Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 146A and I support Amendment 147, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Randall. Like others, I welcome the provisions in the Bill, but this is rather typical of the pattern of responses to many aspects of the Bill: the amendment seeks to tweak the provisions to ensure that the Bill works as I believe is intended.

There is an assumption that refuges are the answer to abuse, but that they should be only temporary for reasons relating to the individuals who occupy them and because people who get stuck in them become, to use an unpleasant term, bed blockers, which is not how anyone would like to see themselves. Refuges are certainly not a permanent solution. There are not enough refuge spaces even for temporary provision, and it is very natural for victims to want the security of their own home for themselves and their children.

Like others, I am indebted to the organisations which know their way around the legislation that relates to their own services, as is the case here. Of course, domestic abuse is by no means the only cause of homelessness, which is why one has to look at priority need. But, given that the Government have addressed this, the Bill should be complete and replicate the provisions allowing applications to be made on behalf of vulnerable individuals, as other noble Lords have said. It must be safe for the survivor to access the housing.

As regards Amendment 147, there is no need to repeat the debate about why it may be essential for someone to get right away from her or his local area. No one with children would contemplate that; you only have to think about school and social connections. I have to say I am not entirely sure how one would administer “likely to become” a victim. I remember from my days as a local councillor the difficulties related to the size of a family, because you cannot take account of a child who is not yet born. But the importance of enabling someone to get away before there is too much harm is obvious, and the need to get away demonstrates how extreme the situation must be, because often you want the support of your community for yourself and your children.

The scope for more joint working between local authorities is outside this Bill, but the use of reciprocal arrangements has a very helpful, if not very big, place in this scene. But the real issue is the need for more support and, overall, more housing supply. Not for the first time, it is a matter of resources. For every housing offer to one person, someone else is not receiving an offer.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendment 146A, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, is one I fully support. I would have signed it if there had been a space, but people got there before me. The amendment ensures that someone made homeless as a result of domestic abuse will have priority need for housing support. It cannot be right that a victim is left with the choice of staying with an abusive partner or becoming homeless. That is no choice at all. The amendment would allow the applicant for homelessness assistance to be either a survivor or someone who resides with the survivor—but, of course, not the abuser. Again, enabling somebody else in the household to make an application could be an important protection.

I was delighted to sign Amendment 147, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, which would ensure that local connection cannot be used as a restriction when someone applies for housing, either in a refuge, in other temporary accommodation or in longer-term accommodation. This is very important to enable someone to get the help and support they want, to get them near to friends, to get them away to a place where they are not known or to get them wherever they want. It enables those in difficult, dangerous situations to get somewhere where they can rebuild their lives.

I want to thank Women’s Aid and other organisations for the help they have given all noble Lords on this Bill and for their general work. I have always been grateful to Women’s Aid for its advice on a number of issues. The example that the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, gave from Women’s Aid highlights the reason his amendment needs to be agreed—or, if the noble Baroness cannot agree the amendment, I hope she recognises the problem and will try to resolve it by bringing something back on Report.

In our discussion last week, we looked at the risks to victims, at home or at work, of being murdered. We have to ensure that, if somebody leaves a relationship, they can get somewhere they are safe and can rebuild their lives. It might be that they want to move to a completely different part of the country where no one knows them at all. Some victims have to completely cut off contact with abusers, because some abusers would do their damnedest to find somebody. We know people can choose not to be on the electoral register and that there is anonymous registration, but what shops they go to and where their families and friends are will still be known, so we have to ensure that people who want to can get away completely and start life afresh. That is why the noble Lord’s amendment is so important—so that no local authority can suggest, “Oh, you can’t come here because you’ve got no connection”. “That’s exactly why I want to come here—I’ve got no connection.” That is a really important issue. I look forward to the response from the noble Baroness at the end of the debate.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, we have Amendment 57 in this group—or clutch—of amendments, pushing what I hope is an open door: the need for protection of abused or allegedly abused people not only at home. The Government have an amendment extending prohibition to other places, and another amendment relating to the workplace or educational establishment, and those are welcome. Other noble Lords will speak to their amendments using terminology about where the abuser or alleged abuser lives or works. Amendment 79 would allow for discretion when both parties worked in the same place.

Our Amendment 57 is similar to the Government’s amendment, but it applies to domestic abuse protection notices, whereas the Government’s amendment is about domestic abuse protection orders. I regard notices as preventative—not leading inevitably to an order. It is far better, to state the obvious, if one can head off abuse by a notice. Perhaps I am naive in hoping so, but I note that the Minister’s letter or the draft guidance recently circulated—I cannot remember which one—makes the same point. In any event, reasons for including the workplace and other premises as prohibited, apart from the home, can surely apply when a notice is given as well as subsequently. As a matter of drafting, I wondered why Clause 21(2) was necessary, since it seems to be covered by Clause 21(1), but that is not the issue and it certainly makes the point as to what is covered. I suspect that others are going to make very similar points, but I beg to move Amendment 57.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendments 58, 59, 60, 74, 76, 77 and 79 are tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have signed up to speak in support of them, in particular the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lady Newlove.

These workplace amendments were discussed in the other place and it is right that we make it absolutely clear in the Bill that domestic abuse protection orders and the notices that precede them can cover a victim’s workplace as well as their home. Presently, the Bill says only that a perpetrator can be prevented from coming within a certain distance of where a victim lives. I acknowledge that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, has tabled Amendment 75, which uses the term “specified premises”, but I would prefer the word “workplace” in the Bill, as that is stronger. The amendments I am proposing would ensure that those making domestic abuse protection notices and orders had the discretion to consider the workplace as well as the home.

The Government have said that they would expect a domestic abuse protection order to include restrictions on a perpetrator’s access to where the victim works if the court considered it necessary. However, expectation is not strong enough; the workplace should be referred to explicitly. Work is an important part of people’s lives; other than their home, it is the one place where they are present during fixed hours, normally in a fixed place. That makes a person vulnerable and victims need the added protection that my group of amendments would bring.

There is also the issue of the perpetrator seeking to drive a victim out of work to wreck their economic circumstances, as well as the other horrors they are seeking to inflict on a victim. Women have been murdered at work and the Government have a responsibility to ensure that victims are protected in all aspects of their lives. In 2005, Clare Bernal was killed by her ex-boyfriend—who worked on the same premises as she did—while she was at work. In 2010, Jane Clough was murdered by her ex-boyfriend as she walked into work. In 2014, Hollie Gazzard was murdered by her partner at her place of work. In 2016, four women were murdered in their workplaces by men. All these women would have benefited from stronger workplace protections.

The TUC undertook a survey and found that 47.3% of respondents said that their abusive partner turned up at their workplace and 43.6% said that they stalked them outside their workplace. Without the scope to extend domestic abuse protection orders to the workplace, victims will continue to be harassed, threatened and assaulted at work by abusive partners. Their job prospects and safety will continue to be threatened, and, tragically, as we have heard, in some cases they will be murdered.

Government Amendment 78 states that domestic abuse protection orders should avoid interfering with the perpetrator’s work, rather than, more specifically, their usual times of work. This should mean that in cases where a perpetrator and victim share a place of work, the perpetrator’s work patterns can be adapted to ensure the victim remains in work safely. It will be helpful if the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, can confirm that that is the intention when he responds at the end of this debate, and that that will be made clear in any guidance issued by the Government.

This is a really important issue; victims need certainty and clarity to provide them with the protection they need. I hope that at the end of this debate we can get a positive statement that we need to look at this further and come back to it on Report.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I very much regret the rejection of the clause to which your Lordships had agreed regarding children in care. The Minister said on a previous occasion that we were united on children in local authority care needing a secure status. But insisting on this being achieved for this cohort—and we all understand the difficulties—through the EU settled status scheme rather than on a declaratory basis seems to indicate that the Government are more concerned not to acknowledge that the scheme cannot perfectly deal with every situation rather than to acknowledge the special situation of these children and young people.

