EU Settlement Scheme

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Lord for making that point. Permanent residency status was afforded to EU citizens when we were—as we still are—in the European Union. That will change, but their settled status will not change once we leave the EU. They will move from the status we had when we were in the EU to one that we will have when we are outside the EU—settled status—and they will not be charged for it. I know that it is not ideal and that they should automatically have it. However, that is the reason for the change.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister talked about working with stakeholders, and I believe that the Immigration Minister’s recent meeting with the organisation the3million was, according to its website, very successful. I think we should be grateful to the3million for its forensic analysis of the position. For instance, one of its 150 detailed questions is how a stay-at-home parent—one of the examples used in the Statement—can prove his or her residence. When will the Home Office be able to give answers to all those questions, as I understand it has agreed to do? Secondly, I believe that the withdrawal agreement states that the process is to be monitored by an independent authority. Can the Minister give the House details of that? Finally, on the point about British citizens in Europe, I wonder whether she is aware that the organisation British in Europe suggests on its website today that the Home Secretary is asking the wrong questions, because the current registration systems across the EU 27 are “largely working well”, and it is only France, along with the UK, that does not require a form of registration, so our Government should be asking what is planned to tweak existing systems. British in Europe also points out that the real issue for its members is free movement, which is a huge issue for British people on the continent, as 80% of Brits in the EU 27 are of working age or younger and rely on free movement for work and to keep their family together.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Baroness for her questions. I think I addressed in the Statement the very example she gave of stay-at-home parents. As the Statement says, applicants will not need to show that they meet the detailed requirements of free movement rules, which I think was the point that the noble Baroness was making. So if you are a stay-at-home mum—to pick a stereotype—or somebody who is retired, will you have to prove free movement rights? No, you will not. That is the simple answer to that. Regarding the independent authority, I do not think it has been announced yet, although I will confirm that in writing to the noble Baroness. I am pretty sure that it has not been announced, but it will be in due course.

Immigration: Hostile Environment

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for asking, in essence: what does a hostile environment policy do to individuals and to our society? As we have heard, there have been many casualties. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, raised the issue of proving one’s entitlement; in other words, exercising one’s rights. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, if I heard him aright, referred to a national psychosis.

The policy impinges on people who never expected to be affected by immigration policy. Several noble Lords, including my noble friends, have given examples. If your son’s Brazilian fiancée has not previously had a problem with renewing her visa but is not issued a new visa, reports to the Home Office as she is requested to do, and is immediately sent into immigration detention, the whole family is confused, distressed and helpless. If you are below the financial threshold to sponsor a spouse visa, your Canadian wife—who, from time to time, comes as a visitor—may one day be told, “We don’t believe you’ll leave”, although there has been nothing to suggest that she would break her previous pattern, so she is sent into detention and then back home, if that is where she feels home is by this stage. If you are an employer in a business or maybe in the NHS, which is about much more than doctors and nurses, you will be confronted with rather curious shortage occupation lists and with the caps—as you will be if you hope, for career reasons, to work in the UK yourself. The business community constantly reminds us that immigration really affects access to talent. If your aunt has bequeathed you her flat and you have become an accidental landlord, you will find that you are also an immigration officer and subject to sanctions as well.

Noble Lords will understand that I am using examples, all of which I have come across along with many more over some years. The Minister told the House last week that the Government are planning,

“to reconvene the landlords consultative panel”,—[Official Report, 6/6/18; col. 1303.]

which is to “drive up landlords’ compliance” with the right-to-rent provisions. I noted that the Minister was not able at that time to answer my noble friend Lord Paddick’s question about how the Government are monitoring racial and other discrimination, and what baseline data they are using to determine whether discrimination has increased as a result of the right-to-rent scheme.

If you make a minor error in terms of your leave, or of course if the Home Office makes such an error, you may find yourself threatened and deprived of the basis of normal life. If you are a teacher or doctor, or work in another capacity in the education or health sectors, you will have come up against the issues of reporting and sharing data. I appreciate that a part of this has been dealt with recently but schools and health centres should be safe places.

