Victims and Prisoners Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I offer some brief words in support of Amendment 96. Like the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, I was very disappointed with the response in Committee, which simply rehashed old arguments that I had already challenged. I have two practical questions. First, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, promised the long-awaited code of practice for parliamentary scrutiny by the spring. It may not feel very spring-like, but spring is passing and there is still no sight of it. Surely it should have been made available in time to inform our debate today. The Minister said it would hopefully be this spring, but he did not sound very sure. Can he give us a firm assurance that it will be made available this spring?

Secondly, whereas I had been told in a Written Answer that the also long-awaited protocol would be published in early 2024, all that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, could say in Committee was that it would be launched “later this year”. How much later? Why the delay?

Finally, I never received an answer to my much more fundamental question: how do the Government square their intransigent position on the firewall supported by the DAC, various parliamentary committees and all organisations on the ground with repeated ministerial assurances that domestic abuse victims/survivors must be treated as victims first and foremost, regardless of immigration status? As it stands, it is a case not of safety before status, as called for by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, but of status before safety.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments to which the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, has spoken. This was an issue that I came across only when preparing for Second Reading. I do not want to repeat her arguments, and I could not make them as well or as thoroughly as she has, but I was shocked to discover the problems that have arisen in connection with counselling and advice. I also support the firewall amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. We have been here before many times, have we not?

Last week the previous Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, speaking to the committee reviewing the Modern Slavery Act, raised the interesting position of one law enforcement sector withholding information from, or not sharing information with, another law enforcement sector. She came to her conclusion, but I did not read her as having reached it entirely easily. I reached the conclusion that there should be a firewall for the reason put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher: imbalance of power—that is what it is about—between a victim and somebody to whom material is made available for abuse. These are very vulnerable victims. I have circled words such as “later this year” and so on, which the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, mentioned. I will not repeat them, but it would be good to make some progress on this issue.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My apologies; it is getting late.

I am very pleased to support this amendment. When we debated it in Committee with regard to children and families, the Minister said that there were no current plans to place them in accommodation centres but that if a child was destitute and there was a place for the night, she could not say that the child would not be so placed. However, she promised to think further on the points made and I hope that she has been able to do so. I have two reflections which build on what the right reverend Prelate has said.

First, the Minister suggested that a child in a family, who was destitute, might have to be placed in a centre, but given that she told us that such centres were only for people who are destitute anyway, I am not sure how much comfort to take from that. Can she elucidate further please? Can she also confirm that it would only be for a night, or possibly two, that a family would be housed in an accommodation centre as an exception, which was what she implied? Can she give us an assurance that no family with children will be placed in a centre for more than the briefest of time in an emergency?

The Minister also reminded us that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children would not be placed in such centres. As the right reverend Prelate said, it would be good to have absolute assurance to that effect. Can she tell us what will be the position of a child who turns 18? Might they be moved into such a centre at that point? It is impossible to consider this group without also taking into account the fears expressed by many organisations that the age assessment clauses, which we will debate later, could mean many more children wrongly being assessed as adults. Therefore, in practice, unaccompanied children might be housed in such accommodation, which clearly the Government rightly consider unsuitable for unaccompanied children. What safeguards can there be against that? In Committee, I also asked the Minister what assurances she could give us that the use of accommodation centres will be accompanied by more robust screening and protection than exists at present, to ensure that those with particular vulnerabilities are not housed in such centres.

However, no such assurances were given, other than the repeated statement that there will be individual assessment before placement in accommodation centres. None the less, it is clear from various sources of evidence that such an assessment does not exist at present nor is it providing effective screening for those with particular vulnerabilities. Indeed, the APPG on Immigration Detention, of which I am a member, has been told that, despite the June 2021 High Court ruling, there does not appear to be any significant improvement in such assessments. Charities report that people with particular vulnerabilities continue to be accommodated in Napier barracks. Therefore, can the Minister tell us what is being done to improve the assessment process?

Finally, as a fellow insomnia sufferer, the Minister said she would take back the point I raised about the impossibility of sleeping in Napier barracks dormitory-style accommodation because of the constant noise at night. I wondered if she had anything to report on that.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I do not make light of the difficulty of providing accommodation. Batting the blame between central and local government, as is sometimes done, is not going to advance the issue at all. As the right reverend Prelate has said, the debate in Committee focused on Napier. I thought it rather conflated accommodation of asylum seekers on arrival with long-term accommodation. Only a decade ago, my honourable friend Sarah Teather MP—as she was then—achieved very significant change, as a Minister, in both the law on, and the attitudes towards, the care of children with families in detention and subject to removal. More recently, we have had Stephen Shaw’s report on the impact on vulnerable people, and so on.

I accept that the Minister will say that the accommodation in question is reception and not detention. In a way, that is my point. The objective must be to receive people thoughtfully, humanely and in a welcoming and supportive way. Accommodation centres must not feel like detention. There was some discussion in Committee about whether people would be able to leave them—not for specific appointments, but because they felt like going out for a walk. The way that they are designed, organised and staffed is absolutely essential to their good working. The Explanatory Notes refer to “efficiency”. I do not think that this is incompatible with the approach that I have outlined, but they also refer to “compliance” and that worries me more. I wonder why that merits a separate mention.

This amendment demonstrates the concerns of the sector which arise from experience over a long period. I missed signing it by a couple of minutes on the day it was tabled by the right reverend Prelate. However, on behalf of these Benches, we support it.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my name is on this amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, knows whereof she speaks, so I shall not attempt to do more than support her. To me, this is a matter of professional judgment, which she has brought, but also of common sense. What I hope is my common sense has been informed by what I have heard over quite some years, including, very significantly, in the debate that we had last week. It is clear that in the UK—it may in this context be England and Wales—the systems, if they can be called systems, for assessing the health needs of asylum seekers are patchy and often inadequate.

It is also common sense that assessment should start from a solid, informed base, incorporating the best, up-to-date understanding and experience, so a review is important. So is consultation with those who are expert in the field. I support the amendments.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments, to which I was pleased to add my name. I thank the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Helen Bamber Foundation for their help.

Many of us have already highlighted how provisions in this Bill will seriously harm the mental and physical health of people seeking asylum, through, for example, leaving group 2 refugees living in limbo with uncertain status or by placing people in vulnerable circumstances in accommodation centres that function as quasi-detention and have been shown to have a terrible impact on health.

The amendments are a positive step that aims to ensure that the physical and mental health needs of people seeking asylum are prioritised and that there is a comprehensive, co-ordinated approach to addressing those needs in line with our obligations under Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 to

“recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”.

Numerous reports and work by organisations such as the Helen Bamber Foundation, Freedom from Torture, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Equality and Human Rights Commission show that people seeking asylum face barriers in accessing services, including health services, throughout the asylum process, from their arrival in the UK to the conclusion of the process and beyond. They are also more likely to have specific healthcare needs caused by distressing experiences in their country of origin and traumatic experience during their journey seeking refuge.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, explained, there are numerous points in the asylum system where the physical and mental health of people seeking protection affects their ability to engage in the process or is worsened by the system we have in place. One particularly troubling example is the detention system, which the noble Baroness has talked about and is the subject of a later group of amendments—I shall scrub what I was going to say about that, given the lateness of the hour.

I am aware that the Home Office is currently engaging with the NHS, NGOs and other stakeholders through groups like its asylum seeker health steering group and associated subgroups. This is welcome, but much more is needed. The current guidance is inadequate and its implementation patchy. Codes of practice focused on the health and care of people seeking asylum and the responsibilities of all those engaging with them in the asylum system would not only increase the fairness and efficiency of the system but provide better protection and support to those in need of asylum.

I hope that the Minister will look kindly on these amendments, which I think are part of the solution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, in what she had to say, but I would like some clarification. She said clearly that the effect of this clause is to criminalise the act of seeking asylum in the UK, which was the conclusion reached by the JCHR, of which she is a member. Does the Minister agree with the conclusion that this is what Clause 39 means? If she does not agree, what does it mean? If she does agree, I have a conundrum that is a variation of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, has twice rehearsed now. He made the point that if an asylum seeker is deemed inadmissible, how do they even get to Clause 11 to be affected by the differential?

I have the same conundrum around criminalisation. If the very act of seeking asylum makes someone a criminal, how do they even get to Clause 11? I do not understand how Clause 11, inadmissibility and criminalisation interact with each other. It is rather late to go into this but, if the Minister cannot do it now, a letter to all the members of the Committee would be very helpful to clarify this interaction.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the fact that I am going to say that I could not agree more with my noble friend Lady Ludford and will not add to that should not be taken to reduce the strength of that view.

I added my name to Amendment 122 from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for the reasons she explained. After I did, I realised that there is a question to be asked about new subsection (E1), which makes it an offence for someone knowingly to arrive in the UK without an ETA, an electronic travel authorisation; I would say that it would be the same to enter, but I am not sure it would be possible to enter the UK without an ETA.

I feel very uncomfortable about new subsection (E1) which makes it an offence to do something under the ETA rules when we do not have those rules. The ETA is not in effect yet. Your Lordships may think it right, when we see what the scheme is, that an offence be created—but not at this stage.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, we have Amendments 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 82A, 82B, 86A, 86B, 90 and 90A in this group. I have also put my name to Amendment 95A along with that of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I do not know whether she is planning to speak to it—it is the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins—but its thrust certainly falls within this group. Noble Lords will be pleased to know I am not going to speak precisely to each amendment.

I am slightly hesitant to raise this point, given the expertise of the noble Lord on the Front Bench and the noble and learned Lord sitting opposite, although it feels as if I have been sitting next to him through most of the passage of this Bill. Listening to the last exchange, is it something to do with the whole of our legal system that we place asylum seeker on one side opposite the state as the other party? The whole way this is designed is to have parties to proceedings fighting one another. I am glad to see the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, nodding at that. It has only just occurred to me.

This clutch of amendments addresses the period within which the claimant is to provide evidence. I hoped that the noble and learned Lord might be speaking ahead of me because I am sure I would be saying I agree with him. Why is the specific date a matter for the Secretary of State or the immigration officer? Different people will need different periods of time. That might be an argument for variability, but it should not mean that it can be an arbitrary date without there being a reasoned basis. The lawyers in the Chamber will tell me if I get this wrong, but I think one would usually expect to see time periods within tribunal rules with a possibility of applying for an extension, but the procedure rules are the subject of the next clause. I am concerned about whether this is a proper way to go about giving notice. It should be neutral and objectively appropriate, and Clause 17 gives the Secretary of State considerable power.