The Commons formal reason is that local authorities are supporting this cohort, and the Government are funding support. Well, good—but what do the Government have to lose? The Minister in the Commons said that the idea of applying such a provision retrospectively runs counter to the general operation of the Immigration Rules. But when it is not a tightening of the rules, I do not understand the comment—but there it is.

I also of course regret the rejection of applying a time limit to the detention of asylum seekers and others. The suite of amendments applies clear criteria for detention, and national security would disqualify a detainee from the time-limit provisions. I do not think that it is right to use the position of foreign national offenders as if all detainees were offenders. The amendments would also prevent cat-and-mouse redetention.

The great majority of detainees are released eventually into the community, but they do not know when this will be. Again, the Commons Minister said that it was not possible just to detain someone indefinitely “as such”. That misses the point that there is no time limit, and that means a loss of hope. For months, people in the UK whose lives are restricted to some extent have been saying that they need to know when all this will end, which is understandable—and there is something of a read-across.

The Commons formal reason is that there are already procedural safeguards to ensure the lawfulness of the period of detention. They work so well that, as my right honourable friend Alistair Carmichael observed, £7 million in compensation was paid out last year for 272 cases of wrongful detention.

But I can at least use this opportunity to say how much we welcome the Court of Appeal’s judgment today quashing the judicial review and injunctions policy on the application of medical justice, with the intervention of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the good work of the Public Law Project—not, if I have the Minister’s word correctly, an “unmeritorious” application.

We shall not pursue this matter today, but we will be back soon on the issue, because it is a matter of fairness and humanity.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the decisions taken by the other place on all these issues are most disappointing. I thought my noble friend Lord Dubs made a convincing case, but sadly it was not listened to in the other place, as is so often the case now. I hope the Government will take a constructive attitude in working with local authorities to protect vulnerable children. Many local authorities have considerable pressures on them in terms of looking after children in care, and I hope the noble Baroness will confirm that there is a positive attitude from the Government to address these concerns, even if they are not prepared to accept my noble friend’s amendment today.

I note the comment—the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, also made the point—that the other Motions in this group make reference to all these dangerous criminals who would potentially be released into the public. I think we have to accept that the people we are talking about here are vulnerable people, and that if there are people who are dangerous criminals, there are other procedures to deal with them. We should not be wrapping people up like that: these are vulnerable people who need our help and support. There is an issue about people being locked up in detention when they have done nothing wrong and not knowing when they will get their release date.

The noble Baroness may well say that they are normally released into the community. That is obviously really good news, but if you are locked up in a cell or in a detention centre and you do not know when you will be released, the fact that you will be released at some point in the future may not be a huge comfort to you. Again, we are not going to pursue these issues any further today, but the fact that the Government rely on those arguments underlines the weakness of their case in this respect. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that we will return to these issues at a later date, but we will not be pressing any of them today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

This stage does not need a long speech, so I will say only that I understand why the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is not pursuing matters today. I know that he will continue to press for all the things his Bill covers with regard to victims of trafficking and exploitation, and no doubt many other things as well. Of course, we support him. We, too, are concerned about this dreadful crime and the importance of supporting all those who have been victims of it.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I was pleased to hear that the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, has received assurances. I am particularly pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, has given him assurances regarding what she will do to help progress this, and it was also good to hear that he has accepted them.

We all know that the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, is highly respected, not only by me but by the whole House. He is a wonderful Member of this House, both in his previous professional career as a surgeon and in his work on the Mercy Ships. While I have been in this House for the past 10 years, he has consistently campaigned on violence against women and violence against people in general and on modern slavery. As I have said before, it is high time that the Government agreed with the noble Lord and moved things forward. The noble Lord’s Bill, which he referred to, which he and Iain Duncan Smith are promoting in the other place, is reasonable, sensible and practical, and the Government should be proud to support it. I hope that, in the not too distant future, we will see the Government give active support to the Bill because, sadly, it has left this House twice only to be wrecked in the other place by a group of people who seemed to get pleasure out of wrecking good Private Members’ Bills, so I hope that will stop and that we will get the Bill through. In his Private Member’s Bill he asks only that people are treated with dignity and respect and that if you are accepted as a victim of modern slavery in England and Wales, you should be treated exactly the same as you are treated in Northern Ireland and in Scotland, because their legislation is superior to ours, and we want it all the same.

I am therefore delighted that there will be a discussion and that the Minister and the noble Lord will be involved in that, and I hope that we will have some good news in the weeks and months ahead.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, discretionary leave is a precarious response, as we have heard, and it is not frequently granted. We support the amendment and the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, as I have said on many occasions.

Some victims—though one would prefer to say “survivors”—want to get back home as quickly as possible. Others want to stay in order to recover—as far as recovery is possible—and for other reasons, as set out in proposed new subsection (2) of the amendment. One of the frequently expressed concerns about our response to slavery is the limited period provided for recovery after rescue, and 12 months is hardly a big ask.

One of the findings of the independent review of the Modern Slavery Act, published last year, was that few victims pursued or were granted civil compensation where that was possible. I therefore particularly support paragraph (c) of proposed new subsection (2).

Participating as a witness seems to be a factor that leads to the granting of discretionary leave. That can be a very big ask—I have used that word before—of the victim. Evidence is obviously important in prosecuting traffickers and exploiters, but granting leave to remain—the immigration response—should not be a transaction balanced by the person being prepared to give evidence. The issues that have been raised of course go far beyond the Bill. In Committee, we were reminded of the Government’s commitment to a world-leading system—and we have led the world.

Regarding the programme to transform the identification of and support for victims, and the legal framework, this is the second debate this afternoon in which data has been mentioned. Data is important. It indicates, among other things, a real interest in the impact of policy. That framework could, if we get it into the Bill, repeal the current provisions and be extended to all victims, which is what the noble Lord, Lord McColl, seeks—as do all noble Lords who have spoken. Having that framework in prospect should not preclude agreement to the amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendment 27, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, has been signed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and myself. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, has been tenacious and resolute in his efforts to speak up for victims of modern slavery, and it is very much to his credit that he has continued to be a voice for the victims of these appalling crimes. It is a matter of much regret that, so far, the Government have not been minded to listen to him. I join the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, in his warm tribute to the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I have respected and admired the noble Lord since my earliest days in this House. He is a thoroughly good and decent man, and an example for all of us to follow. He set out a powerful case for the amendment. If it is not accepted, I have no doubt that it will be carried by a large majority when the House is divided. It was good to note his confirmation that he had the support of the honourable Member for Chingford and Woodford Green in the other place—not somebody who would normally be described as a lefty do-gooder.

The amendment provides for the circumstances whereby a person over the age of 18 is to be granted leave to remain in the United Kingdom, and proposed new subsections (2) and (8) set the necessary parameters for granting this status. The amendment is of course confined to EEA and Swiss nationals, but that is to get it within the scope of the Bill. Many victims of modern slavery are vulnerable people who are British and so do not need this additional protection, but that does negate the importance of helping those victims from abroad.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

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

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my name is also to this amendment on behalf of these Benches, and I am glad to have the opportunity again to support our head terrier and add my yap to the debate.

Rights are significant, but they are of no use if you do not know you have them and do not appreciate that because nobody has told you about them. It is the state, of course, that should. Something less than citizenship is not the same as citizenship. An immigration status is not as good as citizenship for all sorts of reasons, some of which we rehearsed in Committee, and some of which have been mentioned today. I am glad so many noble Lords have talked to the position of the Roma people.

Those with rights should be encouraged to exercise them, not discouraged. It would be a reassurance to those waiting to see the hard evidence of the lessons learned from the Windrush inquiry if the Minister could report progress. Like the noble Lord, I was impressed by listening to Wendy Williams. I heard that event some months ago, when I had a little more energy to log on to online events. I was impressed by her observations about cultural issues.

I also agree with the committee, which stressed the importance of curiosity. It is necessary to stand in other people’s shoes to be able to respond properly to a problem.