Personal experiences make people see situations with new eyes, as the speeches today have demonstrated. People see what is being done by the Government in their name and, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, they hear language with fresh ears. We are discovering what has happened to the Windrush generation, although we do not yet know how many have been deported or detained, or about the financial and emotional cost to them. I accept, of course, that the Home Office task force is now at work. I realised recently, and was shocked to find it, how little I am surprised by what I hear from people who think that their story must be without precedent—of course, it is to them. I have realised, too, how impressed we should all be by the resilience and compassion of the third sector, which so often tackles the situations that we have heard about.

Some people take advantage of a hostile environment. I am talking about the exploitation of people who do not know their rights and think that they may be here illegally, which happens all too often in low-paid employment. That is another factor of this policy. In discussing the position of EU citizens post Brexit I have heard about the concerns of people who may not register because they are fearful that some minor infringement, such as a parking ticket which they once got, will be counted as a crime and held against them. There is a danger that hostility as a policy is reflected across the community, with ethnicity a proxy for racism.

I recently raised the apparent blanket ban on asylum seekers accessing education. The Minister gave assurances that the Home Office is taking proactive steps to contact those affected and reissue the necessary immigration bail forms without these restrictions. I was grateful for her prompt response and evident understanding but I am told by solicitors that they are still seeing asylum seekers being restricted from studying. They are also concerned that the new bail guidance does not ensure that potential victims of trafficking, individuals served with deportation orders and those with fresh claims pending will not be unlawfully or irrationally restricted from studying.

“Hostile” or “compliant”, whatever language is used there has been no change in the legislation. Has there been any change in how the Home Office handles information and documentation? It occurs to me to wonder whether the hostile environment has affected those administering the system. It must have; I suspect that officials are overloaded. In the debate two days ago the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, used the term “institutional depression” of Home Office officials. The widely held view is that the culture which has permeated the Home Office, affecting how officials approach decisions and deal with information, has gone very deep. I do not need to stress how this affects the public’s confidence in the system, and do not like to think what we might be doing to those who administer it. It is not comfortable always to have to suspect the worst of everyone. This is not just about Home Office personnel. I was asked this morning whether victims of crime with an uncertain status are routinely referred to the Home Office for investigation. Is there an explicit policy on this?

The British Red Cross has just published a new report, subtitled The Humanitarian Impact of the UK Immigration Detention System. Among other things, it investigated life after detention. I am ashamed that I had never thought beyond, “Oh, X has been released”. Just as being taken into detention can come out of the blue so can release, but without asylum support, accommodation or access to benefits. As the report says:

“Expecting someone to engage with their asylum case after release is unrealistic if they are battling mental health issues, receiving no … support, and subject to enforcement-based alternatives to detention, like reporting”.


As part of the Shaw review, Mary Bosworth identified some consistent findings. One of them was that there is a negative impact on mental health which persists long after detention. This is borne out by the service users interviewed by the British Red Cross. A gentleman from Pakistan said:

“When they released me, I wasn’t able to cross the road, you know, at the zebra crossing. That’s the huge impact on my mind. I went for counselling, six months to a private charity organisation and there she tell me the tricks how to … cope with these things. So with that counselling, I came out of these things, but imagine I wasn’t able to cross the road. When I was released, when I come outside the detention centre, I felt that my soul had been taken out from my body. I found no energy, no power”.


A British Red Cross staff member is also quoted in the report:

“I wonder how someone is going to be able to manage going into a workplace and being an integrated part of society”—


we seek integration, after all—

“when … on your arrival into the country and through the asylum process”,

they experienced,

“this sense of being done to. Then you’re told, ‘Okay, now you have to be a productive member of society’. I wonder how people manage that transition”.

We have a new Home Secretary. He has the opportunity to change policy and the culture. That is no easy task. From what I have observed, he is very open to this. Two years ago, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration said:

“However, in the absence of even any ‘soft’ indicators of impact on, for example, voluntary returns, the Home Office lays itself open to criticism about the breadth of new legislation and the cost/benefit to itself and others of implementing each measure. It is also harder for it to answer concerns about the potential damage to communities and to individuals”.


That was his report following an inspection of hostile environment measures. In my view, the environment of hostility has impacted and is impacting on individuals and on our society much for the worse.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, for securing this debate, and all those who have spoken for their varied and interesting contributions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, for his particularly thoughtful contribution, and pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Morris—our very own Windrush Member of your Lordships’ House.