Under the new subsections introduced by Clause 18, the tribunal is required to make a statement as to whether the claimant has behaved in a way designed or “likely” to go to his credibility. When we tabled Amendments 82A and 82B, I was thinking about points noble Lords made and will make again and again about the impact of trauma on a claimant, and the difficulties someone may have—even someone who is not affected—in dealing with authority figures, accessing documents and so on. This point was very clearly made by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, a couple of days ago. That is why I stress the word “likely”.

This gives me the opportunity to ask the Government why Clause 18 is included. It would be good to have that on the record. Others may have a different take on the reasons for some claims having taken the course they have.

In my Amendment 86A, I am not really seeking to amend the noble and learned Lord’s Amendment 86, just to add to it by requiring adequate time before a cut-off date in a priority removal notice. Amendment 86A would add more of the people about whom we have been concerned to the list; the same point is made on Amendments 90 and 90A.

I also have Amendment 86B in this group. I got into quite a circular argument with myself last weekend about this. I am not sure I resolved it, but I will not trouble the Committee with it this evening, given the time.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 95 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, who apologises for having had to leave early. This speech will be in two halves—although one will be rather bigger than the other. The first half is roughly what the noble Baroness would have said.

At Second Reading she spoke about the ways in which she believes this Bill places additional unacceptable barriers in the way of women refugees seeking asylum who are fleeing sexual violence and exploitation. The amendment seeks to remove one of those obstacles and to extend the benefit to other groups of asylum seekers who may be similarly disadvantaged, so that it is accepted that they have a good reason for a late claim.

As we understand it, the issue is that in the proposed legislation the authorities deciding an asylum claim or appeal are instructed to attach, as we have heard, only minimal weight to any evidence provided late by the applicant, unless there is a good reason for it being late. However, there is robust evidence to show that the trauma suffered by the victims of sexual violence or trafficking can impact on memory and the ability to recall information. The Home Office guidance itself makes this clear. The other categories she included in Amendment 95, such as victims of torture, modern slavery and trafficking, are just as likely to suffer the same effects on memory and should be protected in the same way. I strongly support what she would have said.

However, as the arguments from this perspective are very similar to those I made in support of Amendment 40 on Tuesday, I will focus on children, a group we have not talked much about so far, although I was very pleased that my noble friend Lord Coaker did so in introducing this group. It is the strong view of children’s organisations such as the Children’s Society—I am grateful for its help—that the Bill completely fails to protect children, a group in particular need of it. Despite recognition of this added need for protection, this Bill’s harsh reforms apply to children just as they do to adults, unless the Minister can tell me that I am wrong—I hope he can. This is not right; it is a serious failure of the Government’s duty to protect children.

We need only look at Clauses 25 and 17 to see the disproportionate impact many of these provisions will have on children and young people. Amendment 95 seeks to ensure that children are recognised as having a good reason for not providing evidence by the deadline and that any evidence they provide late is given due weight. We know from organisations on the ground that asylum-seeking children who have been forced to flee, who may have witnessed violence and the destruction of their homes or schools, or even death, and who may have endured traumatic journeys, might not be able to share all the details of their ordeal in the first instance to provide evidence to support their case. The particular difficulties children might face in providing prompt evidence are recognised by the JCHR.

The Government know this. Their only quality impact assessment, to which my noble friend referred, sets out how these clauses will have a disproportionate impact on vulnerable persons, including children. The Home Office’s Children’s Asylum Claims Casework Guidance makes it clear:

“Decision makers must take account of what it is reasonable to expect a child to know”—


or relay—

“in their given set of circumstances”.

It is inappropriate for authorities to question the credibility of a child’s claim if they omit information, bearing in mind the child’s age, maturity and other reasons that may have led to those omissions. Requiring time-limited evidence and penalising children when they are unable to meet the deadlines goes against the Government’s own assessments and guidance and does nothing to protect children or, as we have heard, their best interests.

As one young person supported by the Children’s Society, which has long supported asylum-seeking children and young people, reminds us:

“This is not a joyful moment in our lives. We have to talk through the worst parts of our past. It is very traumatic.”


Children and young people need time and a sense of safety before they can begin to disclose their experience. They also need good, child-appropriate legal representation, which we know they often do not get, unfortunately. All too often, asylum-seeking children receive poor initial legal advice, which can lead to ill-prepared claims and to them not feeling comfortable about setting out their information. Due to legal aid funding cuts, quality legal advice is not readily available.

Another young asylum seeker supported by the Children’s Society described his experience:

“My solicitor did nothing, it was horrible. They didn’t even prepare a witness statement for my interview. I had to do everything myself. I had my social worker but she didn’t know how to help me with my asylum case. The interviewer told me she had no information and I had to tell her everything.”


The Children’s Society sees many asylum-seeking children who have to provide evidence at later stages of their claim, not because of any weakness in the claim but because of the trauma they have endured or the consequences of non-existent or poor legal representation. No doubt the Minister will assure us that these concerns will be addressed in guidance and on a case-by-case basis, yet, as was highlighted in the recent report, An Inspection of Asylum Casework, guidance is often neither followed nor implemented by Home Office caseworkers. Home Office staff themselves stressed that they

“did not have time to consider each case on its own merits, contrary to the guidance they receive.”

So the aim of Amendment 95 is not to tie the hands of decision-makers or legislate for every situation in which a person might provide late evidence. Rather, it is to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected in the Bill, because we cannot leave their safety and well-being to chance. That is consistent with this highlighted observation from the JCHR:

“It is crucial that decision-makers recognise the many legitimate reasons why asylum seekers may struggle to provide evidence in support of their claims within tight deadlines.”


If Clause 25 stands part—I have to say that I will support the proposal that will be put by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti that it should not—this amendment represents the minimum necessary to protect children, women, women fleeing gender-based violence and others in the most vulnerable circumstances.

I want to return briefly to what the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said. Given the Home Office guidance, we cannot see any logical or humane reason why the Government would not accept this amendment and establish on the face of the Bill that, in these circumstances, for these victims, any late evidence should always be accepted as being late for a good reason, and their application or appeal should not in any way be disadvantaged because of it.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords very much for their support for this amendment—their willingness to apply some lipstick to the pig that I think we would all like to be rid of. Some very powerful speeches made the case very strongly for why the groups which are listed may well have good reasons for delay. I take the point that any asylum seeker is, by definition, likely to be vulnerable, but we are talking here about those who have particular vulnerabilities.

I thank the Minister for giving more of a sense of what will happen. It is late and I need to read what she said, but I think that the powerful speeches from noble Lords and the Minister’s response justified our taking this as a separate amendment. As I have said, it was not interrogated in the Commons; this has given us a chance to do that.

I thank the Minister for saying that she will look into the statistics—it was I, in fact, who raised it; I think Women for Refugee Women would value having whatever statistics are available. However, just last week, the British Red Cross produced research suggesting that, for all the better training and guidance, women asylum seekers are still treated very badly, with a lack of gender sensitivity and trauma sensitivity. I would encourage the Minister to read this research, think about it and see what more needs to be done.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I apologise—I was not quick enough to my feet. I wanted to get in before the noble Baroness withdrew her amendment to ask the Minister if she might be able, after today if not tonight, to answer my question about how Clauses 11 and 36 work together. That could inform our debate when we get to that later clause. Again, I apologise to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

There is no need—I am glad that the noble Baroness said that. I had made a note to mention it and then, of course, completely forgot or could not read my handwriting, or both. Anyway, it is late, and I realise that people want to get on. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 1 is grouped with Amendments 2, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17 and 21. Amendment 9 is in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and my noble friend Lady Ludford; the others are all in our names.

This Bill is not all bad, so I am glad to be able to start with Part 1, most of which we support, although the exceptions to that support are very significant. This rather gentle introduction is to probe into the clause that remedies historical inequalities. What is not to like? One thing that I do not like—which is not directly related to the Bill, but I am going to take this opportunity to say it—is that I am not comfortable with receiving so many briefings from organisations to which we cannot do justice. That is my discomfort. It is not that we do not want the briefings, but often they come too late for us to reflect concerns in amendments. I know that I am not alone in this House in finding it hard to keep on top of the material and feeling particularly bad about not being able to use all that is sent to us. I hope that organisations—which I know are very often overstretched and understaffed, and have their day job to get on with—will understand that we are not ignoring them, but please could they send us material earlier than sometimes they do? I am sure I am not the only one who has received briefings this morning.

I turn to the substance of the matter. Clause 1 provides for parents where there is discrimination in British nationality law that prevents mothers passing on British Overseas Territories citizenship to their children. It provides for the parents in such cases to be treated equally in terms of passing on that citizenship. The Joint Committee on Human Rights pointed out that this could mean equally well or equally badly; naively, I had not thought about it being equally badly. The way the clause is drafted is not the same as Section 4C of the British Nationality Act, which addresses the same discrimination in respect of British citizenship. That uses the phrase “in the same terms”, and that is what is proposed in several of these various amendments. I understand that concerns have also been raised that the reference to the parents having “been treated equally” is, on its face, unclear. The JCHR said it would be prudent to deal with the drafting so that it is “in the same terms”. I add that when you have different wording relating to very similar situations, that in itself suggests that the two should be dealt with differently.

Amendment 8 takes us to the issue of good character and would repeal Section 41A of the British Nationality Act. That section requires adults and young persons to be “of good character” if they are to be able to register as British citizens. If someone has the right to become a British citizen—or, more accurately in some cases, to have their right to citizenship registered, because the right is to citizenship and registration is simply the procedure—then what is done by the right hand should not, by giving discretion to the Secretary of State, let the left hand take it away. I hope the Secretary of State will allow me, for this purpose, to describe her as the left hand.

This point applies to Amendments 10 and 19 and to Amendment 9 from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and my noble friend Lady Ludford. Their explanatory statement is much more elegantly expressed than mine, but it is the same point. This point is particularly acute in the case of a child. Is the test really in the child’s best interests? I saw a bit of resonance with the police Bill, which I was going to say we have so recently finished but of course we have not, when we debated an amendment about candidates’ disqualification for standing for office as police and crime commissioners because of a misdemeanour—I think I can almost use that term in its technical sense—in their youth. This term is not the same as that; it is more amorphous. It is a discretionary matter and is of particular concern. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 8 and 9 about good character. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I am particularly concerned about its application to children and those whose conduct when a child—and we are talking about children as young as 10—is used to deny the right to register as a citizen, which would otherwise be theirs.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has voiced its concern, not just with regard to this Bill but in a 2019 report, where it pointed out that

“half of the children denied their … right … to British nationality on good character grounds have not even received a criminal conviction (having merely received a police caution)—let alone been prosecuted for ‘heinous crimes’.”

The Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement, of which I was a member, expressed considerable concern about the good character requirement. The committee called for a review of its use and description and of the age from which it applies—which is, as I said, 10. The Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, of which I am a patron, and Amnesty International, which have been campaigning on this point for some years, say:

“That some British people are required to satisfy the Home Secretary that they are ‘good’ for their citizenship rights to be recognised is divisive and alienating.”


I am not sure how many politicians would come out well as having “good character”, but I shall leave that as it may be. The good character condition is relatively recent in nationality law. It certainly should not be extended; ideally, it should now be scrapped.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 95 was tabled some time ago. I will not speak for long on this, but I will refer again to the level of anxiety among people affected by the Bill and by other arrangements related to the ending of free movement, exacerbated by the events of the last few days. I have just read out an email I received this morning explaining precisely that.

Windrush has been referred to very often in discussions on the ending of free movement and associated rights, the extent or otherwise of rights following that ending and the risk of things going wrong. I hesitated when I said “Windrush”, because that seems disrespectful. It has become a term for a whole number of people who have been so shockingly affected. That is a pretty neutral term, but I know noble Lords will understand who I am referring to, and they are all individuals. I hope anybody listening to or reading this debate will understand that that is not intended to be disrespectful at all.

The Windrush Lessons Learned Review has particularly relevant recommendations. A lot are about ways of doing things and attitudes. I made a note about a couple of recommendations, 22 and 23, but at this late hour I will not read them out; I suspect other noble Lords are very familiar with the review’s recommendations. To give other noble Lords an opportunity to speak to this amendment, I simply beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 95, to which I was pleased to add my name. Over the course of our four days in Committee, we have heard many warnings of how EEA and Swiss nationals could now become caught in the snare of the hostile/compliant environment. At Second Reading I lamented this fact and that the Bill does nothing to dismantle its institutional architecture, such as the right-to-rent regime.

In light of the Home Secretary’s very welcome announcement that she accepted Wendy Williams’s recommendation of a full review and evaluation of the hostile/compliant environment, I asked the Minister whether she could assure us that that review has the power to question its basic tenets and institutions.

In her subsequent letter to Peers, she responded to the question but without really answering it, saying that the Government are now addressing and implementing the Windrush review findings. Other than acknowledging the significant failings revealed as members of the Windrush generation were unintentionally caught up in measures intended for so-called illegal migrants—I do not believe anyone is illegal—she left us none the wiser as to how deep the evaluation of the hostile/compliant environment would be able to delve.

Likewise, I did not glean much from a Written Question I tabled after Second Reading. This asked about terms of reference, whether the evaluation would be designed in partnership with external experts—as recommended by Wendy Williams—when it was due to be completed and whether the findings would be made public. The Minister’s reply did not answer the questions directly but explained that the evaluation needed to get the balance right between not allowing those without a legal right to be in the country “to exploit the system” and ensuring that the right protections are in place for those whose status should have been assured. Scoping of the work had begun and more information would be available in due course.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

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

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 30 and to speak to Amendment 68. These probing amendments are about citizenship, and I am grateful to the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens—of which I am a patron—and Amnesty International UK for their help with them. I pay tribute to these organisations for all the work they have done to promote and protect children’s citizenship rights.

For technical reasons, the amendments relate solely to EEA and Swiss nationals, but the issues they raise echo concerns raised previously on a number of occasions in your Lordships’ House, particularly with regard to children’s citizenship rights.

Children born in this country to parents settled here, or who have grown up here from a young age, are entitled to register as British citizens. A combination of factors, including exorbitant fees, lack of awareness of the need to register their right to citizenship and the difficulties faced by local authorities in assisting looked-after children to exercise the right, have resulted in thousands of children being denied that right to British citizenship.

One consequence of our leaving the EU is that many more children could be in this position. They are the children of EU nationals who were born or who have grown up in the UK from an early age; the Home Office appears to have ignored this group. In establishing the EUSS, it has done nothing to raise awareness of their citizenship rights or to encourage children and young people with these rights to exercise them. Instead, because the EUSS is free, there is a real danger that many of them will be encouraged to secure themselves immigration status and not confirm or register themselves as British citizens, which they may not realise is open to them and involves a fee of £1,012.

In a High Court judgment in December last year—mentioned in the debate on an earlier amendment—that fee was deemed unlawful, as it was set without having regard to the best interests of the child. That decision is being appealed, but its reasoning is highly pertinent. In particular, it underlined the importance of citizenship.

In response to a similar set of amendments in the Commons Committee stage, the Immigration Minister argued that any child looked after by their local authority can apply for limited and indefinite leave to remain without having to pay a fee, and that citizenship itself

“is not essential for any individual to work, live, study or access services in the UK.”

When he was urged not to pursue that line of argument by Stuart McDonald MP, he re-emphasised that citizenship

“is not something that people need in order to access services.”—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill Committee, 16/6/20; cols. 208-09.]

Does the Conservative Party really believe in such a transactional view of the significance of citizenship? In contrast, in 1981, during the passage of the British Nationality Act, which conferred the right to register as a citizen, it was emphasised that this was in part to ensure that the children concerned should have

“as strong a sense of security as possible”.

Citizenship is about security, belonging, inclusion, integration and identity. Indeed, the High Court judgment cited the Secretary of State’s own guidance document, which states that:

“Becoming a British citizen is a significant life event. Apart from allowing a child to apply for a British citizen passport, British citizenship gives them the opportunity to participate more fully in the life of their local community as they grow up.”


As noted on the earlier amendment, the High Court judgment referred to a “mass of evidence” that the inability to exercise their right to register as citizens because of the fee causes many children born in the UK to

“feel alienated, excluded, isolated, second best, insecure and not fully assimilated into the culture and social fabric of the UK.”

Is this really what the Government want? Do we want many more children to feel this way in future? This false equation of immigration status with citizenship was one factor in the Windrush scandal. Please do not let us repeat it.

Amendment 30 addresses the impact of the fee level on registration. In her Windrush Lessons Learned Review, Wendy Williams notes that

“there’s little evidence that the impact on people was effectively considered”

when fees were increased significantly. Amendment 68 specifies that the level should not exceed the administrative cost, which according to the Home Office is currently £372—£640 less than the fee charged. The Home Office’s argument that such a mark-up on the fee is justified because it provides a “benefit” and because the Home Office needs the money to run a sustainable immigration and citizenship system—repeated by the Minister at Second Reading—is specious because we are talking about a citizenship right bestowed by Parliament, not a discretionary immigration status.

Amendment 68 also excludes from the fee any child who has been looked after by a local authority—a particularly marginalised group of children. There is no logic to local authorities having to pay these fees on behalf of these children as it simply involves a transfer of resources from local to central government. I believe some other noble Lords might say more about this. It also requires the Secretary of State to take steps to raise awareness of the right to register as a British citizen but I will not say more about that now as it is the main focus of Amendment 67, which will be debated on a later day.

Because of the restrictions created by the Bill’s Long Title, these are simply probing amendments. However, as I am sure the Minister realises, the more general question of the barriers to registering the right to British citizenship, particularly the level of the fee, is one that we will return to in this House time and again. Given the Home Office’s welcome readiness to accept the recommendations of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, and the dangers of now repeating some of the flaws it revealed, will it now think again? As a first step, will the Minister, on behalf of the Home Office, undertake to look again at the level of the fee, which even Sajid Javid, when Home Secretary, admitted was “huge”? I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has been terrier-like in her pursuit of these issues. I, like the whole House, am grateful to her for that and I too thank the organisations she mentioned.

The fees are to exercise a right, but a right is no use if you cannot exercise it. The fees are a deterrent. They are a deterrent if you think that you are in a sufficiently secure position and do not understand the distinction between immigration status and citizenship. They are a deterrent if you are told by the Government that you are in secure position through the European Union settled status scheme. They are obviously a deterrent if you cannot afford them. I will not be the only Member of the Committee who has heard distressing stories of families who have realised that they cannot afford to pay for the citizenship registration of all family members and have selected some. If there is a mother with four children—well, we can all do the maths.

The noble Baroness used words, which I have written down, that are about more than security; they are about a sense of belonging. Otherwise, over the years why would so many people have chosen to become citizens through a sometimes pretty laborious route, having to take tests about things that would probably be mysteries to many of us and culminating in citizenship ceremonies? I have been to one. The ceremony is an important part of the whole process—the recognition of that belonging.

Everyone understands that there are administrative costs to these things, but the current fees far exceed the costs. There is a surplus—I use that term rather than “profit”, because I understand that the Minister protests at the term “profit”—in the order of £600, as I understand it, and £800 in the case of adults, where the fees are something like £1,200. The Home Office talks about this surplus being justified because of the benefit, but I do not understand the logic of citizenship being a benefit if indefinite leave to remain is an equivalent, or at least sufficient to meet all the attributes of citizenship, as seems to be argued by the Home Office.

The noble Baroness mentioned the Windrush scandal, and I am sure the Home Office must be anxious not to get into a similar situation. It has said that all Wendy Williams’s recommendations are accepted. About three of those are about meaningful engagement with stakeholders and communities and the use of research. If the Home Office were to engage on this topic and undertake research, I think it would understand how very fully these issues play with the people affected. In any event, as has been said, citizenship is about rights—the right to citizenship of the children referred to—and we should not put blocks in the way of rights.

Immigration (Guidance on Detention of Vulnerable Persons) Regulations and the Detention Centre (Amendment) Rules 2018

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I think the Minister might be getting us a bit mixed up, because the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, spoke more about consultation. What she wanted to know, and therefore what I will ask now, is: what was the response? That was not made clear in the Explanatory Memorandum. The response to us was that the organisations are very unhappy about this, which is why this Motion has been brought this evening.

[Baroness Hamwee]

Perhaps I may come back on that. I quoted the paragraph on the consultation outcome because the implication of the Home Office saying it has considered comments from the NGOs is that there is no difference between them, or at least nothing substantial, and that we should not be worried about whether the NGOs made critical comments—which we have discovered they did.

Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to be able to support these amendments. I shall speak briefly to Amendment 4 but will say a bit more about it when we come to the next group of amendments. The key issue here is to remove the notion of risk. Talking to Women’s Aid, it is clear that, in practice, having to prove risk creates unnecessary hurdles, and I can do no better than quote what it says in the briefing that it has provided for us:

“Women’s Aid has reported widely on the issues with a ‘risk-based’ approach to domestic abuse; static risk assessments fail to capture the changing risk and harm in these cases, and a risk based approach fails to provide appropriate support or meet the needs of victims assessed as ‘low’ or ‘medium’ risk”.


It makes the point that it places an even greater premium on good specialised training to be able to adequately assess risk in these circumstances. Therefore, I am delighted that the Minister was willing to make that change. As well as creating equivalence with the next amendment, I think that it improves the Bill overall.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my name is added to these amendments. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and thank the Minister for all the work that they have done.

I have just written a short piece on scrutiny and have written mostly about the need to engage with stakeholders and practitioners—people who know what they are talking about. Although I take great delight in asking whether “and” should be “or” and so on, that is not really the purpose of scrutiny. However, this seems to be a very good example of those who have experience of real situations working together to anticipate where there might be problems if the legislation is not changed, as it has been. Therefore, I congratulate them and feel rather privileged to have been able to tack my name on to these amendments.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. I will not repeat what I said in Committee other than to emphasise the importance of the amendment for promoting the integration of young people who have been granted humanitarian protection.

In Committee, the Minister, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, responded that this issue,

“is already addressed within the student support regulations”—[Official Report, 25/1/17; col. 725]

in that, as we have heard, this group is eligible to obtain student support and have home fee status after three years’ residence. But he then acknowledged that those with refugee status are allowed to access student support immediately, and the implication seemed to be that three years is really not that long to wait. Three years may not be very long for us older people, but for a young person it is a lifetime. As my noble friend Lord Dubs said, to a young person in this situation three years is absolutely crucial.

The Minister also said that people with humanitarian protection under the Syrian resettlement scheme,

“are not precluded from applying for refugee status if they consider they meet the criteria”,—[Official Report, 25/1/17; col. 725.]

as if this was a straightforward thing for a young person to do. Neither the noble Viscount nor the Minister in the Commons would provide us with a satisfactory explanation for denying this group of young people access to higher education without a three-year wait, which, as I said, could feel like a lifetime.

I am encouraged by what my noble friend Lord Dubs said about what the Home Secretary has said. I would like once more to press the Government, through the Minister, to look again at the issue more generally, and I hope that part of the conversation with the Home Secretary was about this. There are one or two other ways in which humanitarian protection does not provide the same rights as refugee status. I know that this is being looked at in government, as I have been having a go at it in a number of ways. In answer to an Oral Question of mine a while ago, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, pointed out that the reason for humanitarian protection for the Syrian resettlement scheme is to enable them to move very quickly. I can understand that but, once they are here, surely it would be possible to review the situation and see whether full refugee status can be granted once the paperwork and everything can be looked at.

I hope that the Government will look at this. They say that they are looking at it, but nothing ever seems to happen. In the meantime, this amendment is the very least we can do to help this vulnerable group of young people to fulfil their potential and build a future in our country.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, having checked with my noble friend Lady Garden, I can say from these Benches that we support this amendment. The Minister referred at the last stage to keeping the issue under active review. I was going to ask what that meant and whether there had been any activation since.

The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has to be optimistic. We all do, because it would be very depressing if one could not be optimistic on this subject; one would so rapidly go downhill on it. He referred to the situation as an anomaly. Indeed it is, as well as being intrinsically important. Only very small numbers of people must be affected by this, given the numbers who have humanitarian protection and those who might seek university education. I am quite puzzled as to what three years’ residence proves and what relevance it should have to an entitlement to that education or the ability to profit from a course.

As so often when we talk about higher education, the Bill has been a basis for our referring to the soft power of international links through higher education and so on, and to the contribution to the UK’s economy as a result of people benefiting from higher education. This cohort of people would contribute to the UK in just the same way as a result of it, and be one of those further links in good international relations. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has brought the matter back, and I look forward to some good news.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, my name is on this amendment as well. As the noble Lord said, this is a modest amendment, seeking only a review as set out in the amendment—although of course, if the Government were to tell your Lordships that they are about to announce an independent reviewer of the whole of Prevent, as David Anderson and others have called for, I do not suppose the noble Lord would object to that.

The UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association is among those who has commented on the operation of Prevent in educational institutions. With other members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I met the special rapporteur. It is quite a facer to be in a meeting with someone in that position and be told that your own country is not behaving quite as it should and quite as the UN rapporteur thinks it should, given that we are so used to criticising other countries in human rights areas.

I do not want to repeat everything that has been said on this and other occasions; I appreciate we have other things to get through tonight. However, it seems to me that universities are precisely the places not just where views which are not illegal by definition should be challenged, but where there should be the opportunity for those who are confused, interested or whatever, to hear, to listen and to join in the debate. Prevent cannot work without confidence and trust in its reliability and its effectiveness. For these reasons, the proposal to review its operation is entirely sensible.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I am pleased to support the amendment and to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who, as she noted in Committee, joined the Joint Committee on Human Rights just as I left it. In Committee, I reminded noble Lords of the concerns raised across the House during the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill about the application of the Prevent duty to higher education institutions. As we have heard, the present amendment does no more than call for an independent, authoritative review of how the duty now operates in those HE institutions. This would respond to concerns raised more recently by a range of organisations, including, as my noble friend Lord Dubs said, the Home Affairs Select Committee. These concerns include: possibly discriminatory impact; the question of the adequacy or otherwise of the training given to academics; and the human rights implications, echoing earlier concerns of the JCHR.

In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said that,

“we welcome discussion about how to implement Prevent effectively and proportionately, but … we consider blanket opposition to the duty unhelpful”.—[Official Report, 25/1/17; col.762.]

As we have heard, the amendment no longer proposes blanket opposition. Surely, in order to have a well-informed discussion, as called for by the noble Baroness, it makes sense to have an independent review of how the policy is operating, as called for in the amendment, to inform that very discussion. I can understand why the Minister opposed the original amendment, even though I disagreed with her, but I can see no justification for opposing this much more modest, and I hope helpful, amendment as a basis for the discussion that she said the Government would like to see.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Clause 71 provides for the transfer of responsibility for relevant children. A relevant child is defined in subsection (9) as an unaccompanied child, while subsection (10) says:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the meaning of ‘unaccompanied’”.

At the previous stage of the Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised the concern that an accompanying adult might not be—I use this phrase non-technically—an appropriate adult. There were concerns about trafficking. The amendment would put into the Bill the definition that is in current Home Office guidance on processing asylum applications by children.

While the amendment is to Clause 71, the same issue might of course arise in respect of Clause 70, the clause that your Lordships agreed on Division regarding the figure of 3,000 unaccompanied children. We will have to see what happens to that provision. In any event, taking a rather narrow technical point about Third Reading, that clause was not the subject of the reassurance from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, that he would put in writing how the term “unaccompanied” would be defined and would operate, and that he would do so by Third Reading. Given the change of Minister last week, I contacted the noble Earl’s office to ask if there would be a letter, and at the point when I tabled the amendment there was not. It arrived around 6 pm yesterday and I read it some time later, and I thank him for it. The letter says that there is,

“no intention to alter the definition”,

for the purposes of this clause. In situations where an asylum-seeking child,

“is accompanied by an adult who is not a parent or relative”,

Home Office officials will,

“verify the identity of the adult and establish the relationship with the child”.

I am not sure whether the relative referred to there is one who by custom has responsibility for the child, otherwise there would be a change from current guidance, although I gather that Home Office guidance is currently being rewritten. What I am really not clear about is why the Bill needs to allow for any flexibility or change in the definition, so it is important to get the position on record.

I was concerned about the reason for leaving the matter open in the way that the Bill does. When I was looking into this at the weekend, I found that the definition used by the Committee on the Rights of the Child is slightly broader because it refers to “other relatives” as well as parents. It occurred to me that it is known that “other relatives” are sometimes traffickers, which is why the wording is not used in the Home Office definition. There may be issues around siblings or other family members. However, it is important that we get the position on the record. It would be preferable to get it into legislation, but at any rate we should understand what the parameters are of the regulations that the Secretary of State might make. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

Once again, my Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for tabling this amendment. With her usual lawyer’s quickness, she picked up the point that I raised on Report. As I said then, it is a point that was raised with me by an organisation local to me in the East Midlands, Baca. It was worried because it could not understand why that wording was there. It is perhaps not surprising if groups are worried and perhaps slightly cynical when they come across measures that they do not understand, given that there is so much in legislation that they do not like. So I am delighted that, at the last minute, the letter from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie—not the noble Earl—made it very clear that the definition, as in the amendment, is,

“separated from both parents and is not being cared for by an adult who in law or by custom has responsibility to do so”.

It is helpful to have that in Hansard because of course your average punter cannot read the letters sent between Ministers and Members of your Lordships’ House. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will repeat that for the record. Also, like the noble Baroness, I would appreciate an explanation of why this clause is necessary, given that this is, as the letter says, the,

“established definition in the Immigration Rules”,

and it is accepted by the UN. I am glad that through this organisation raising this matter with me, we have some clarity on what is meant by it.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister. As they have observed, there is already an established definition of “unaccompanied” in the present context. It is not in guidance alone; it is in the Immigration Rules, and that is important. The definition states that an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child is someone who—perhaps I may, as suggested, read this into the record—is under 18 years of age when the claim is submitted, is claiming asylum in their own right, is separated from both parents and is not being cared for by an adult who in law or by custom has responsibility to do so.

Following the commitment given by my noble friend Lord Bates on Report to explain how the definition would operate, I wrote to the noble Baronesses—albeit, as they observed, at the last minute—to confirm that there is no intention of altering the definition of “unaccompanied” as set out in the Immigration Rules for the purposes of the transfer provisions in the Immigration Bill. Furthermore, defining particular categories in primary legislation is not always desirable or even necessary. As your Lordships will appreciate, there are times, particularly in the context of the current migration crisis, when the Government need to respond quickly to changing circumstances.

I should make it clear that at present we have no intention of amending the definition of “unaccompanied”. We would do so only in response to a significant change in circumstances, but it is important that in such circumstances we are able to react swiftly and efficiently. Clearly, regulations subject to parliamentary scrutiny are a more appropriate way to achieve that result than placing something on the face of this Bill.

I reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister, that safeguarding and promoting the welfare of vulnerable children is at the forefront of the Home Office’s work with the Local Government Association and the Department for Education to develop a transfer scheme for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. I understand the concerns about the definition of “unaccompanied”—it may have unintended consequences and inadvertently place children in the hands of traffickers—but immigration officials working with these vulnerable children are trained to be alert to any signs that a child is at risk of harm or abuse or may have been trafficked. Where an asylum-seeking child is accompanied by an adult who is not a parent or a relative, Home Office officials work with local authority children’s services to verify the identity of the adult and establish the true relationship with the child. If that relationship cannot be verified or there are ongoing welfare or safeguarding concerns, the child will be treated as unaccompanied.

In the light of those points and our recent correspondence confirming that we have no intention of amending the already established definition of “unaccompanied” for the purposes of the transfer provisions, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, much has been said about the part played by modern communications in the current conflict. Part of that is that we cannot claim ignorance of what is happening. The media, NGOs, colleagues and friends—I, too, have friends who have undertaken voluntary work in northern France—make so abundantly clear what is happening that we cannot escape that information.

I want to pick up on a couple of points that are used as arguments in this debate. One is the idea that children should be kept in their own region and culture, among people from similar backgrounds. Leave aside the variety of people who are volunteering to help children, is it better for children to stay in the region or to be alive, with shelter, not being abused or trafficked, and with access to food, education, health services and so on? Do we keep children in the region so they can be reunited with their families?

I am not persuaded that the administration and the records that will be available if they stay in the region will be better than they would be if the children were brought to this country through a government scheme. I am sure the records will be kept very carefully. I have seen somewhere that the UNHCR regards the chances of relocation if children are brought to this country as still being high. On the question of family reunion—children who are refugees in their own right have rights—it is said that this is, in fact, an underhand way of getting the rest of the family into the UK by sending the children on ahead. I simply do not believe that that is likely except, perhaps, in a very small handful of cases. In any event, the children have rights.

In previous debates I have acknowledged the difficulties in finding foster parents. I know what is said about all the volunteers: there is a general shortage of foster parents for British children. Maybe this will break some sort of logjam. I acknowledge the support that will be needed for foster parents and for local authorities. It is very important to recognise all that because people who are dealing with these children will be dealing with very sensitive, difficult, delicate situations and children who, almost inevitably, will have been damaged. We hope that this is an exercise in not damaging them further.

Like other noble Lords, I have been fascinated by the extracts from Hansard from 1938 and 1939. Not only are the arguments those that are being used today but the ancestors of a number of current Members appear in them. The then Earl of Listowel pointed to a precedent on which Her Majesty’s Government had acted before: the work of the International Red Cross in the south of France. Our shared heroine, Eleanor Rathbone, said:

“We are apparently willing to abandon them”—

the refugees—

“to the danger of being handed over to their deadly enemies rather than risk a few thousand pounds in bringing them over. I know that the Under-Secretary has sympathy in this matter, and I appeal to him to do something to speed up the mechanism and to relax these regulations … Cannot we risk a few thousand pounds rather than abandon these people to the terrible fate that may possibly await them? I feel that in this small matter we may appeal with some hope of success for the Government to adopt a more farsighted and generous policy than heretofore”.—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/1939; col. 151.]

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, has been very clear about our party’s stance on this and has been a part of the call for the Government to enable this number of children to be brought here. He has done so because, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, it is right. However, this is not a party-political issue. What is most important is that this has caught the public mood of the moment and we should go with it.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support my noble friend. The Government are to be applauded for the aid they are giving directly to the region and their recent statement regarding resettling some unaccompanied children, mainly from the region. However, as Heidi Allen MP said on the “Week in Westminster” on Sunday, no amount of such aid can help those in Europe now. In a recent Commons debate on child refugees in Europe, Sir Eric Pickles—not someone I normally quote in support of an argument—said that while the Government are quite right to keep children in the region,

“we are where we are. There are children at risk, and I urge the Government to look carefully at that”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/1/16; col. 41.]

Perhaps, more accurately, we should say these children are where they are. Refusing to help them is not going to result in them returning to their homelands. Instead, they are stuck in appalling conditions. The International Development Committee took up Save the Children’s recommendation that we should take 3,000 unaccompanied children. It made a very strong recommendation in support of that and called for urgent action from the Government on it. The committee warned that children are prey to exploitation by people traffickers—the very thing that the Government say they want to avoid by supposedly not encouraging children to make the perilous journey to Europe.

Ministers rightly say that any action to assist unaccompanied minors must be in the best interests of the children and that this is their primary concern. But how can it be in the best interests of unaccompanied children to be left to fend for themselves in the camps of Calais and Dunkirk without hope and, as we have already heard, at the mercy of hunger, cold, exploitation and people traffickers? Like my noble friend Lord Dubs, I am not totally clear what the Statement of 28 January promised. In particular, can the Minister confirm that, as Save the Children says, it is intended to try to reunite lone child refugees who are already in Europe with families in the UK? If so, that is welcome, but can he say exactly what is intended and how many children he expects will be helped in this way?

Finally, I take this opportunity to ask the Minister about a report in the Independent on Sunday that the Council of the EU is discussing measures that could have the effect of criminalising individuals and charities that help Syrian refugees, including children, when they arrive on the European mainland—in particular, on Greek islands. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, talked about what we owe those people, who are doing amazing humanitarian work. Can the Minister give an assurance that the Home Secretary will oppose any such measures? The very suggestion that such humanitarian action could be equated with people smuggling is, frankly, quite abhorrent. I hope that the Minister can assure us that the report is unfounded—I do not necessarily believe everything that I read in the newspapers but this is an opportunity to check it out—and, if it is not unfounded, that the Home Secretary will vigorously oppose any such move.

In the mean time, I hope that the Minister—I agree with what has been said; I know that he is a Minister who listens and cares—will be able to give hope to children who need it. I hope, too, that, even if it is not a final response to my noble friend, he will be able to give a response that at least leaves the door ajar.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 231, to which I have added my name, but I would be more than happy if Amendment 234 were to be accepted because I acknowledge that we need to act as quickly as possible to enable family reunion. My noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws talked about the experience of her husband’s family in the 1930s. It was very similar in my own family. My father came as a young man to this country from Nazi Germany in the early 1930s and his parents, my grandparents, were allowed to join him in the late 1930s having escaped to Palestine and then coming to this country, so the question of family reunion has great personal significance for me.

ILPA has provided us with extracts from parliamentary debates in the 1930s and 1940s, and I was particularly struck by a speech by the then Earl of Listowel, who said in 1939:

“There is a common assumption underlying this debate … that these refugees are a common responsibility of every civilised nation, and that each country has to play its part, according to its economic resources and according to its opportunities for offering temporary asylum or permanent refuge, in providing the means of life for these helpless and persecuted people. The question surely that is before our minds first and foremost this afternoon”—

they probably did not go quite as late in those days—

“and is naturally one that confronts every member of the British Legislature is: Is this country really making its rightful contribution?”.—[Official Report, 5/7/1939; col. 1026.]

The answer today has to be no. We are not playing our part according to our economic resources when compared with poorer countries in the region on the one hand and richer countries such as Canada and Germany on the other.

While I very much welcome recent government concessions, I fear that they do not go nearly far enough. This is the message of, for example, a statement made by more than 300 eminent lawyers last autumn who, among other things, called for the establishment of safe and legal routes to the UK from both within and outside Europe. One element of that, they argued, would be humane family reunion policies such as allowing child refugees in the UK to be joined by adult family members. This would help avoid the tragedies that continue to occur in the Mediterranean where already this year 149 people have died trying to cross, according to Save the Children. Just this week over 120 leading economists have sent a similar message in an open letter to the Prime Minister.

The British Red Cross writes of heart-breaking cases it encounters of separated families not covered by the existing rules, such as the two Syrian brothers who wanted to be reunited with their mother stuck in a camp in Iraq, having been recently imprisoned in Syria. She was alone with no family and in a second country but did not qualify for family reunion. I know that the Government’s argument is that if refugee children were entitled to bring their parents into the country, it would act as an incentive to send children on ahead to secure leave. But as ILPA points out, these children are given leave to remain not because they are children but because they are recognised to have a claim as refugees. While parents understandably prioritise getting their children to safety, surely it is cynical to believe that they would deliberately put their children in the hands of smugglers to make such a dangerous journey alone as a ploy to get entry themselves. As Save the Children put it, we are talking about:

“A terrifying push, not an enticing pull”.

It reminds us of children’s rights under the UNCRC to remain with or be reunited with their family.

The Government claim to be the party of the family. In the guidance on the family test, the list of,

“relationships at the heart of family life”,

as it puts it, includes a wide range of family relationships, including extended families. Yet the Government take the most narrow and exclusionary approach to family relationships when it comes to the reunion of a particularly vulnerable group of families. I believe that if the Government were to accept one or other of these amendments, or bring forward their own amendment on Report, this would be widely welcomed.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, as my name is to Amendment 234, I will give my story of doctors—I am thinking of the example of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy—who left the country because of our family visa restrictions. I did some work on family visas in 2013, a year after the current rules were introduced. I felt as if I had almost physically been hit between the eyes when I realised that these rules were applying in situations which noble Lords have described. It is possible for the Government to grant visas on the basis of exceptional, compelling or compassionate circumstances outside the rules. The Minister will recall his Written Answer to my Question that disclosed that the number of applications granted outside the rules was 77 in 2011 and by 2014 had declined to 12.

The basis of these amendments, and the fact that we do not believe that this would be a pull factor, has already been covered. I shall try not to repeat too much of what has been said. I am very aware that it is not sensible to seek to make too many arrangements on the basis of anecdotes and very individual circumstances—hard cases, bad law, and all that. But there are so many stories. The Guardian published an article about two British citizens who had been granted refugee status and then become citizens, but could not bring their family members to the UK because of the income threshold that is part of the family visa rules. They are actually living with their wives and children in a camp in Dunkirk. Those who have seen the conditions in that camp will be appalled that that has come about.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, were my noble friend Lord Avebury able to be here, I think he, too, would have started with short-term holding facilities. I feel I am letting him down by not having a specific amendment on the point.