However, given how much we have to get through today, I will not say more than this: what Parliament intended to put into law in 1981 should be observed. The report, as proposed by the noble Baroness, would be an important step towards this.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op) [V]]

My Lords, I fully support my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett and others, and endorse her comments on the rights of children to register as British citizens and exercise their rights.

I find it shocking that the Government have not given way on the level of the fee and the particular problem of looked-after children. Frankly, it beggars belief that we have not made progress on this during consideration of the Bill. The fact that the previous and present Home Secretaries have raised concerns about the level of the fee should mean that we have some progress. The Home Secretary is the one person who can do something about this, but it appears she will not.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, I am persuaded by the evidence and the contributions of many noble Lords in this debate. Let us be clear: these children are entitled to British citizenship. I always thought that British values were those of decency, fair play and justice, but I am afraid none of these is on display here today. What is on display is meanness, unfairness and a failure to act justly. It is an unjust position which has no place in modern Britain. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, having rights is no good if no one tells you that you have them and you are not encouraged to take them up.

Points were made previously about why the amendment could not be accepted, such as the technical point that this is only about EEA and Swiss nationals. Unfortunately, it is; that is because of the scope of the Bill. On the question of finances, how the Government need a fee to cover the costs of the process and ensure the effective running of the department in this area, they cannot have it both ways; for many years, like many other noble Lords, I have been arguing with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that all we want is fees to cover the costs of planning. We were repeatedly told that we could not have it and that planning has to be subsidised by the council tax payer. I am afraid you just cannot have that. We do this either everywhere or nowhere at all. On settled status as opposed to citizenship, there is no question which is the better status. If you are entitled to citizenship, you should be able to get it.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, set out the wholly reasonable nature of this amendment. It is asking only for the Home Secretary to lay before this House and the other place a report—nothing else, just a report—which must address the issues as set out in the amendment. I really do not understand why the Government are resisting this. As the noble Lord said, surely with the vulnerable position of these children, particularly looked-after and Roma children, no one could suggest that they are not disadvantaged people who need our help and consideration.

The Government’s reaction to this amendment is more than just disappointing; it is very worrying. We can discuss the hostile environment and Windrush, we can hear the apologies and the assurances they will not happen again, but having heard the Home Secretary’s speech yesterday, I for one fear that no lessons have been learned and that, instead, we are prepared to let these children be at risk. That is unacceptable.

I implore the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, for whom I have huge respect—I have worked with her closely many times—at least to give a commitment to the House that she will go away and explain to the Home Secretary the strength of feeling across the House and hopefully, on this one issue, be able to come back on Third Reading having accepted what people are asking for.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 30th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, yesterday the EU Security and Justice Sub-Committee was discussing refugees and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children with the Immigration Minister. He said, and I made a particular point of noting it—the Minister here does not need to look worried—“We always listen very carefully to Lord Dubs.” Well, that will be important for the next amendment, but I will apply it to this one as well, and I am very pleased to have added my name to the amendment on behalf of these Benches.

My noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie said at the last stage:

“We all know that children in care are especially disadvantaged, almost by definition”.—[Official Report, 16/9/20; col. 1292.]


I much prefer that term to “vulnerable” because many of them are extraordinarily resilient. But, however resilient you are, if you do not neatly fit a Home Office category, you are likely heading for problems and any parent, including a corporate parent, should do their best to pre-empt that.

In Committee the Minister explained the support services, I think she called them, for looked-after children and care leavers to assist them to make applications. That is of course welcome, but it would take someone much more confident than I am to be certain that no one will slip through the cracks.

In view of the time and in particular of the very thorough analysis of the amendment, especially by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I do not think I should take more of the House’s time, other than to encourage noble Lords to support the amendment—unless of course we hear from the Minister that the point is going to be taken up.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I fully support Amendment 14, moved by my noble friend Lord Dubs, which would add a new clause to the Bill. This clause was debated in Committee. I was persuaded by my noble friend’s argument then, and I am very much of the opinion that he is right on this issue and deserves the full support of the House when we vote on this issue next Monday, if the Government are not prepared to give way.

The clause would provide for children who are EEA or Swiss nationals and in care, along with those entitled to care leavers’ support, to be granted automatic indefinite leave to remain under the EU settlement scheme. The amendment, as we have seen tonight and as we saw in our debates a few weeks ago, has cross-party support. I am sure the Government have seen that support, and it would be good if the Minister could tell us what discussions took place at the Home Office between Committee and Report. I would be interested to know that; I hope this has not just been rejected out of hand.

My noble friend Lord Dubs said that the amendment would ensure that none of the children became undocumented. Identification is a serious problem for individuals, as my noble friend has outlined. There is also the whole issue that my noble friend talked about of local authorities all having different practices.

The amendment would speed up the process and enable social workers—who generally do a fantastic job, and we all know how much pressure they are under —to go straight to the Home Office and not have to deal with consulates and embassies, getting documents from abroad and the general bureaucracy of dealing with another country. It would avoid all that paperwork. My noble friend also set out the real problems that these children could suffer if the amendment is not agreed.

I agree with the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee. This really is a sensible amendment that deserves a positive response from the Government. I also agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.

This is the decent thing to do for these children. We are talking about a relatively small number of children, but the amendment would ensure that no one fell into the trap of becoming undocumented. As the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, mentioned in the previous debate, children in care face all sorts of additional challenges. They are not with their parents. In effect, the local authority is the parent looking after them. All this amendment seeks to do is ensure that they do not have further issues to deal with, either as a young person leaving care or in many years’ time when being undocumented may pose a problem and leave them unable to establish their identity properly. The Government should give way on this small measure.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

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, I have added my name to this amendment. The Government have given us an example of the reasonable grounds there may be for submitting a late application to the EU settled status scheme, but in this case the applicant is a child whose parent or guardian failed to apply on their behalf.

This amendment is about children of a corporate parent: the state. As we have heard, the Home Office estimates that there are 5,000 looked-after children and 4,000 care leavers who would need to apply. Not only are these children considered vulnerable—a word we are applying quite widely to very different situations—but in this context they have rights which it is not possible, or certainly not easy in practical terms, for them to exercise. Their parent, the state, is in a rather different position from a flesh-and-blood mother or father.

This is a very nifty amendment. It means that social workers would not have to chase after paperwork; they are very overloaded, as we have heard. It does not leave children in the precarious position of having to apply late, or of being undocumented, when they would be exposed to ineligibility for NHS treatment that is not charged for, and there would be no cliff edge at the end of pre-settled status. I think I am right in saying that the five-year period in subsection (6) of the proposed new clause would mean that it would apply to babies who are currently, or by next June, under five years old.

As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, this is not too hard to sort out—at least, it does not seem so to me. I hope the Minister will agree. Like others, I think that the noble Lord’s questions are relevant to today, if not relevant precisely to this amendment. They are very important. I look forward to supporting this amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I fully support Amendment 56, moved by my noble friend Lord Dubs, which would add a new clause to the Bill. This clause would provide for children who are EEA and Swiss nationals and in care, along with those entitled to care-leaving support, to be granted automatic indefinite leave to remain under the EU settlement scheme.

This amendment has wide cross-party support. The idea behind it had support in the other House, and it has that today. Every speaker so far, from different sides of the House, has spoken in support of the amendment. I am sure the Minister has taken that on board and will want to give us a positive response.

As my noble friend Lord Dubs said, there are vast numbers of these children and the amendment would ensure that none of them become undocumented. Identification is a serious problem, as my noble friend outlined. The different practices adopted by different local authorities is a real problem in itself.

The amendment would speed up the process and enable social workers, who do a fantastic job—we all know that they are under extreme pressure—to apply directly to the Home Office without having to deal with consulates and embassies and all the bureaucracy you have in dealing with another country when trying to get the right documents identified. You would avoid all that work, paperwork and bureaucracy, and go straight to the Home Office.