It is true to say that the work of the Home Office is vast. Millions of visa, citizenship and settlement applications are granted every year, and thousands of people are provided with international protection thanks to the decisions of Home Office case workers. However, as the Home Secretary has made very clear—a number of noble Lords have alluded to this—as well as having a fair and humane immigration system, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has just mentioned, we need one that clearly distinguishes between those who are here legally and those who are here illegally, as the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, very articulately pointed out. It is important to recall that successive Governments have put in place controls to deter illegal migration and protect public services.

It remains the case that the public expect us to enforce immigration laws approved by Parliament as a matter of fairness to those who abide by the rules. A recent YouGov poll showed that 71% of the public support our policy of requiring people to show documents to prove their entitlement to be here, work, rent a flat or access services and benefits. These measures have been introduced over many years. The first NHS charges for overseas visitors were introduced in 1982. The right-to-work checks were introduced in 1987, not 2014 as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said. The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 introduced restrictions on accessing benefits, social housing and social services. To return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, we have to clamp down on people who are here illegally.

Key elements of the compliant environment policy were put in place by the Opposition when in office, and it was during that time that the policy was described by Ministers as a hostile environment against illegal immigration. I am happy to answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Parekh: that is when it started. I am happy to confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that Alan Johnson used the term “hostile environment” and that the term was used by the Immigration Minister Phil Woolas in 2010 in his strategy paper on immigration, following a similar strategy paper in 2005. So the term has been used, and noble Lords have made the point that we can all go back and blame various different people for it, but the current Home Secretary has made clear that it is a term that he does not want to use and that the term “compliant environment” better reflects our values as a country, ensuring that fair rules are properly upheld.

More recently, measures to prevent illegal migrants from accessing the private rented sector have been introduced to bring consistency with well-established controls on accessing social housing. Further controls on access to bank accounts and driving licences introduced in the 2014 and 2016 Acts carry on this trend. In relation to access to employment, which is one of the key draws for illegal immigration, employers have had a duty to prevent illegal working, as I have said, since 1997. Since 2008 this requirement has been underpinned by civil and criminal sanctions for non-compliant employers, which were introduced by the Opposition. If an employer is found to have employed someone illegally and they are unable to demonstrate that they have carried out the prescribed check, they may be liable to a civil penalty. There is a sliding scale of penalties and the maximum is currently £20,000 per illegal worker.

Employers comply with the law by undertaking a simple right-to-work check on new employees and repeat checks on those with time-limited status. This is a face-value check of an original document set out in secondary legislation as being acceptable for this purpose. Employers need to contact the Home Office only in certain specified circumstances, including when a potential employee has an outstanding immigration application or appeal, during which time they may be entitled to work. Employers can also contact us if they believe that someone has the right to work but does not have the necessary documents to evidence that right. Retrospective checks on people who were employed before checks were introduced are not required.

In setting the list of documents that individuals may provide to demonstrate their right to work, we have prescribed documents that most lawful residents already have or are able to obtain at minimum cost. For example, UK citizens may use their UK passport or alternatively their national insurance number in combination with their long birth or adoption certificate. I hope that that helps the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, but I understand her point about the Irish question. The Home Office provides guidance for employers, an interactive tool on checking a right to work and an employer checking service for employers who are unsure whether a potential employee has the right to work. The statutory code of practice makes it clear that employers should conduct checks on all prospective employees, not just those whom they believe may not have the right to work in the UK.

Several “compliant environment” measures have been the subject of public consultations, impact assessments and policy equality statements prior to introduction. Noble Lords will be aware that the Immigration Act 2014 also introduced the right-to-rent scheme, which noble Lords have referred to today. Engagement with the sector, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Northern Ireland Equality Commission and housing charities had a major impact during the design of that legislation. As a result of that engagement, we incorporated exemptions for accommodation occupied by vulnerable groups and enabled individuals to demonstrate their right to rent using a broad range of commonly available documents without a passport or photo identification.