When the all-party group undertook its inquiry, to which much reference has been made, I was particularly struck by the paradox of detainees both fearing and hoping for sudden change—or that things would stay the same way. It was well expressed by Dr Melanie Griffiths, who is quoted in the report as saying:

“By being detained indefinitely, without knowing how long for and with the continual possibility of both imminent release and removal, detainees worry that detention will continue forever and also that it will end in unexpected deportation the next morning. They have the simultaneous concern both that there will be sudden change and never-ending stasis. It is the lack of temporal predictability that prevents deportable individuals not only from being able to plan for the future, but also from having the ‘stability’ of knowing that the present will remain uncertain for a protracted length of time”.

A number of these amendments are concerned with time limits and timescales. The inquiry made a number of recommendations and comments, one of which was about the link with mental health. As the report expresses it, there is,

“a considerable mental health cost to detainees”.

The report also said that,

“the lack of a time limit, far from aiding Home Office effectiveness, was itself an incentive to poor case-working”.

The Government say that an arbitrary time limit is unnecessary, because we should have whatever is reasonable—although of course what is reasonable is often in the eye of the beholder. They also say that an arbitrary time limit—“specific” would perhaps be a better word—would become the norm and an incentive for non-compliance. However, those of us advocating a time limit do not wish to overlook the individual characteristics or indeed the changes over time and the changes of combinations of factors which may apply to individuals. We do not like a tick-box approach to vulnerability.

There are a lot of amendments in this group. I have signed up to all of those in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and started by supporting Amendment 218, which is the straight 28-day amendment, rather than the proposal for a review, which is in the first of the amendments in the group. After the Shaw report was published, and after we had addressed the issue at Second Reading, I discussed with the noble Lord, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and other members of that inquiry whether we might look for an alteration—I was going to say slight relaxation, as it were, but that would be a very bad term for me to use in the context—to the 28 days in the event of something exceptional.

The first of the two approaches in Amendments 218A and 218B is that the Secretary of State would go to the tribunal on the basis that bail is not in the public interest. I hope that would answer the critical comments made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, at Second Reading that there must always be some exceptions. We have had a go at a reference to offences which are in Schedule 4 to the Modern Slavery Act. That was suggested by somebody who has been concerned with this subject for a long time. I am not sure that it would be my preferred approach, but the intention was to present some possibilities to the Government as to how they might achieve 28 days, or a specific time limit, but with any absolutely necessary exceptions.

The other amendments—particularly Amendments 216ZA, 216ZB, 216ZC and 216ZD—are drafted directly from the Shaw report in the hope that the Government will give a detailed response to each of them. As the noble Lord said, we had a short response in the Written Ministerial Statement. I hope that the Minister, whose task tonight is considerable, has been briefed to give a response to each point. We could have tabled 64 amendments but that might have tested the patience of the Committee a little too much. Of course, none of this actually needs legislation; the Government could just get on with it. The essential items that lend themselves to an amendment are ones to which I and, I know, others would like a detailed and specific response.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support the various amendments in this group, focused in particular on the case for a time limit and for the absolute exclusion from detention of pregnant women.

As has already been said, like the noble, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I was a member of the all-party parliamentary inquiry into detention. Unlike them, I knew very little about detention beforehand and so was perhaps the more shocked by what I heard from both professionals and people who had been detained. One message that hit me with particular force was the impact of detention on the mental health of detainees—we have heard a bit about that already. It is clear that this was true for Stephen Shaw, too. In his very fine report, he states at the outset that,

“the impact of detention upon detainees’ mental health, has been at the heart of this review. For that reason alone, it is not possible to distinguish the fact of detention from the consequences for welfare and vulnerability”.

He based this conclusion in part on a literature review by Professor Mary Bosworth, to which my noble friend Lord Rosser referred and which Shaw suggests was perhaps the “most important contribution” made by his report. He concludes that it,

“demonstrates incontrovertibly that detention in and of itself undermines welfare and contributes to vulnerability”.

Professor Bosworth’s review found a clear link between duration of detention and mental health outcomes. She also points to qualitative studies that indicate that the uncertainty arising from no time limit creates additional difficulties, and concludes that in the absence of clinical studies,

“it is clear at the very least that uncertainty makes detention more difficult”.

That resonates with what we heard in our inquiry. For instance, Dr Robjant of the Helen Bamber Foundation told us that its clients talk about it increasing their sense of hopelessness and despair.

Despite the restrictions placed on his remit, Stephen Shaw raised serious questions about numbers detained, the length of detention, the impact of the unknown length of detention on vulnerability, and the need for alternatives. He emphasises from the outset that his recommendations, in themselves, do not go far enough. We must take seriously what in my view is a clear steer that we need to go beyond recommendations designed to mitigate the “diswelfares” associated with detention, important as they are, and address the underlying question of the role of detention itself, and in particular the question of the absence of a set time limit on its duration.

Since the parliamentary inquiry’s report, the UN Human Rights Committee has recommended that the UK introduce a time limit. In oral evidence to the Public Bill Committee on this Bill, a representative of the UNHRC stated that his one wish would be the introduction of a time limit on detention—which, he underlined, was within the scope of the Bill. In addition to the unanimous vote in the other place in support of our inquiry which has already been mentioned, there was strong support for a time limit when the report was debated in your Lordships’ House in March, including from the former Home Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell, who deemed it “deeply unsatisfactory” that detainees,

“have no certainty in their lives about when they might be removed from detention”.—[Official Report, 26/3/15; col. 1569.]

This point was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who said that,

“it is worse than that, because it deprives people of hope”.—[Official Report, 26/3/2015; col. 1578.]

We have heard other arguments in favour of a time limit, which I shall not go into. Let us now use the opportunity of this Bill to provide hope for migrants and asylum seekers deprived of their liberty by a detention system shown to be deeply unsatisfactory by legislating for a time limit and encouraging the Government to develop effective community alternatives.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 67F in this group but, before I discuss it, I should say how much I agree with the thrust of everything that has been said this afternoon. I tabled some amendments which we discussed at the end of our proceedings last Wednesday, which went in the same direction as many of the amendments in this group. It is perhaps as well that the group was not made even longer by having those amendments in it.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, asked why we should go to all this trouble and then constrain the commissioner’s remit and role. That seems to me to go absolutely to the heart of the issue. The commissioner should be able to take a holistic—I do not much like that word—viewpoint of everything that is going on that relates to trafficking. The issues are very complex and interrelated and our understanding of them is developing fast, so the commissioner should be allowed the scope that the commissioner designate has clearly identified. However, as others have said, we should not leave it to him to find ways round the legislation, as it were, which is what it sounds as if he is seeking to do, although I am sure that he would not put it that way.

Moreover, I wonder whether the Secretary of State should have a power to redact passages from reports in the interests of national security. I am not sure whether I am right about this, but I could not find a similar power for the Secretary of State in respect of the reviewer of terrorism legislation, where you would think that would certainly be needed. I think what this boils down to is that we have to respect the fact that the commissioners who are appointed will be entirely sensible.

My amendment picks up the point about data collection and would insert a power to collect, compile, analyse and disseminate information and statistics. The Government’s response to the report of the pre-legislative scrutiny committee, which argued for the ability to deal with data, did not, as far as I could see, address that. As Governments always do, they said that the scrutiny was welcome. However, the point was also picked up by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which commented:

“National human rights institutions … generally do not have the Ombudsman-type power to take up individual cases, but they do have a significant role in collecting data in order to monitor the State’s performance in observing the rights of individuals”.

If I can put it less assertively, may I ask my noble friend whether he can confirm that research, which is mentioned in the clause, covers the points which I have included in my amendment? Even if the role is restricted to enforcement, which I very much hope it is not, data collection is important in enforcement. Enforcers need to know what they are up against. I also ask my noble friend whether the Government will be producing a data-sharing protocol, which is recommended in the review of the NRM. There will be another point on data later, but if the Minister is able to answer, that would be interesting.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise in support of these amendments aimed at strengthening and broadening the remit of the anti-slavery commissioner, which is very much in the spirit of the recommendation put forward by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member. The JCHR concluded that the commissioner’s mandate,

“remains weak … and narrowly focused”.

Following questioning of the Government, the committee accepted the need to avoid any overlap or confusion with the role of the Victims’ Commissioner—I see that the noble Baroness is in her place—but we said that we did not consider this to be an inevitable result of broadening the role beyond its narrow focus on law enforcement.

Amnesty made the point in its briefing that the Home Secretary has emphasised the need for a co-ordinated and holistic approach, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to tackling modern slavery. It said that this is why it is so important that the commissioner is properly resourced and empowered to look fully across the piece. I agree with that.

The JCHR recommended that the Government should follow the model of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, which the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has talked about. When we discussed this at our last sitting, I commended the Government for having strengthened the position of the Children’s Commissioner and made it a much stronger body than it was. That was very much to the Government’s credit, although I would add that the Minister mentioned on Wednesday the fact that the Children’s Commissioner is housed in a Department for Education building, as if that meant that it was fine for this commissioner to be. The JCHR strongly recommended against that, because it impinges on the commissioner’s independence—but that is by the by.

Despite having set up this very good model of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, the Government deliberately decided not to pursue that model for the anti-slavery commissioner. They then pointed out that this was reflected in the much smaller budget for this commissioner than for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. I could not help but wonder whether this was partly about trying to save money. Are they trying to have an office of the anti-slavery commissioner on the cheap? The old proverb about a ha’p’orth of tar came to mind.

I want to return to a question I asked the Minister at our previous sitting, when perhaps I did not make myself fully clear. I asked the Minister why the Government do not see the anti-slavery commissioner primarily as part of the human rights machinery, as they told the JCHR. The Minister replied that the commissioner,

“is not a national human rights institution as defined under the Paris principles”.—[Official Report, 3/12/14; col. 1382.]

However, he agreed that it would play a key part in improving our human rights response to tackle modern slavery. In my speech last week I quoted from the exchange between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Lewis Carroll, on how we understand the meaning of words. When I reflected on the Minister’s reply to me, I rather felt as though I had walked through the looking-glass. It was, of course, perfectly open to the Government to make the anti-slavery commissioner compliant with Paris principles. That was a political decision and choice. However, they chose not to.