My noble friend Lord Dubs also asked the Minister about the safeguards in place for children who have pre-settled status, and that question deserves a careful response. As the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, said, this is a sensible amendment that really deserves a positive response from the Government.

I agree with all the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, on this amendment. It is the decent thing to do for these children. We are talking about a relatively small number of children, but it would ensure that nobody falls into the trap of becoming undocumented. As the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, said, children in care face all sorts of additional challenges; they are not with their parents and the local authority in effect is looking after them. All this amendment seeks to do is to ensure that they do not have further issues to deal with; a young person leaving care, or in many years’ time, may have the problem of being undocumented and unable to establish their identity properly. This is a very small measure which the Government should give way on.

Like my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett, I commend the work of the Children’s Society to identify and raise the plights of these children. The society has campaigned to ensure that they have protection and that their problems are not added to by becoming undocumented. As I say, it is the decent thing to do. Equally, I am sure that we will get a response from the Minister on the amendment, and on the issue in Lesbos.

I should also draw the attention of the House to the fact that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Local authorities do a fantastic job. Certain authorities, particularly Kent, are under particular pressure regarding children’s issues, but they generally do a fantastic job. This is one small measure which the Government could accept to help authorities and make it a bit easier for them in the work that they do. I hope that the Minister can give a positive response to us today, and maybe we can come back to this on Report.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

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

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

The noble Lord, Lord Polak, said that this was a practical proposal. I think the term tonight is “pragmatic.” That seems to be the one that the Government put forward in defence of their own position on other matters. This proposal is both practical and pragmatic and, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, says, gives us the chance to do something useful. It is useful for those who argue—and we have heard arguments—persuasively and anxiously that they are denied their back-up, in the words of the3million campaign.

The digital status will not be infallible, but there are steps to it which can fail at any point. The examples given by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, are very important ones of people who need and will value having physical documents. I add to them those who have been helped by organisations, sometimes organisations funded by the Government as part of these arrangements, who may not be able to make contact with the organisation in a few years’ time. They may not even remember which organisation it is, or the organisation may no longer be in existence. Yes, one might be able to search one’s computer to see where the information is. I cannot always remember who sent a particular email and, actually, I have my emails pretty well organised into folders and sub-folders. But then I suppose that I am “elderly”—and I would be grateful if Hansard put that in quotes.

The digital rollout is a big bang for the EU settlement scheme. Obviously, it is a matter of some pride to the Government, which is why they are so resistant; they have to hold on to this as a principle, because it is part of a rollout for the whole of the immigration arrangements. I assume that they will have some review before they continue with the rollout. One thing that I have learned during all this is that it took Australia 19 years to make everyone comfortable with purely digital arrangements, and Australia does not have the hostile environment provisions that we have in the UK. I very much support what my noble friend and others seek to do.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendment 49, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, inserts into the Bill a simple new clause that gives peace of mind to the individuals who request it. As the noble Lord said, it is very specific. I fully understand why someone would want physical proof that they have the right to remain here in the United Kingdom.

In his introduction, the noble Lord, Lord Oates, set out a number of examples of problems you may need to deal with. One is the whole question of being able to rent a property. You may be required to prove your status, and I can understand a landlord being reluctant. Of course, the Government have made sure that landlords will pay a heavy price if they rent out properties to people who are not entitled to rent them. I can see the same problem for employers. When you take somebody on, you need to check and confirm that they have the right to work here. Again, I can see an employer being worried that they could take somebody on and then find that they themselves have potentially committed an offence. There are real issues here.

The problem is that it probably will not happen next week but in 10 or 20 years when we are no longer involved, all the officials have moved on and God knows where the records are. That is part of the problem. If I was in this situation, I would want to have some physical proof that I could keep safe and that, if necessary, would protect me in future if my status were at some point questioned. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, said we have to understand the stress and anxiety of people not having that physical document that they can put away, knowing they have this proof. With the Windrush scandal we have already seen cases of documents not being around and people who have lived in this country for many years, often coming here as children, really struggling to provide proof. I also support the call for it to be free of charge.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, made a powerful argument about people who flee abusive relationships, which are all about control. If you do not have control of yourself—being able to rent that property or to get another job—you are almost forced to get back in contact with the person you have already left, fearing for your safety. It cannot be right that the Government are creating conditions that cause those problems for people.

Amendment 51, in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Rosser and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, seeks to do the same thing with slightly different wording. It says “must make provision”, whereas the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Oates, says proof must be available on request, but it is basically the same issue.

While sitting here, I was thinking about some of the things I do. I do not know whether other noble Lords have ever done a citizenship ceremony. It is very interesting. I have done hundreds of these ceremonies and spoken to hundreds of people who have been given citizenship. What happens is that you go into the council chamber in Lewisham Town Hall, I walk in, and then the official—normally one of the registration officers—explains carefully to the new citizens what it means to be a British citizen. They then have to swear or affirm an oath and we sing the national anthem. The final part of it is that they walk up and I hand them a certificate signed by the Home Secretary. I have handed them out signed by Theresa May, Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. The official tells them that this is a really important document and says, “Before you leave, please check that your name and those of your children are correct. It’s your right to be a British citizen”. Then we have our photograph taken. There are hundreds of photographs all over Lewisham of me handing out certificates to new citizens.

We have this situation in which if you are a British citizen you get a certificate, but if you have settled status you cannot have one. That is utterly ridiculous. I hope the Minister will see how nonsensical that is, go away and deal with this and come back on Report.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this afternoon my noble friend Lord Newby, speaking on a business Motion, made the point that Private Members’ Bills should come back on to our Order Paper. This would certainly be a candidate for that. I referred to this directive when I spoke to my Amendment 6 earlier today. We have heard long, careful and impassioned speeches from previous speakers, so I do not intend to say a great deal, but that should not be taken to be any indication that I do not feel strongly about these issues.

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is about how the support that we would all want to see for victims of trafficking is given. The Modern Slavery Act is only five years old, but thinking has moved on since then. Knowledge and understanding have moved on. We need to continue to develop and refine the support that is made available and recognise it as a right beyond guidance. It is a moral duty and it needs to be made certain in law. It does not require much imagination to understand that the need for protection varies from victim to victim, but it is likely to have to be long and intensive and, as we have debated in other contexts, certainty is an important component of recovery. I support this amendment very warmly.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I am delighted to support amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, and I pay tribute to his tireless work in this area over many years and I wish him success in the future. I am sure he will be successful. I hope we will shortly hear a positive reply from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, confirming that the EU anti-trafficking directive will still apply and that the Government will go further. As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, told us, leaving the EU does not compel us to offer less protection and less support to victims of modern slavery and trafficking.

I am also aware that in March, only a few months ago, the Government said that at the end of the transition period the UK will no longer be bound by the trafficking directive but they have not set out plans to retain or incorporate any of the directive into UK law. That is a worrying and alarming position. I will go further and suggest that it is hugely damaging to our reputation abroad. The UK has a reputation of being a safe haven for people fleeing persecution and for people in distress. We have a reputation as a compassionate country that deals with victims of abuse, trafficking and slavery justly, fairly and properly, but there have been too many occasions when this Government have shown a cruel, uncaring streak which I would not expect from a Government of the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, can take up the challenge of the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, and provide the Committee with the reassurance for which it is asking. At a minimum, we need to hear from the Government that they will put in place legislation that ensures that no matter what else happens as a result of Brexit, victims will be no worse off and will have no fewer rights than they have at present. In many areas they need to have more rights and to be treated with more compassion.

We also need to have on the record from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, the effect as he sees it of paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 on the position of victims of trafficking and their current protections. I support the call from the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, for at least a commitment from the Government not to use these powers to erode the rights and protections of victims.