The scheme was extended to cover the whole of England in February 2016, after an evaluation of its operation in the West Midlands found no evidence of discrimination arising, no impacts on levels of homelessness, no further barriers to people with little formal documentation accessing the sector and no impacts on the availability or costs of let accommodation—to answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that was posed by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. The evaluation also found that, where landlords engaged with the checks required, they found them to be straightforward and easy to operate. Landlords are not asked to be immigration or forgery experts, contrary to the assertions by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. The checks do not require all tenants to have passports or immigration papers.

For example, a check can be satisfied by presenting a letter from a charity involved in the access to the private rental scheme and a letter from a professional who can confirm that they have personally known the holder for at least three months. The scheme was modelled on the checks that many landlords have been carrying out themselves to establish the credentials of prospective tenants—for example, credit checks, which have been taking place for many years and which, for obvious reasons, landlords carry out diligently.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked me about immigration bail and the issue of study. As she acknowledged, I answered her very clearly on this point and I hope that she is satisfied with that. The case still stands as to what she asked me last week.

[Baroness Hamwee]

The problem is that in practice, practitioners are finding that it does not.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I was about to go on to say that the Home Office is performing a check to ensure that no one is having study restrictions placed on them inappropriately. I hope that she is satisfied by that.

The noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report on the right to rent. We welcome that report. It made four recommendations, and noble Lords referred to recommendation 3 on the consultative panel. It will be reconvened and we will ask the noble Lord, Lord Best, to continue to co-chair it. Somewhere in my pile of documents, I have the make-up of the panel. It will be co-chaired by the Immigration Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Best, as I said. It will be made up of Crisis, Shelter, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, bodies representing landlords, agents and local authorities—those people with housing expertise.

Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Scriven for giving us the opportunity for this debate and for his thoughtful and humane, as well as human, introduction. As the right reverend Prelate did, I thank the independent chief inspector and his staff and, of course, all the individuals involved in the scheme. We each have more time available to debate this Motion this afternoon than I had anticipated. I fear that I may take more advantage of that than some other speakers. I will also use this opportunity to say how sorry I am that there could not have been more of an equalisation between this debate and the earlier debate, although I dare say that the four-minute time limit produced some pretty sparky speeches earlier today.

It was pleasing to read that the scheme is “essentially effective”, although that is obviously within its own terms. I will try not to stray too far from the scheme, but the House will recognise the ambitions of these Benches regarding refugees and asylum seekers. The inspector expressed his disappointment at the Government’s response committing to “few if any actions”. I share that disappointment, not least because the issues have wider application than the VPRS, which is a particular scheme about particular cohorts. But external review and assessment are relevant to other schemes, other situations, other asylum seekers and refugees as well as to future participants in the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme.

We are told by the Library—like the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I am grateful to it for a very helpful briefing—that the International Organization for Migration has said:

“Resettlement cannot be viewed as a one-off effort”.


It referred to it as “a holistic process”. We will all have met refugees who say how relieved they were to reach the UK and how grateful they are to the UK, but then describe the difficulties they have encountered and the obstacles to their becoming able to play their part in society and in the community which has adopted them.

The Government’s response to the chief inspector’s report is framed in terms of accepting or partially accepting the recommendations. Looking at that from the other side, partial acceptance means that the findings of the report—the basis for the recommendations—are, at least in part, not accepted. I realised that I do not know the extent of the Government’s engagement with the inspectorate on this. The report sets out the methodology, which to me looks pretty energetic. However, I do not have the expertise and have no idea about the optimum sample for each aspect of the process, so I do not know whether I agree or disagree with my noble friend Lord Roberts on this. The report included a walk-through of casework, allocations, arrivals and so on, along with the examination of 154 case records and interviews. I have not picked up whether there were similar exercises with DfID and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which are partners in the scheme.

I have a technical question to the Minister about whether the Home Office has discussed the recommendations with the inspectorate. If it did, was that before publication? I am interested in understanding whether, for the Government, this was a paper exercise or something more exploratory.

I have two particular reasons for being interested in this. Yesterday the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member—I see that my colleague the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, is listening to this debate—questioned the Home Secretary and a senior civil servant about the detention of members of the Windrush generation. I had a question for him about challenging Home Office processes—internal challenge, that is—and the civil servant mentioned quality assurance. Inspection, it seems to me, is part of quality assurance.