So let me rephrase my question. Why did the Government choose to make the anti-slavery commissioner not compliant with the Paris principles? That is: why do they believe it should not be part of the human rights machinery—not why it is not technically part of the human rights machinery—when we are all agreed that it has this key role in improving our human rights response to modern slavery? I am baffled, I have to say.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, under the Bill the court can make a prohibition for any period, and the criterion is that the prohibition is “necessary to protect” a particular person or persons generally from physical or psychological harm likely to arise from slavery or a trafficking offence by the defendant. Obviously, that goes very wide in terms of the court’s powers. The Joint Committee on Human Rights made the point—I hope that I am not stealing the noble Baroness’s thunder again—that there should be certainty as to the prohibitions which can be applied and recommended that there might be, for instance, an indicative list of the sorts of prohibitions that can be imposed in such orders. Considerations of legal certainty should also be given prominence in the development of the statutory guidance. That statutory guidance will apply to the police, to immigration officers and the NCA. I am not sure where the courts stand in this and whether it is improper to issue guidance to a court. The police can apply for a particular prohibition order and the court will have unlimited discretion.

It seems to me that if these prohibitions are capable of being set out in guidance, they are capable of being set out more formally. My amendment proposes that they should be included in regulations rather than in guidance. That would provide certainty as to what prohibitions might be applied and give Parliament the opportunity to debate those prohibitions, and having regulations rather than primary legislation would allow for quite a degree of flexibility. Wishing to see certainty and not to provide completely unconstrained discretion without knowing until case law has developed what might be included in the prohibitions, I am proposing the use of regulations. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has not stolen my thunder at all, and again I am most grateful to her for tabling this amendment. It picks up on the recommendations made by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I want to make one additional point on why this raises an important question of human rights. As we said in our report:

“In order to ensure compatibility with the right to respect for private life, any restriction must satisfy the requirements of legal certainty. It is essential that prohibitions contained in the orders are clear, as a breach of an order is a criminal offence”.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for speaking to these amendments. They raise the important issue of the prohibitions that can be imposed by the slavery and trafficking prevention orders and risk orders. Prevention is critical to tackling modern slavery effectively and the purpose of these orders is to enable the courts to impose prohibitions on individuals who are believed to pose a risk of causing harm by the commission of a slavery or human trafficking offence. It is important that these orders provide law enforcement agencies and the courts with the ability to respond flexibly to the risks posed by an individual. Clauses 17 and 24 make it clear that slavery and trafficking prevention orders and risk orders will only contain prohibitions that the court is satisfied are necessary for the purposes of protecting people from the physical or psychological harms that would be likely to occur if the defendant committed the slavery or human trafficking offence. These prohibitions can be imposed anywhere in the UK or outside of the UK, they can be for a fixed period of at least five years, and some prohibitions may apply for longer than others.

To enable law enforcement agencies and the courts to respond to changing slavery and human trafficking practices and to tailor prohibitions to the specific risk posed by individuals, we have deliberately not specified the types of restrictions that can be included in the orders. This makes them flexible and capable of restricting any activities that a person undertakes if the court considers it necessary. The approach is in line with existing orders relating to the prevention of sexual harm. Making the amendment requested by my noble friend would restrict the flexibility that these orders need to have. We believe that we have already set substantial and appropriate safeguards to ensure that orders will only be used in appropriate circumstances when necessary to stop the harm caused by these very serious offences, by requiring that the court is satisfied that they and the prohibitions that they include are necessary.

I appreciate the power of the argument of my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and of the arguments of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to ensure that operational law enforcement partners are clear on the types of prohibitions that might be helpful. In line with the Joint Committee on Human Rights recommendation we shall ensure that the statutory guidance in relation to the orders will include guidance on appropriate prohibitions. With that assurance, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

I agree with everything that has been said on that last point. One can imagine that NGOs which the commissioner wishes to consult will find themselves going to Marsham Street to meet him. That seems entirely inappropriate.

I thought the term “friction”, which the noble Baroness used, was very delicate. I have written down other terms which might describe somewhere on the spectrum between tension and conflict. My first block of five amendments in this group seeks to establish a direct relationship between the commissioner and Parliament rather than for the reporting to be permitted by the Home Secretary. It is very important that there should not be or be perceived to be a block between the commissioner and his ability to have reports published and debated by Parliament. I have not sought to take out Clause 41(6), which allows the Secretary of State to direct the omission of material which would be against the interests of national security, might jeopardise safety or prejudice an investigation or prosecution. I am sure we will be told that the Home Secretary does not seek to censor reports from other commissioners and other independent persons, but this is about perception as well as reality.

Amendment 68A would take out the definition of a permitted matter, which follows from what I have just said, and Amendment 68B would allow the commissioner to publish without seeing whether the Secretary of State and the devolved authorities want to exercise other powers. I can see immediately that I have made a mistake here; clearly, I should have retained the reference to subsection (6) but I am sure that noble Lords will understand the general point I am making. Amendment 72A is an extremely clumsy way of trying to find some shorthand for deleting reference to the Secretary of State’s approval, but it all amounts to the same thing.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support all these amendments, which aim to ensure the genuine independence of the anti-slavery commissioner and to establish a relationship with Parliament. As I said, they are very much in line with the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member. I am grateful to all noble Lords who tabled them; a very powerful case has been made. I apologise if I echo some of the arguments, but some of them bear repetition.

The JCHR welcomed the creation of the office of the anti-slavery commissioner as,

“a potentially significant human rights enhancing measure”.

However, whether it fulfils that potential depends very much on it being genuinely independent of government. As we have heard, a very constructive debate in the Public Bill Committee led to an amendment on Report which added “independent” to the statutory title of the commissioner, as my noble friend Lord Warner, explained. I welcome that, as it reflected the all-party consensus around the importance of the commissioner’s independence. As the JCHR observed,

“the post cannot be made genuinely independent merely by adding a label”.

We listed the provisions and omissions that mean that it cannot be described as independent in any meaningful sense, which are for the most part covered by noble Lords’ amendments, so I will not go through them.

In light of those severe limitations on the commissioner’s independence, we asked the Government in what sense the role is independent and why it is less so than the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. Their response was to accept that there were significant differences in the legislative framework governing the two bodies, but, as we heard, they maintained that both models produced independent bodies. Yet the widespread view both inside and outside Parliament is that that does not constitute independence because, as the JCHR said, the role would largely be controlled by the Home Office, serving simply as an adjunct to it. My noble friend Lord Warner spelt out very graphically what that might mean in practice.

This debate on what constitutes independence brings to mind the famous exchange between Humpty Dumpty and Alice:

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all’”.

I thought that was rather appropriate in the context of a debate about slavery. Surely, ultimately, in deciding what constitutes independence here, Parliament should be the master, and the related concern of the JCHR, taken up in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was about the commissioner’s relationship to Parliament.

The JCHR has sought to strengthen the relationship between Parliament and a number of bodies which form part of the human rights machinery, including the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, and I very much commend the way the Government have strengthened and ensured the independence of that office. We stated in our report:

“In our view, the Anti-slavery Commissioner proposed in this Bill has the potential to be another part of that machinery with an important human rights role”.

However, we were surprised and disappointed, to put it mildly, by the Government’s statement that they do not see the commissioner’s role primarily as part of the national human rights machinery. I find it extraordinary that in one of the most human rights-enhancing Bills brought forward by the Government, the machinery to implement it is not seen as part of the human rights machinery. Can the Minister explain why, and does he accept that that rather diminishes the potentially human rights-enhancing role of the Bill?

We have heard from members of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill how that committee itself stressed the importance of the independence, which is crucial for both credibility and establishing the trust of NGOs and other stakeholders. I would add to that list, most importantly, the victims of modern slavery themselves. The committee heard from the Dutch equivalent, who said that,

“the long-standing effectiveness of her own role lay in its statutory independence and the trust engendered as a consequence”,

as my noble friend Lady Royall has said. It expressed sympathy with,

“those who cautioned against relying on either the good intentions of the holder of the office of Home Secretary”.

We all know and appreciate the commitment of the current Home Secretary on the issue of modern slavery. But when even the autonomy of the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has been undermined by the Home Secretary’s recent refusal to publish five inspection reports, leading to his recent warning to the Public Accounts Committee that the independence of his role has been compromised, that must send out warning signals for a role that has less statutory independence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, we will come to the staff’s functions and powers next week, but we should not lose sight of the fact that some of them need to have experience that is far wider than and quite different from that of the Home Office: we are talking about health and the whole of the welfare system, at least. That point has been made in the context of the powers, but let us mark it in the context of staff as well.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

At the risk of overloading the Minister with questions, I asked a very specific question that I do not think he answered: why do the Government not see the office of the anti-slavery commissioner primarily as part of the human rights machinery?

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, the issue of guardianship for victims of child trafficking is one that has support right around the House. When it was raised during the Children and Families Bill, I said in reply to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, that when he first raised this some years ago I had not been persuaded. However, particularly through his arguments, I came to be persuaded of the need, in part from the point of view of someone who has practised as a solicitor and needs someone from whom to take instructions. That is one of the functions that a guardian would fulfil. The draft Modern Slavery Bill, which is the subject of pre-legislative scrutiny, has been drawn up from the point of view of the victim and, like the noble Lord, I think that this would fit absolutely in protecting and assisting victims.

I have a couple of comments about the issues raised by my noble friends with regard to children and young people without immigration status. I first want to draw attention to a report published last year by the ESRC Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford, entitled No Way Out, No Way In about irregular migrant children. Its summary, which is a tiny part of a report that goes on for many pages, states:

“Our estimate regarding the high proportion of irregular migrant children who are either born or have spent most of their childhood in the UK invites a refocus of public understanding of this population”.

The second issue that I would like to mention is the very uncomfortable reporting that we have seen, not so much of the children to whom my noble friend Lady Benjamin drew attention, although some would fit into this category, but of wonderful young people—just the sort of young people we want to have in this country —who reach the age of 18 and are accepted at university and told they cannot go there. They are told that they need to go “home”. I am not saying that they are any more deserving than the other children in question, but I hope that the Government have been embarrassed by the reports because they should be, just as they are about the reports of the children assisted by Kids Company and others of whom we have heard.

When I tried to draft this clause, I really did not know how to do it. It seemed that so much is a matter for the Secretary of State’s discretion. I hope that when the Minister replies, he can assist the Committee with some clarity about what issues are matters of discretion and how that discretion comes to be exercised.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I will speak briefly to Amendments 81, 81AA and 88; they all deal with issues that have been covered recently by reports of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member.

I start with Amendment 88 on legal aid. In its report on the implications for access to justice of the Government’s proposals to reform legal aid, the JCHR was very critical of the application of the residence test to children. We said that,

“we do not agree that the Government has considered all groups of children who could be adversely affected by this test, and we note that no Child Impact Assessment has been produced”.