I have in the past supported, and will continue to do so until he is successful, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, in his entirely correct campaign to speak up for the victims of modern slavery and afford them the same protections in England and Wales that legislation in both Northern Ireland and Scotland provides. The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, should be congratulated for taking the equivalent legislation through the Northern Ireland Assembly. It offers more protections that I, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and other Members of this House want to see applied to England and Wales.

I support the call from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for Private Members’ Bills to come back on the business agenda, and for me the Private Member’s Bill from the noble Lord, Lord McColl, should be top of the pile. It is a matter of great regret that the Government have not been prepared to support the noble Lord’s Bill. It is passed by this House and then crashes on the rocks in the other place, not even getting to the point of being discussed. That is a matter of much regret. The Government could in future agree to support the Bill and give it government time or, even better, announce maybe today or later that they will table a government amendment to appropriate legislation to ensure that the protections victims have in Scotland and Northern Ireland in terms of further care from the state will now be afforded to them in England in Wales.

Other than that, the Modern Slavery Act is a very good Act. Lots of good work was done by the former Prime Minister, when she was Home Secretary, to get it; she made a personal commitment to do that. My noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley served on the joint Bill committee to look at the legislation—I know lots of good work went on—but there is one area of further protections that the law is missing, and we should do more in that regard. For that reason, I very much support the call of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I look forward to the noble Lord’s response to this debate.

Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for pursuing this issue. We raised it at the early stages of the Bill, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Ludford for continuing the argument on Report. I should also acknowledge today the critique of the Bill at Second Reading by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark of Calton—I know that she discussed it subsequently with the Minister. She said then:

“There is nothing provisional about the consequences of being arrested.”—[Official Report, 4/2/20; col. 1743.]


Her remarks prompted me to think about the provisions of new Section 74A, taking account of weekends, bank holidays and so on. It was that—the extension from 24 hours to over a weekend or, in the case of Easter, even four days —which caused me to pursue the matter in Committee. That Committee marked the first outing of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay; I hope he feels some sense of achievement for his part in this. He explained that it was the Government’s intention to replicate the existing provisions of the Extradition Act. That, of course, drove me to the Act and to this amendment; the Minister, as she said, agreed to bring the matter forward at this stage.

I note that, in the papers for today’s proceedings, the Minister’s explanatory statement refers to the 24-hour period, which, if it had stood alone without the possibility of extension, could have been acceptable, but I agree with her that it is right to have consistency throughout the Act. I confess to a bit of continuing anxiety, and not just about consistency within the Act. I have to say I was fairly confused when I came to look at the Act; it is a mighty beast. The Minister explained on Report, and I mention it today, that the original drafting was to achieve a balance between getting the arrested individual before a judge as quickly as possible and allowing the police sufficient time to gather supporting information. It is the latter that concerns me. The police must have the information to make the arrest, so what more is needed? Can the Minister expand on that when she winds up?

I am also slightly anxious because, inevitably, a fixed time period is clearer—it is much more easily enforceable; but that is a concern about the 2003 Act more broadly. I was reassured at earlier stages by the two very eminent noble and learned Lords, with their experience as two of the most senior members of the judiciary, who spoke about the 24/7 availability of judges. What is practicable now—as the Minister has explained in talking about geography and so on—is much more than a few years ago. I am very happy from our Benches and virtual Benches to support the amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, for explaining the purpose of the amendments in this group, all of which are in her name. I am content with the explanation she has given, which is clear; the intent is sensible, practical, proportionate and, as noble Lords have heard, consistent with wording used in similar relevant legislation. On that basis, I am happy to support the amendments today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark [V]]

My Lords, I echo the noble Baroness’s comments. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the proceedings on the Bill. I enjoyed working with everybody concerned. I think that we have made the Bill better. As always, the noble Baroness has been courteous and kind and always prepared to engage with me constructively. I also thank all her officials from the Home Office for the way they have worked with me during the Bill’s passage.

[Baroness Hamwee [V]]

My Lords, I too thank everyone who has been involved with the Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said, it is not an easy subject, although some of the amendments that we have had to consider have in fact been relatively straightforward. I suspect we will discuss extradition quite a lot over the next few months and years, so we will all get to know the subject even better. I congratulate her on seeing this through. I really appreciate the help of officials and staff. Who thought, when we started on the passage of the Bill, that we would have had such an extraordinary experience?

Immigration (Citizens’ Rights Appeals) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Monday 9th March 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, for explaining the regulations to the Grand Committee this afternoon. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised all the points I was going to raise—

[Baroness Hamwee]

Sorry about that—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

It is absolutely fine. I shall not repeat them because it would detain the Committee longer than necessary, but the noble Baroness has raised some very important points. I support the regulations and we are pleased they are here, but our concern and worry is that the people who are vulnerable are those who have not picked up on the need to use this system. If they do not use it, they will find themselves, in June 2021, to be in the UK illegally, even if they have been here for many years. That is what we are worried about.

The other point of concern is that there have been a few issues in the Home Office in terms of appeals and other problems in the past. We are very worried that someone might find themselves in difficulty, so what we are looking for from the Minister is some reassurance about that and about how people will be treated. What will the Government do to ensure that people know they need to apply for this? It may well be that some of those people who are here from elsewhere in Europe are in quite low-paid jobs, do not have a lot of money and are just not picking up on it. What we do not want is a situation where people do not understand that they need to apply and find themselves in difficulty with the authorities and potentially being removed from this country when, had they applied, they would have been given the right to stay here. That is the reassurance every noble Lord here is looking for. In principle, I am very happy with there now being a right to appeal, so I will leave it there.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their points. I thought this would be the easy SI and that every noble Lord would be so happy with the appeal processes. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked why so many appeals are successful. An appeal may succeed where new information is provided.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

I am sorry for treating this as a conversation, but I understand that their funding goes to the 31st of this month, but they need to know, if they do not know already, whether they will be able to employ people to continue the service.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I understand that when this came up in the Commons the Minister said the thing should be resolved in a couple of weeks. That was a week ago.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

That is because we will be announcing the arrangements for the financial year 2020-21 shortly—in the Budget, I am guessing. I hope that rather clumsily answers the noble Baroness’s questions.

Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 5th March 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I tabled this amendment following the speech of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark of Calton, at Second Reading. She raised the issue of the time that a suspect—the person who has been arrested—might spend in custody before coming before the court. Someone arrested on the Friday before a bank holiday weekend might not go before the court until the Tuesday, if one excludes weekends and bank holidays. The impact assessment tells us that the legislation is likely to involve only half a dozen people, so without wanting to impose too much on our judiciary—I accept that it is pretty hard pressed these days—I do not see that it would be too much of an extra strain on them or on the police to deal with these matters over the weekend.

I am grateful to the Minister for calling me just before we started the Committee stage to say that, basically, I had got the drafting wrong. Okay, this is what Committee stages are about: to raise issues and to see how we can deal with them. The schedule provides that in calculating the 24-hour period before a person is brought before a judge, no account is taken of weekends, bank holidays and so on. Reference is made to provision elsewhere. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will deal with this matter. I look forward to him explaining this to me because I believe the argument is that that would mean that no one could be arrested on a Saturday or a Sunday. I am not quite sure that I follow that, but no doubt he will put that right.

When the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark, spoke at Second Reading on 4 February, she asked, at col. 1743, for some statistics on the number of arrests. I thought I should check on whether those have been made available. It may be that the matter was not pursued, the Minister having spoken to her. But as she said then, if there is a problem in relation to extradition to category 2 territories, the solution might be better co-ordination between the police and the judiciary to enable a warrant to be obtained at an early stage, or the involvement of the judiciary in a screening process instead of the designated authority. This is a useful opportunity for us to consider these points and I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I rise briefly to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. If he will now be covering some Home Office matters, we will be spending a lot of time together and will get know each other well, so that will be welcome.

The amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is very sensible and I am happy to support it. She set out the issue clearly: someone can be picked up on the Friday before a bank holiday weekend and potentially wait until the Tuesday morning before being brought before a judge. That is a fair point. If people are arrested, they should be brought before a judge quickly, so I look forward to the noble Lord’s response.

