted the extraordinary contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants to the UK and to vital public services such as health, social care and transport, making even more shameful the treatment they received as a result of the Windrush scandal. Some of them have answered government’s call and come out of retirement to help this country through our current crisis, echoing their response in 1948 when they boarded “Empire Windrush” to help rebuild a nation devastated by war.

This scheme is an important step towards redressing the considerable wrongs visited on those original pioneers and on other Commonwealth citizens, injustices powerfully articulated by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon and Lady Benjamin. I want to address three points.

The first is on the importance of getting implementation right. I welcome the establishment of the cross-government working group and the £500,000 community fund for grassroots organisations to promote and advise. However, as I noted at Second Reading, grassroots organisations are effective because they are community-specific and, given the range of communities and locations involved, this funding may not be sufficient.

Concerns have also been raised about the complexity of the process and whether this contributes to the small number of applications having been received so far: around 1,000, despite the Home Office estimating that some 15,000 people could be eligible. Lack of access to legal aid may be a factor, and so might lack of trust. Is the Minister confident that the Home Office can earn the confidence of communities which have every reason to be nervous of engaging with it?

Secondly, I want to stress the importance of adopting the lessons of Wendy Williams’s review more widely across government. As she says, we must

“go further to right the wrongs”.

With that in mind, I urge the Government to address the growing risk that the EU settlement scheme becomes what some charities are already calling “this generation’s Windrush”. Does the Minister share my concerns that we risk creating once again a tier of second-class citizens and that the lessons of Windrush have not been learned?

Finally, we should not imagine that this scheme on its own will end the discrimination against BAME communities so clearly evident in relative rates of poverty, access to education, housing and employment and in social and health-related inequalities. This has been highlighted in the gravest of ways in the disproportionate numbers of BAME patients and NHS staff critically ill with, and dying from, Covid-19.

This scheme is welcome, but we would most effectively honour the legacy of the Windrush generation by a wholehearted commitment to eradicating, once and for all, the inequality, discrimination and denial of rights that gave rise to and perpetrated one of the most shameful episodes in our national life.

Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill

Baroness Bull Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend and to speak today in support of this Bill, which has taken on even greater significance— if such a thing were possible—in the light of the crisis that we are living through. As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, pointed out, this unprecedented challenge has high- lighted once again the massive contribution that the Windrush generation, their children and their children’s children, make to the fabric of our lives in the UK. In these changed circumstances, as perhaps a truer perspective on what really matters in life emerges, as we redefine our views on what “key worker” means, as we reflect ruefully on past debates in this Chamber about immigration and the notion of low-skilled workers, we have occasion on a daily basis to be grateful to those members of our community who are of, or descend from, the Windrush generation.

They were brave pioneers. They came here, at our invitation, to help rebuild a nation battered by war. They did not come here asking to become British citizens; they travelled on passports which said that they were British citizens. Despite the discrimination and racism that they encountered and endured, they stayed on and made vital contributions, not least to the foundation of the NHS and the establishment of London’s transport system, and so 70 years later, as this generation endures its own global crisis, we are reminded every day of the contribution of those original pioneers, as we lean harder than ever on the health infrastructure that they helped to build, and as we witness the daily sacrifice of NHS workers and transport staff who risk their lives to support others.

The impact of the Windrush scandal and the hostile environment that enabled it has been well documented. It has affected the lives of individuals, their families and communities—homes and jobs have been lost, access to healthcare, pensions and social security refused. People have been subject to immigration enforcement, those travelling abroad have been refused re-entry to their home country, while others were unable to visit family to say final goodbyes to loved ones or to pay last respects at funerals. Some died before they received any acknowledgement of the appalling way they had been treated, let alone any sign of compensation. These people were and are British citizens, and we must all share the sense of shame at the treatment that they endured. This Bill is an important part of the process by which we will begin to right those wrongs. That is why I felt compelled to come in and speak today. I support the Bill, but I have some questions for the Minister, which I hope she can address when she winds up.

First, can the noble Baroness offer any explanation as to why, as we have heard, so few applications to the scheme have been received? The Home Office estimates that 15,000 people could be eligible to apply, yet 1,000 applications have come in, with just over £62,000 paid out to 36 people. I share concerns that people may be dissuaded from coming forward by the absence of provision for legal aid, the complexity of the claims process and the extensive requirements for documentary evidence, exactly the kind of evidence that people were denied as a result of this scandal. When you add in the understandable mistrust of the Home Office, and individuals’ fears of testing their own status, lest they suffer the same consequences as others, it is probably less surprising that so few have yet to make a claim.

Secondly, is the Minister confident that the £500,000 fund for community-based organisations will be sufficient? Community-based groups are effective because they are just that—they are rooted in and specific to that community and locality. But this scheme is open to a range of different communities, and certainly not just those who originally came from the Caribbean Commonwealth. We should not imagine that these people are all part of a single community just because they share that same characteristic of having suffered as a result of the Windrush scandal.

Finally, can she tell us what progress the stakeholder advisory group is making on its stated purpose to build trust with the affected communities? How many times has it met? What recommendations has it put forward and which have been taken up?

Since this Bill had its Second Reading in the other place, we have now seen the Wendy Williams lessons learned report. Her important recommendations take on an added poignancy today. “Go further,” she urges, “to right the wrongs.” She does not add, but I will—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has already mentioned this—that the lessons learned from this shameful episode need to be applied as we implement a new immigration regime for the post-Brexit environment. Worrying reports are emerging of EU citizens who are resident in the UK being denied access to universal credit right now, despite having pre-settled status, but because they do not pass the right to reside test. The Home Office has said previously that whether they have pre-settled or settled status, they have been accepted through the scheme and have secured their rights in UK law.

This may not be the moment to push this particular issue further, but I would urge the Government to hold the Windrush lessons and that simple but powerful phrase in mind,

“Go further to right the wrongs”,


because, however important this Bill is, it cannot in itself end the Windrush scandal. That is because it is one of discrimination, of the denial of rights and of the perpetuation of inequalities that stretches back over decades, and it is a scandal that is still playing out, as is clearly evident in the relative rate of poverty among black and Asian minority ethnic communities as well as in access to education, housing or employment and in the social and health-related inequalities. It is horribly revealing that, of the first 3,882 patients critically ill with Covid-19, more than a third were non-white, despite those communities representing only 14% of the population. BAME staff make up 44% of the NHS workforce and yet they account for 68% of deaths, including every one of the 14 doctors who had died at the time at which I wrote this speech.

Last month, the Government called for retired doctors and nurses to come back into service to help manage the coronavirus crisis. For many, that call to action will have evoked memories of 1948, when they answered a similar call and boarded HMT “Empire Windrush” to come to the UK and help build the embryonic NHS. Yet despite the prejudice they faced in their careers, despite spending decades nursing others only to be denied healthcare when they needed it themselves, despite their children being told that they were aliens in the only country they had ever called home, many of these nurses and doctors have put their own safety on the line and signed up. The Windrush generation and their descendants have twice answered the call to help this country through its darkest hours. We are clapping for them now, but what happens when the weekly applause no longer rings out? That will be the true test of whether the lessons have been learned. We need not only to compensate these people who have been so shamefully wronged; we need to ensure that nothing like it is ever allowed to happen again.