One of the recommendations in the report is about best practice and guidance based on monitoring, analysis and evaluation. The Library has helpfully drawn our attention to the National Audit Office report of September 2016 on the scheme, along with the work that the Commons Public Accounts Committee did based on that, following the NAO report. The NAO recommended greater monitoring and development of evaluation measures while the Public Accounts Committee recommended improved monitoring and evaluation of certain aspects. There is something of a theme here, perhaps related to my noble friend Lord Scriven’s reference to the use—I stress “use”—of data.

There is something of a thread, too, running through the inspector’s recommendations on the use of the pre-departure period and the scheme’s communications strategy and the Public Accounts Committee’s recommendation on,

“full and clear communication with refugees about the programme—including the services they can expect, their entitlements, restrictions, and the implications of having ‘humanitarian protection’ status”.

That is a direct quote from the committee’s report. On the use of the pre-departure period, we are told that the Government accept the inspector’s recommendations in full. There seems to have been something of a “but” there, though, because the government response then went on to say:

“Implementation of any changes, however, will depend on the establishment of a credible evidence base for changing the current process and timescales as well as an assessment of the benefits of any changes, which would need to outweigh any additional costs. The Department will review the feasibility of options to help reduce the anxieties of those waiting for an arrival date”.


That does not seem to be a wholehearted acceptance of the point made in the report.

The chief inspector has also referred to learning English for reasons of work, study, volunteering and community activities—I think I would sum that up as everyday life. This cannot be a surprise to any noble Lords. No one disagrees with the importance of facility in the language, but it is an issue that is always raised in discussions about what is most helpful to refugees in settling in the UK. In 2016, the organisation Refugee Action published Let Refugees Learn, a report on the challenges and opportunities to improve language provision. It included comments from a number of refugees. Pauline, from the DRC, said that,

“when you can’t talk to people, it’s really very hard. They smile but can’t talk to you and you can’t talk to them”.

I thought that was a very moving summary of the position.

This week, the same organisation told a meeting that I attended about the same issues as in that report of two years ago, in the context of loneliness experienced by refugees. People are asking for more hours per week—I do not mean more hours in the week but more hours of teaching—as many of them get no more than two hours; the need for childcare while the parents attend a class; and comments that too often classes are not accessed by or accessible to women. I had not taken in before that it is the head of the household who is enrolled at the jobcentre, so that is the person who is referred for language lessons—and that is of course usually the man.

One particular point in the Home Office report puzzled me. It was about the treatment of pregnant women and their fitness to fly. The response confirms that the department will,

“strengthen internal guidance and staff training on how to deal with cases that involve pregnant women, to further emphasise that there should not be an automatic assumption that they should not travel”,

but it goes on to say that those cases,

“will only be prioritised where UNHCR categorise it as urgent or an emergency”.

Urgency is not a static condition. There may not be urgency in the earlier months of pregnancy, but I think that one can fairly reliably expect that the matter will become more urgent as the months go by. That is about future family. My noble friend talked about family. I am told that often, a refugee’s first question on arriving here is: “When can my family join me?”. It is the most important of their many concerns.

Finally, the inspector commented on the front-loading of the pipeline of referrals. The report tells us that,

“planning and resourcing for operations in the region beyond mid-2018 is a challenge”.

We are in mid-2018, so I end by asking the Minister: what is the position on this issue now?

Home Office: Data Breaches

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Lord for asking that question about clarity. He is absolutely right to be concerned about lost documents. It can be devastating for people, particularly for immigration or visa purposes. Following a spike last November, UKVI formed a lost documents working group to identify methods of preventing lost documents. From October 2018, the majority of customers will complete their visa application, for example, at front-end service points in the UK managed by our new commercial partner on behalf of UKVI. The noble Lord asked about breaches. They are normally reported to Home Office security and to the data protection officer.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the fact that there has to be a specific lost documents working party says a great deal about organisation in the Home Office. I dare say that there are many millions of EU citizens who will be delighted to know that their documents will be handled with care. I should not be so cynical. If personal information is to be dealt with more reliably within the Home Office, can we expect a reduction in the percentage of successful appeals to the tribunal, which currently stands at 40%?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness raises a point that the Home Office itself acknowledges. Documents have on occasion been lost—a minute proportion of the total number of documents that it deals with, I have to say, but lost nevertheless. As I say, moving to a digitised system should help in huge part to guard against that. The reporting of data breaches in future should also help not only to highlight what has happened but, hopefully, to prevent stuff from happening in future.