Law Enforcement and Security (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I have one final point. I will then leave it and move on. If we are to have more regulations, in the next few days or whenever, I hope the Government will take on point the concerns raised here and in the other place.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, it seems to me that there a number of stages to this. There is scrutiny and then, as the Minister says, making the final regulations accessible to practitioners. Those are not necessarily the same things and what one may also take away from this experience is the need—following the scrutiny to whatever extent it is successful—to produce final versions in each of the subject areas that can easily be used, without having to go through the awful trail that we are all familiar with.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is unable to be here but has asked me to move this amendment on his behalf so that we may get the matter on the record. However, I will not speak to Amendment 81, which is in this group and also in his name, because he will get the opportunity to do so if we leave it to be discussed in sequence on the next day of Report.

The amendment seeks guidance. We have government amendments in this group, and no doubt the answer to Amendment 3 is Amendment 106. In the Government’s amendment, the guidance is about a large number of offences relating to various sections in legislation, including Clause 1 of this Bill, and therefore it covers a wide area. Guidance can be very helpful—it sounds as though it will be essential here—but, as I have said before, it should not take the place of clear primary legislation. It is executive, not legislative. I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord’s Amendment 81, which he will speak to himself when we come to that point in the Bill, ask the Secretary of State to issue guidance. We are placing burdens on shop workers and delivery drivers, and it is incumbent on the Government to issue proper guidance. I know that we have the government amendments and I look forward to the Minister setting them out, as we have a situation where people can be prosecuted and end up in prison, so we need to make sure that they understand their responsibilities. I look forward to the Minister setting that out for the House.

Migrant Crossings

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made by her right honourable friend the Home Secretary in the other place earlier today in respect of migrant crossings. I join her in sending our best wishes, thoughts and prayers to those injured in the Manchester Victoria station attack on New Year’s Eve. I also join her in paying tribute to the emergency services and other agencies and individuals working in the English Channel in the most distressing and dangerous circumstances. We are very grateful for all the work they do in those difficult situations.

These are serious matters and should be treated as such. Action should be taken as necessary and the Government will have the support of the Opposition in that respect. But some of the language used in the past few days by the Home Office was a little florid, to say the least, when looking at the number of refugees we are talking about. I would prefer to see urgent action taken to deal with the problem that we all can see is there.

Perhaps the Minister could answer a few questions for me. Can she confirm that the UK is bound by the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and that all agencies of the state coming into contact with refugees have to act in accordance with its provisions? Does she accept that before anyone is deemed not to be a genuine refugee the facts surrounding their case must first be examined fully? On the deployment of the Royal Navy, can she set out for the House what orders are given to those deployed in the English Channel and can she explain how the various agencies are co-ordinating and working together? I think the Statement mentioned Border Force, Immigration Enforcement, the coastguard, the National Crime Agency and the RNLI, along with the various French authorities operating in the English Channel and on mainland France. Can she also tell the House what will be the total cost to the Home Office of the Royal Naval deployment and how that will be funded? Does she have any idea of the cost per person rescued, and how many people smugglers have been prevented and detained? Can she also tell us whether the operations that were taking place in the Mediterranean have now been suspended or reduced? Can she also explain what contingency measures have been put in place so as not to leave a gaping hole in other co-ordinated efforts? I thank the Minister in advance for her response.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement without pausing for breath after the last subject. Like her and the noble Lord, I am very aware of the situation in Manchester. I am sure that she feels as I do. When you know a place well, as we both know Manchester Victoria station, these things become even more vivid in one’s mind.

This is an awful situation, but relatively small numbers are involved in the context of the international refugee position. I too wonder whether it is appropriate to focus on the recent Channel crossings or attempts to do so and whether, if we were not still in mid-Brexit mode, there would not have been a rather quieter and calmer reaction to the situation. The Statement refers to the NCA taking action. Can the Minister expand on what that action is? It talks about tackling criminal activity and says that trafficking puts lives at risk—as indeed it does—and we were told that one person has been arrested. Was that for a trafficking or smuggling offence? I would be glad for confirmation that we are not talking about immigration detention here.

Of course one agrees with the Home Secretary that getting into a rubber dinghy is not safe, but we would much prefer the “safe and legal routes to sanctuary” formula, which is well known and widely used, rather than the “safe and controlled” formula, which seems to be a newly coined phrase. Finally, the Statement refers to work in countries of origin, which of course we support, but that does not deal with people fleeing persecution or war. The UK has an obligation to consider all asylum claims properly and fairly and to grant asylum to those who are eligible, regardless of how they got here. After all, many certainly do not want to have to escape their own country by these means. Does the noble Baroness agree?

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

That is an interesting response and I will have to think about it. I share the concern of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, not to involve the Executive where it should not tread. There could be parliamentary scrutiny. We have become possibly too reliant on codes of this and that to flesh out what lies underneath legislation—it is not something I much like, and I have obviously been sucked into it. So we could have parliamentary scrutiny if we had a statutory instrument, but we could also list in the Bill the sorts of examples we have talked about, in the way that the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, seeks to do in Clause 4. I think that that is a particularly good way of going about it.

I do not suppose the Minister can answer this, but his reference to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation prompts me to ask about progress in appointing the new reviewer. He is indicating that he cannot answer, and I did not expect him to, but it is a point that was worth making at some stage in this debate.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for outlining the position of the Government on this group of amendments. I appreciate his detailed response, which is beneficial to the Committee.

I will reflect on all the responses and comments—particularly the wise comments from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. Those comments could be interesting for guidance on other legislation before the House on which the Government take a contrary view. However, we shall discuss that in a few weeks’ time. At this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 10th September 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hamwee]

I do not suppose that that will trouble us in Grand Committee.

Clause 10 deals with the retention of data and its use as evidence. Clause 10(1) provides that data,

“may be retained for so long as is necessary in all the circumstances. This includes retaining it so that it may be used as evidence in proceedings in respect of an offence”.

“Necessary in all the circumstances” is quite a wide term. It may be unkind of me but, when I reread it yesterday, it felt as though the writer had run out of steam. One example is given but I would have expected more information about protections and clarification; otherwise, how does one challenge this? Therefore, the amendment is intended to ask the Minister how the Home Office envisages that this clause will operate in practice.

Given the example included, I wonder whether the Home Office anticipates producing guidance regarding retention, and that is the subject of Amendment 31. Amendment 32 is intended to probe the term “an offence”. Does this mean any offence? In particular, if an offence other than the object of this exercise is disclosed, is a fresh application needed or can this be—I will use the extreme term—an unending fishing expedition? I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raises three important amendments here and I look forward to the Minister’s response. She is right that, as written, the provision appears to be very wide in scope, and it would be better to have more clarification. The terms “in all the circumstances” and “an offence” are very wide, and it would be good to hear what they are. As the noble Baroness said, it would appear that there could be a never-ending fishing expedition, which in itself would not serve justice. I look forward to hearing the response to the very valid points raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank the Minister for saying she will look at those points. If we are mirroring PACE then we can mirror the guidance as well.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I think I am going to have to spend some time between now and Report familiarising myself with PACE or hand this over to my noble friend Lord Paddick, whose bread and butter it was at one time. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, but I remain faintly uneasy about how open this is. Nevertheless I thank the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 5th September 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, our exchange on the previous group of amendments, when the Minister gave a lot of assurances, makes me even keener on Amendment 5, which would require writing into the Bill that a designated international co-operation agreement must be in the form of a treaty. I understand that that is what was intended, so I think it would be more than appropriate to say so. Taking only the discussion about the death penalty, it argues for the amendment, given that the procedures for dealing with the treaty under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 include safeguards to be met before a treaty can be ratified which include transparency, debate in public, and so on.