This is becoming a bit of a pattern, I have to say. The report continues:

“Such groups of children include children unable to provide documentation of residence and those who need help to gain access to accommodation and services … We are concerned that the Government has not given full consideration to its obligations under the second article of the UNCRC … we do not consider that the Government’s argument that cases can always apply for exceptional funding is sufficient to meet UNCRC obligations or the Government’s access to justice obligations. We are sure that the Government does not intend vulnerable children to be left without legal representation. The proposals give little consideration to the access to justice problems that the proposal specifically creates in relation to children, such as the potential complexity and urgency of the cases for which children would need advice and representation, or in some cases, the need to find a litigation friend to assist the child with their proceedings because they have become separated from their families … We do not consider that the removal of legal aid from vulnerable children can be justified and therefore we recommend that the Government extend the exceptions further by excluding all children from having to satisfy the residence test”.

In their response, the Government agreed to extend the exceptions further, but in my view, not far enough. Although any further exception is welcome, it goes only so far and does not meet the concerns of the JCHR about protecting children generally in relation to our obligations under the UNCRC. Having a lot of exemptions just complicates matters and I would have thought it was easier simply to say that it should not apply to children.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Amendment 47 deals with financial circumstances when they fall to be considered in respect of an applicant seeking to enter or remain in the UK. I have quite deliberately framed the amendment as a new clause rather than seeking to amend Clause 14, where I am sure that I would be told that there was a very delicate balance that I should not be disturbing.

The Minister and I have debated before, and I suspect that we will again, the issue of the family migration laws that were introduced in July 2012, under which new financial thresholds are required to be met for an applicant to join a British citizen to whom he or she is married, or is a partner, in this country. The Minister will recall our discussions both about the financial threshold and about the impact on children who, as a result of the rules, find themselves separated from one parent. The impact is on families of British citizens and taxpayers.

I am well aware of the case of MM. I am not sure whether it is still being heard in the Court of Appeal. It started at the beginning of this week and we await the Court of Appeal’s judgment. I am aware that the Home Office has suspended decisions where the issue is a financial one, pending the outcome of the case. However, I could not let the Bill go by without a reference to what, week after week, I see as being very distressing circumstances. I say “week after week” because those who are affected by the rules, and noble Lords will understand this, cast around for those who may be interested and who may be able to take up their case. I am not really in a position to take up cases but I am certainly interested, and I therefore have a steady stream of e-mails and letters telling me of sets of circumstances that I do not think anyone could possibly have envisaged when the rules were brought into effect.

My amendment would seek to ensure that, where financial circumstances were to be considered, account would be taken, first, of the national minimum wage. The financial threshold where there are no children, in the case of the family migration rules, is £18,600, while the national minimum wage, worked for a 40-hour week, is in the order of £13,200. Secondly, account would be taken of,

“the benefit to taxpayers and to society of the applicant acting as a carer”.

I have come across a number of situations where the British citizen is caring for—usually—a child, and if that British citizen could be joined by his or her spouse then caring responsibilities would be shared, which would be to everyone’s benefit in a social, humane sense, but would also be a benefit to the taxpayer because it would lift the burden from them, too. Thirdly, I have referred to,

“the applicant’s prospects of employment (including likely earnings)”,

and those of the spouse or partner. I am aware of quite ironic situations where high-earning people have been defeated by these rules, even though they have great prospects not only of earning themselves but of bringing economic goods to the country, because there is no contract in place or history of earnings here to which they can point. I am aware of a number of situations where people have taken the decision to go and live in another country and apply their earning power there. Lastly, and very importantly, I refer to,

“the interests of any child … who as a result of the refusal of the application may be separated from a parent”.

I have already referred today to the impact on children separated from parents, and this is something that concerns me very much.

In the first instance decision, Mr Justice Blake referred essentially to these factors in the concerns that he expressed about the rules that are in place. One of his suggestions was reducing the minimum income requirement of the sponsor alone to £13,500 or thereabouts —very close to the figure that I have referred to.

I could speak on this for a long time, but I am of course aware of the debate that is to come and that noble Lords are gathering for it. I also know that the Minister is not in a position to roll over tonight, given the case that is in train. In all conscience, though, I had to raise this; it expresses my position and keeps the faith. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I remember that when we debated the original regulations in your Lordships’ House, I said I found it quite distasteful that we were introducing a means test for family life—a means test that, unlike other means tests, excludes the most disadvantaged rather than includes them.

Last summer I chaired a packed meeting for the Divided Families Campaign. We heard some heartbreaking examples of families who had been broken up as a result of these new regulations. Many noble Lords will be aware of the report produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration on its inquiry into the new family migration rules. I will not go into any detail now because of the other debate that is about to happen, but there are plenty of examples there of the harmful effects of these regulations.

I cannot help but reflect that yesterday in your Lordships’ House the noble Lord, Lord Freud, created a false divide, suggesting that that side of the House supported marriage while this side could not care less about it. My concern is less about marriage as such; I am concerned about family relationships. It would seem that, when it comes to immigration, some marriages are more important than others and other marriages simply do not count. I am very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has used this opportunity to remind your Lordships of the heartache that is being caused. Noble Lords may not receive a steady stream—I receive perhaps not quite such a steady stream—but we certainly receive a steady trickle of e-mails and letters about this. It is important that we keep this in the public domain because I do not think we can carry on like this for much longer.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, made a very powerful case and referred to the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report on its inquiry into unaccompanied children. I want to underline that because we took evidence from people in Scotland with experience of the guardianship system there, and I was very impressed by what we were told. We have clear evidence there of how it can work and can support the kind of children whom we have been hearing from. I was not around when the noble Lord first raised this issue, and it is very sad that there has been this long delay. I hope that this House can now do something to rectify that situation.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I recall the noble Lord’s Private Member’s Bill, his previous amendment and so on. I read the Still at Risk report feeling almost sick. One of the things that makes me feel sick is that so often, apparently, we criminalise children for whom we should be caring because we fail to identify their situation. The point I want to make is not against guardianship; it is an extension of the argument. Those who are in a position to identify very early on that a child has been trafficked need training if they are to be alert to the situation. There is a need for additional awareness and training of all those who come into contact with children who have been trafficked. We are failing them when we fail to provide assistance from the people they perceive to be on their side.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch made reference to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We have heard some very powerful arguments in support of these amendments. I simply want to support what has been said with reference to what the Joint Committee on Human Rights said on this, and I speak as a member of that committee.

My noble friend and others have questioned the evidence base for the Government’s position. The Joint Committee looked at the evidence and we asked the Government what evidence they were using. We came to the conclusion that the evidence simply did not support the Government’s position. There is clear evidence of problems with delay. We share the Government’s concern about that and I do not think that anyone is arguing that we do not need action to deal with it. However, the evidence to which the Government referred did not show that these delays were due to ethnic matching. Therefore, we concluded:

“We are … not satisfied that the Government has demonstrated by reference to evidence that the statutory provision it proposes to repeal has been responsible for delays in the adoption process to the detriment of children from ethnic minority backgrounds”.

Perhaps the Minister could explain to the Committee what this evidence is, because what the Government have provided so far is not convincing. The committee continued:

“Even if there were evidence showing that the ‘due regard’ requirement … has led to disproportionate weight being given to a child’s ethnic background”—

and as I have said, we do not think that there is—

“we fail to see why it would be necessary to remove from the legal framework all reference to ‘religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background.’ We do not follow the logic in the Government’s argument that including those considerations in the welfare checklist would still lead to them being accorded disproportionate weight”.

I am completely bemused. A lot was said about this at Second Reading. I do not understand why the Government are so resistant to the very sensible recommendation from the adoption committee that it simply should be part of the checklist. No one is arguing that it should be given disproportionate weight any more; that has been accepted. The very fact of taking it out, though, as has already been said, in a sense is giving disproportionate weight to the other view that, “Clearly, we mustn’t take any account of it at all because the Government said that it must not be part of the list”. I cannot believe that that is what the Government want to achieve. Perhaps the Minister will explain why they are so resistant to that simply being part of a list that gives equivalent weight to other factors. The committee stated:

“In our view, removing from the legal framework any reference to ‘religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background’ risks those considerations being regarded as no longer matters to which due regard must be paid, which would be incompatible with Article 20(3) UNCRC”.

There could be a challenge to that with reference to the UN convention.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, referred to the need for other actions. The NSPCC suggested that legislation of itself will not address the problems of delay. The Government therefore need to commit to other actions such as paying attention to the need to actively recruit more adoptive families from a range of minority ethnic backgrounds; to give more support to adoptive parents and social workers to aid their understanding of the needs of minority ethnic children and improving long-term stability for minority ethnic children who are looked after; and, as has already been said, to consider how to boost permanency for such children beyond adoption, particularly through a consideration of guardianship, kinship care and long-term foster care.

I endorse what has already been said but I am completely at a loss as to why the Government are so resistant to this proposal from the adoption committee, which the Joint Committee on Human Rights has also endorsed.

[Baroness Hamwee]

I too have my name to Amendment 11. It seems that these issues of religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background have been the subject of a pendulum that has swung considerably backwards and forwards over the years. It may be that these issues are not everything but they are certainly not nothing. As other noble Lords have said, the Government have recognised that these issues should be considered along with all other relevant factors.

I thought what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, had to say about identity was so powerful that I do not want to pursue the issue myself because I could not say it as well. I just wrote down the word “identity” with big marks against it when I was making my notes for this debate. We must not suppress these issues. Our society comprises a huge variety of combinations of these different matters, and an increasing variety as people from different ethnic backgrounds marry one another and different mixes appear. There should not be excessive emphasis.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, used the phrase, which I think the Minister also used, “ramming the message home”. It is not for legislation to ram a message home; legislation should get the measure right rather more calmly. There is a danger that the message that will be taken is that these issues should now be ignored, when what really matters, as other noble Lords have said, is a placement with adopters who understand the issues and can support the child. You might come from exactly the same ethnic origin or religious background but not be able to support the child; they are not the same thing. The indicative guidance that we have received recognises this. I think that it talks—and if it does not, it should—about the need to recruit adopters from a range of backgrounds.

I do not think that there is a difference of view between what we are all saying and what the Government are thinking; it is not about the “what” but more about the “how”. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said that she was at a loss. I do not think that I am at a loss. There has been an oversensitivity, if I can put it that way, to what some parts of the media regard as “political correctness”, and there are better ripostes to that attitude in the media than the change in legislation that is proposed. I strongly support the amendment.