Asylum Seekers

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, have we forgotten Jimmy Mubenga? The coroner who inquired into his death during his removal recommended that the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice,

“rigorously review the approved methods of restraint, and specifically the use of force in overseas removals”,

and mentioned,

“appropriate techniques and bespoke training packages”.

The Minister just mentioned training but it does not sound as though it has taken. In this case, the Chief Inspector of Prisons said:

“What we found was pre-emptive and excessive use of restraints that was indicative of poor operational practice and inadequate management”.


Will things change?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness will appreciate that I will not talk about individual cases, but she is absolutely right that the dignity and welfare of all people in our care is of utmost importance. Physical force should be used only after a thorough risk assessment and in consideration of each individual’s personal circumstances. Restraints should be removed at the earliest opportunity. Home Office contractors, including escorting staff, are expected to behave in a professional, calm and measured way at all times. The Home Office uses all reports resulting from use of force monitoring reviews to ensure that techniques are used proportionately, are justified and are used for the minimum period required. As I told the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, a review of dynamic risk assessment processes and the use of de-escalation techniques will be undertaken by the Home Office and the new escorting provider.

Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 11th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I move this amendment for two reasons. First, I believe that legislation and the privilege that we have in introducing Private Member’s Bills should be taken very seriously. By this I mean that legislation is something that requires precision for implementing the intention. From that, it follows that the intention should be reasonably clear and realistic. In this, legislation is crucially different from debate on resolutions, propositions or aspirations. One can, for example, debate the need for a settlement of the Middle East conflict, but to put forward legislation for that is unlikely to be helpful. It is perfectly reasonable to debate all sorts of views on immigration but proposals to uncap it in an unmeasurable way are really not suited to a declaration of policy, let alone legislation.

I remember as a journalist when I had to attend all the party conferences, in 1976 at the Liberal Party conference—the first conference that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, had when he was leader of the Liberal Party—the Young Liberals, who are always inclined to anarchism, had a resolution that there should be completely free immigration into the UK. The noble Lord rebuked them, saying that if they wanted the party to have those sorts of policies they should find another leader. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was a Young Liberal at that time.

The second reason why I am moving the amendment is to probe into the actual figures. Clause 1 specifies nine categories of family members of an individual who have been granted refugee status whose application to enter or remain in the UK the Secretary of State would be obliged to grant unless the refusal was in the interests of national security. Immigration statistics are always complicated, but at its simplest I would point out that the number of people who have been granted asylum over the 10 years up to 2017—and this is the lowest figure—is 56,921. Each, I suggest, would be likely on average to apply for entry for more than one person. In the ninth category of people in Clause 1(2) are included,

“any dependent relative not otherwise listed in this subsection”,

so it is really pretty open wording. No limit is really envisaged.

I believe that any Government are obliged to limit immigration to a number that can be absorbed into the community. My definition of “absorbed” in this context is for the basic state provision of housing, health services generally and education to be able to be provided without diluting, to an extent that is democratically unacceptable, the standard of living of those already resident in the UK. I recognise at once that my own amendment of up to two family members could well amount to over 100,000, and that would probably be over my own measure of “absorbed”. In that context, I remind your Lordships that the latest 12-month figure for net migration into the UK is 244,000.

In practice the Bill would open the door to large numbers of economic migrants. We know that the potential number of those from Africa alone is measured in the millions and it is not really possible to estimate it. All that can be said is that market forces suggest that migration would continue until the standard of living in the receiving country was no longer high enough to attract economic migrants—thus, the only way of limiting those who want to come is by restricting numbers.