The Minister gave a list of matters—I failed to write down all of them—to which the Government would have regard. I got down trust, mutual respect, judicial oversight and “must be compliant with HMG guidance”. The reference to guidance has my antennae twitching in this context. We do not want to rely on guidance; we want to rely on legislative certainty and the involvement of Parliament.

The Minister said either at Second Reading or in a meeting before Second Reading—we are always grateful for such discussion—that the Government would not enter into an agreement with North Korea. I could add to that nightmare not a treaty but a memorandum of understanding with North Korea, which would come nowhere near Parliament. Our laws have protection against a mad Executive and we should commit to using them.

We have had a long but inconclusive discussion about how human rights would be protected. A statement to Parliament under the 2010 Act procedure would deal with this. It might also set out standard clauses. I am unclear whether we should expect standard clauses in different co-operation agreements. They should be relatively straightforward in most cases.

For similar reasons, Amendment 38 would apply the affirmative procedure to regulations designating the co-operation arrangement. We all know about the problems with scrutinising secondary legislation.

Amendment 6 is to ask what is meant by participation in this context. Clause 1(5) refers to an arrangement,

“to which the United Kingdom is a party or in which the United Kingdom participates”.

What is participation in this context? I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has done her usual forensic job of going through the Bill and done a service to the Grand Committee. It is important that we are clear about what we are agreeing. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. It is right that Amendment 5 makes it clear that we are talking about the treaties which are subject to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. It is a sensible move.

Amendment 6 is a probing amendment at this stage. What is meant by participation? If you are a party to something, then there is what you are participating in, so clearly the Government think that there are two different things. It will be good to hear the Minister’s view on the difference between those two things and why they both need to be in the Bill. I am sure that “form of a treaty” needs to be in the Bill.

Finally, Amendment 8 ensures that whatever regulation is agreed will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure in the House. Again, I think that is important. Will the Minister confirm that the Government would do that anyway and, if so, say why it is not in the Bill?

Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness. I will add persistence to the attributes that have already been listed. As noble Lords have said, this was raised not only in the Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement but at a recent Home Affairs Select Committee taking evidence from the Home Secretary. In response to one member, the Home Secretary said that the Home Office had to get the right balance between the funding of the Home Office and the fees charged. Like other noble Lords, I question whether this is a matter of balance.

As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, mentioned, a memo giving a rundown of the cost of these fees and how they were justified was requested. The Home Secretary responded to the comment that, on the face of it, the fees go way beyond normal cost recovery by saying that it would be a “good exercise for me” as well.

We hear many complaints and expressions of astonishment about the level of Home Office fees generally. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, that the complexity of the system is at the root of this. When the Home Office introduced its premium service some years ago, my first reaction was that, given what all applicants have to pay, they should all get a reasonably quick and reliable service. I do not think I need to expand on that. The briefings have reminded me that I have often read about a whole family being subject to fees, particularly those payable periodically over a long period. That is similar to the position of Amelia, which has been mentioned. If it is not essential to pursue the matter, for instance with naturalisation, and it is too much for the family, some members are omitted. It may be children but often it is women. I can imagine the potential problems down the line in the cases we have heard about, quite apart from the issue of these children being unable to exercise their rights.

What is at issue is not entitlement but the registration of that entitlement. The child has a statutory right to citizenship and everything that goes with it. As noble Lords have said, this is not about immigration control. On Thursday, we will be debating the difficulties that some people face when they try to pursue activities in everyday life. However, these children are not migrants and, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, the leave to remain is not a substitute for citizenship, as is sometimes suggested by the Home Office. I understand that it is not necessarily available, but it is not for the Home Office to dismiss rights in this way.

In his strategy for social integration, the Mayor of London put it very bluntly, saying that,

“if a young person has the right to be a British citizen, then government should remove obstacles to them becoming one”.

He commented on the profit element, which is,

“at least ten times higher than in many other European countries”,

and is,

“preventing too many young Londoners from accessing the rights they are fully entitled to by law”.

The Project, to which the noble Baroness referred, is very telling and powerful and I will quote one short paragraph from it:

“High-cost fees are completely contrary to the promotion and process of integration. Fees act to divide, distorting the vibrant futures of us—and other young people—caught in the complex net of immigration and nationality entitlements. Fees prevent young people from working, paying tax and contributing economically to society”.


I think that meets the right reverend Prelate’s definition of citizenship. Picking up the noble Earl’s point about young people finding other families, I recently heard that one should not use the term “gang” when working with young people in gangs, because they regard the gang as their family. That needs to be recognised.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, recently reported on a remedial order following declarations of incompatibility with regard to the British Nationality Act. In that case, it was about requirements of good character. We raised potentially discriminatory provisions in British nationality law with the then Home Secretary, concluding:

“We would be grateful for an assessment and an explanation from the Home Office as to whether any such discrimination does in fact persist”,


and were pleased that the Immigration Minister responded that she would ask her officials to look at this. I cannot help thinking that charging fees in the way that we have been discussing is a form of discrimination.

I have read the Library briefing for Thursday’s debate. It refers to the work by Coram and the Children’s Society, which have reported that there are 144,000 undocumented migrant children in the UK. I do not know how many are in the categories we have been discussing but that is an astonishing and worrying figure. To summarise what other noble Lords have said, I end by saying, “and dot, dot, dot”.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Lister of |Burtersett has highlighted an important issue in her regret Motion and I agree with almost everything that every noble Lord has said in the debate so far.

First, my noble friend has highlighted the increase in the fees that have to be paid and that just over one-third of the fee payable is attributed to the costs involved. The Government generally have a confusing attitude to fees and charges, and consistency is at no point evident in the actions they take in this regard. Generally, I am in favour of cost recovery on fees and have been calling for this to be implemented in the planning system. That call has fallen on deaf ears—even my suggestion that the idea should be trialled in one local authority has not been taken up—so council tax payers are left subsidising applicants for planning permission. Despite the Local Government Association calling for this to be brought in, the Government will not engage with it. The overcosts referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, have now reached local government planning, because the fee is a local one and not a national fee set by the Government. In that respect the Treasury is not a direct beneficiary—which might explain its attitude.

Here we have the opposite. We go way beyond recovering the costs of the application and are charging a large amount of money and, in effect, making a large profit from the process of becoming a citizen. My noble friend asks the Government to withdraw the increase until they have done two things: first, published a children’s best interests impact assessment and, secondly, established an independent review of fees for registering children as British citizens in the light of the report of the Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement.

Dealing with each point in turn, an impact assessment has been produced in respect of the regulations which is fairly detailed in comparison with some other impact assessments I have read on other statutory instruments. However, my noble friend’s regret Motion to Regret is specific: it does not refer to the whole of the fees set out in the regulations but specifically to the increase that affects children. In that respect the impact assessment is fairly light.

As the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, said, the new Home Secretary, the right honourable Sajid Javid, has accepted that the fee is a very large amount of money. He said on 15 May:

“It is a huge amount of money to ask children to pay for citizenship”.


So my noble friend’s request for a specific impact assessment to be produced focusing on children impacted by this fee increase is reasonable, and I hope the Government will agree to it willingly.

The children impacted include those born in the UK; those who came to the UK at a young age, who have grown up in this country and often have no idea that they are not British; stateless children; and children growing up in local authority care. As we have heard, the British Nationality Act 1981 brought to an end being born in the UK on its own as a sufficient reason to acquire British citizenship—unless you were born to British parents. However, the Act recognised that there would be other children who also had a very strong claim, and if the level of fees being charged is becoming a barrier to that, it is a matter of much regret.

The second part of my noble friend’s Motion draws the attention of the House to the report of the Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement. This has a section on the naturalisation process, and two of its recommendations are particularly pertinent to today’s debate. On page 120, at paragraph 485, the Select Committee says that the fees charged for naturalisation should be much more in line with the actual costs and that the Government should not seek to make excessive profits out of the process. On page 122, at paragraph 492, it asks the Government to consider whether the fees should be waived for children in care and children who have spent their entire life in the UK. My noble friend is asking for an independent review to be established in the light of this report—and, again, she makes a very strong case.