I must mention one other deeply worrying aspect of immigration control in the UK: the capacity of the Home Office to administer it. It is now 12 years since the then Home Secretary, now the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, famously declared on 4 May 2006 that the Home Office was “not fit for purpose”. It is sad and deeply worrying that this is clearly still the case, and I am not talking about the deplorable incompetence over the “Empire Windrush”. On that matter, I am wholly on the side of the migrants. In my 20s I was lucky enough, in my first job working for a British chemical company, to be posted for over a year to the Caribbean, living out of a suitcase and travelling from island to island, selling pharmaceuticals to doctors in what was then the British West Indies. I got to know many West Indians and learnt that they have the best sense of humour of any people in the world, and I like and respect them enormously.

I am talking about the fact that it seems that the Home Office immigration service is systemically corrupt. In a Written Answer on 10 January 2012, the Home Office revealed that over the previous five years there had been,

“29 convictions of Home Office staff in connection with their official activities”.—[Official Report, 10/1/12; col. WA36.]

The great majority, nearly all from the immigration department, resulted in prison sentences, two of them for nine years. I fear that that is continuing. As recently as 5 April the Times carried a report of a Home Office official, Mr Shamsu Iqbal, who had been found guilty of falsifying the records of over 400 people, amounting to some £6 million of profit to him and his colleagues. Surely one must ask why the Home Office recruitment and vetting procedure has not been tightened up between the previous figure and today.

At any rate, this Bill is aspirationally attractive, and all of us who have any liberal sensibilities like the idea of families being able to be joined together, although it may well be that better facilities are needed for that purpose. However, the Bill as drafted would make immigration an open season for doubtful and corrupt activities, leaving Ministers little opportunity for questioning what was happening. My amendment would be a small, though probably still too large, step in enabling a practical limit to be imposed. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak at this stage. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for the opportunity to return to the Bill, especially because it enables me to give a plaudit to the Government. The Minister would not have expected that.

We have debated the subject of family reunion on previous occasions, but I think the most recent was during the course of the EU withdrawal Bill, when the Minister responding to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and resisting his amendment, did not mention the pull factor, which on every other occasion that I can remember the Government have included in their argument. I do not subscribe to the pull factor, described by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, as implausible. I hope that that was a significant omission.

--- Later in debate ---

I conclude by reassuring noble Lords that we will continue to listen to concerns about family reunion. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, whose efforts in this area are consistent and determined and come from absolutely the right place. However, our starting point is that family reunion is a matter for the Immigration Rules, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, pointed out, and for policy rather than primary legislation. I look forward to carrying on working with the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, together with all other noble Lords, on this very important and sensitive issue.

[Baroness Hamwee]

Before the noble Lord responds, this is not the moment to continue the debate, although I could take issue with a number of the Minister’s comments. However, criticism has been made of the fact that there is no estimate of numbers or costs in the Bill. I accept that there is no impact assessment, and it would be difficult for someone like me to undertake one, but if that is an offer from the Minister for me to go into the Home Office and spend time with officials to work on the detail, I would be absolutely delighted to do so.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, again before the noble Lord responds, is it not right to pay tribute to the caseworkers? This debate has highlighted the immense challenges they face in making their judgments. Does the Minister not agree that it is right for us to pay great tribute to their work? Can she assure the Committee that, when she looks at capacity in the Home Office, she will ensure that those caseworkers get all the emotional support and time they need to reflect on their work so that it does not overburden them, perhaps contributing to the poor outcomes from casework that we occasionally see?

Asylum Seekers: Students

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hamwee]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many young asylum seekers have been required to cease studying as a condition of immigration bail, following the recent introduction of new provisions; and whether that condition will be applied to all asylum seekers.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, we have management information figures but these are not robust. I assure noble Lords that the new immigration bail provisions are not designed to be used to prevent children and asylum seekers studying. The Home Office is proactively looking to identify cases where this has been applied inappropriately, and will issue a new bail notice to the individual.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer. The Minister will know it is widely believed that there is a blanket ban at present on asylum seekers accessing education, although an assurance was given during the passage of the legislation that it would be used merely to specify where education was accessed. In any event, what is the objective of applying this condition? Is a ban on study necessary? What does it achieve?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I must stress that there is not a blanket ban and it is not mandatory to impose a ban on studying. The cohorts of people who might be prohibited from studying are adult immigration offenders—for example, overstayers who are not asylum seekers; adults whose appeal rights have been exhausted, other than care leavers receiving local authority support; adults being deported; foreign criminals who have not made an asylum claim; and all adults for whom a deportation order is signed and enforceable.

NHS: Overseas Doctors

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

All overseas doctors—I think my noble friend was talking about non-EEA doctors—should obviously have the requisite qualifications to practise. At the danger of repeating myself, if those doctors are on the shortage occupation list, there should be no bar to obtaining a visa.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the Migration Advisory Committee. As someone once said, “Advisers advise, Ministers decide”. Are the Government confident that the restrictions on visas for particular occupations are supported by employers, stakeholders and the general public?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I cannot speak for the general public at large. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that advisers advise, and those advisers advise on those professions for which we have a shortage. We have not talked about other professions, such as particular types of skilled engineers, which are in shortage in this country. She is absolutely right that Ministers then decide on what the criteria should be.

Windrush Generation

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. My noble friend Lord Paddick very much wanted to be here but is precluded by circumstances beyond his control. Not only he and I, and these Benches, but many others feel frankly ashamed to have discovered what has been going on. The Minister, whom I believe to be a compassionate, caring person, must be very uncomfortable too. She will understand that this is not a matter of what people “deserve”—the term used in the Statement—but of their rights.

We are told that the Home Secretary is committed to resolving the situation with “urgency and purpose”. They are, indeed, needed, and more widely than on this issue. The position of the Windrush people—citizens who seem retrospectively to have become migrants—is a symptom, not a cause, of the problem. The cause, as we see it, is the culture within the Home Office, an attitude that one cannot avoid saying must come from the top: hostility or compliance—which seems to be the substitute term now—and certainly carelessness, by which I mean “care-less”, as in lacking in care.

That seems to be why every immigration lawyer to whom I have spoken says that the first thing they do is ask the Home Office what information it has on their client, because so often they find that it is wrong. That is why the Home Office has such a poor record before the tribunal. The Minister will not be surprised by this: it is why I sought to remove the Home Office exemption from the Data Protection Bill, which can be applied in the interests of effective immigration control—a matter others are now pursuing. The Home Office might say that it can choose not to apply that exemption or that it will be applied only when it is relevant, but it is the Home Office that has to assess these aspects.

My first question to the Minister is therefore a question and a plea. Before the UK finds itself in an even more embarrassing position—which I assure her I do not want—will the Government reconsider whether the exemption is just, wise or even common sense?

My second question is about staffing, to which the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has referred. Are the officials concerned being redeployed within the Home Office, or is the establishment being increased? If so, may we have details of this? It has appeared for some time that Home Office officials are really overloaded. As regards the customer contact centre, or indeed any part of the work, is this being outsourced to the private sector? Again, may we have details?

Thirdly, what information will the Home Office publish so that we can see the whole picture systematically, rather than as a series of individual stories, and not just about deportations?

This affects many, many people. Another cohort, of course, is the 3 million EU citizens in the UK. They raise it in their current 128 questions on settled status. It must affect UK citizens abroad as well. Manifestations of the Home Office policy are very wide, but I will mention just two. One is the right to rent, on which the chief inspector has recently reported less than fully positively. One of his recommendations mentioned quality assurance checks. Another manifestation is immigration detention, to which people unable to prove their status have been consigned.

Immigrants might be legal, they might be illegal or perhaps they cannot prove their status, so the Home Office makes an assumption, if not a presumption, that they have no rights. This issue is more extensive than—I do not want to say “just”—the Windrush generation.

[Lord Kerslake]

My Lords—

Immigration: International Students

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that 95% of students—I thought it was slightly more—are compliant. However, I dispute his point about discouraging students. As I said in reply to the original Question, student numbers were up 6% this year. However, if people come here and require services such as housing or other sorts of public services, those figures have to be considered in all sorts of ways when planning for the population that is resident here.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister consider that what may be gained in the numbers is lost by the message as it is heard: foreigners are not welcome, and the British do not understand the international nature of learning?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the message that is going out appears to be from your Lordships’ House and is not being heard internationally. Much has been made of applications from India. Last year, the numbers granted increased by 28%. I dispute that students are not feeling welcome in this country. They are applying in their droves.