I was struck by the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, brought to the debate. I will bring one final point to noble Lords’ attention. The fee in 1983 was £35. If that fee had increased only by taking into account inflation, it would today be £114.71—£897.29 less than the proposed fee of £1,012 in the regulations. As I said at the start of my remarks, I am in favour of cost recovery, so it should be set at least at that £372 mark—but those figures are stark and highlight why my noble friend is right. The Government should act quickly on this and the House should support my noble friend in the Division Lobby.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

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

[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.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, as this is my first contribution to the proceedings on the Bill today, I draw the attention of the House to my interests listed in the register—in particular, the fact that I am a councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Amendments 1 to 4, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and supported by my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, have my full support. The amendments in themselves might look quite small but they provide a clarity that is needed following examination of the Bill by noble Lords. A number of conversations have been held outside the Chamber to get the wording right.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, for the clarification at the start of his contribution and for the information that he has provided to the House today. Generally, his remarks are very welcome and I thank him for them. I also thank him for his personal support in getting the Bill on to the statute book to correct an error in the Housing and Planning Act 2016. As I have said before, it is not a good piece of legislation—I think it is an example of “act in haste and repent at leisure”. There have been one or two other problems with that legislation, as the noble Lord knows. I am very happy to support these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, Amendment 6 raises the issue of victims of domestic violence being charged a fee to provide evidence by way of a letter or some other acceptable form of confirmation to the authorities that they are a victim of domestic violence. That fee can range from £75 to £100 or even more. I think that it is completely wrong.

Certainly some GPs charge this fee. I accept that it is a minority of GPs, but it is wrong for any GP to charge it. I raised the issue both at Second Reading and in Committee, and I do so again today.

When the amendment was discussed in Committee, I had support from noble Lords around the House, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in that debate. I read again yesterday the response of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, to the debate in Committee. He agreed with me that charging a fee to a victim of abuse who is seeking evidence of their abuse to access a service is,

“far from an ideal situation”.—[Official Report, 24/1/18; col. 1058.]

I would go further than that and say that, in 2018, when domestic violence is centre stage—no longer an issue not talked about but out in the open, with perpetrators rightly condemned and brought to justice for the disgusting crime that it is—to charge victims a fee to provide evidence to prove that they are a victim so that they can get help is unacceptable.

The good news that the Minister gave the House the last time he spoke on the issue just does not go far enough. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, has tabled a Question on domestic violence that will be answered in the next day or two. I will raise the issue again if I can get in at that Question Time.

If you have been a victim of a crime and been beaten, distressed or frightened, it is not good enough to say that you can get around the issue of a fee by putting in a subject access request for your medical records. I have no idea what you would do with your medical records: I assume that you get a big pile of papers giving all your medical history and stuff. So for me it would be my blood pressure, and I am a diabetic so there would be issues about my feet, but I am not sure that medical records would say that you had been beaten, that you have a cut or that you have been bruised. Would they actually say that you had been a victim of domestic violence? If not, we are again in the situation where you might hand your medical records to the authority who might say, “Yes, it says you have a bruise to the head; it does not say that you have been a victim of domestic violence. You might have fallen over”. So there are some issues even with using the records. Will they actually deliver what the noble Lord says?

I think we should be very clear that no victim should ever be charged for a letter or any other form of evidence to say that they are a victim of domestic violence. We need to ensure that that happens. I accept that it is about the doctors’ contract and I am pleased that that is going to be reviewed in April, because it is certainly an issue. I accept that it is the Department of Health, not the noble Lord’s department, but this is an issue that we cannot let go: it is totally wrong that anyone is charged a fee to prove that they are a victim of a crime.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the Minister spoke at the outset of this afternoon’s proceedings about the Data Protection Bill—the Act as it will soon be—and data subjects’ rights of access to information. I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, about the extent of notes that doctors may keep. I have no expertise in this area but I know that I can sit in a doctor’s surgery and witter on for seven or eight minutes and it comes out, perhaps, as a reference to a consultant in two lines. I assume that the two lines are much closer to what is kept in the notes than my seven minutes of semi-articulate complaints.

I am also concerned about whether doctors, GPs particularly, will feel able to keep notes about their assessment, which might be just a guess, as to the reason for the injuries which they are considering. Some may, some may not, and some may be concerned about the implications for them if they get it wrong. Again, it is not something that I have come across, but in other walks of life, such as universities, where teachers may keep notes about students’ attainments or otherwise, I understand that there are concerns not to say anything that might come back to bite the writer of those notes. I certainly do not think it is something we can assume will be covered by the data protection provisions that will shortly be coming into effect.

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

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for arriving so late after amendments to which I had my name, as I was at the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I will not ask the Minister to respond to this, but just put it into the pot. I think he is saying that a person who has been the subject of abuse needs to go and consult a doctor, perhaps, and so get it into the records that advice and assistance has been sought, and then after that ask for the records to be released. I say that because other people involved in this work will look at what has been said and might have comments on it as well as the noble Lord and the Department of Health and Social Care.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank the noble Lord for his response. I am sorry I tabled the amendment fairly late, and will bring the issue back much earlier on Report. I hear what he says about the use of a subject access request to get medical records, and I am sure he is right. But imagine you are a victim of a crime, distressed and being told you need some evidence. Asking for your medical records may not be the quickest way to get it. Then what do you do? Do you take a big file down to the housing office? I see the point he is making but we need to find a simpler way.

I agree with the noble Lord that it is morally wrong that a victim goes to a doctor and is then charged £50, £75 or £100 to have a letter written. That is just wrong. I am pleased with what he said, but we need to go a bit further with this, as it is not right. I will certainly bring the issue back on Report. The noble Lord is right that there are other professions that do something similar, but it is a particular problem with GPs. People have the right to have a note written and not be charged for it. I thank the noble Lord for what he said, and I will happily withdraw the amendment at this stage, but I will raise the issue again on Report.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Report stage (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I tabled this amendment to keep the issue that I raised in Committee on the agenda. I spoke about it at some length in Committee. I think it is better determined by your Lordships’ House, rather than going off to the other place. I know the Minister has kindly agreed to a meeting. We have not had a chance to have it yet, but we will later this week.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, who sits on the Government Benches, fully supports this issue being debated. He, like me, hopes it can be sorted out here by Third Reading, rather than going to the other place. The basic problem is that provisions in the Bill potentially conflict with legislation in respect of elections and other matters already on the statute book. I went through those in Committee. I am sure we do not want to pass legislation that conflicts with existing legislation, but we risk doing that here. That cannot be right. What political parties, campaigners and politicians need—and certainly what the regulators need—is crystal clear legislation and regulation that they can apply. To pass something that is in direct conflict with the Representation of the People Act would be unwise. We need to have our meeting later this week and I hope we can bring something back at Third Reading. These are important issues that we need to get right to ensure that all legislation is working together. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Lord is keeping this on the agenda. I had a note to ask what was happening about the meeting to which lots of people were invited at the previous stage. I do not believe that we have heard anything about it. This is not a whinge but a suggestion that it is important to discuss this very widely.

I find this paragraph in Schedule 1 very difficult. One of the criteria is that the processing is necessary for the purposes of political activities. I honestly find that really hard to understand. Necessary clearly means more than desirable, but you can campaign, which is one of the activities, without processing personal data. What does this mean in practice? I have a list of questions, by no means exhaustive, one of which comes from outside, asking what is meant by political opinion. That is not voting intention. Political opinion could mean a number of things across quite a wide spectrum. We heard at the previous stage that the Electoral Commission had not been involved in this, and a number of noble Lords urged that it should be. It did not respond when asked initially, but that does not mean it should be kept out of the picture altogether. After all, it will have to respond to quite a lot of what goes on. It might not be completely its bag, but it is certainly not a long way from it.

We support pinning down the detail of this. I do not actually agree with the noble Lord’s amendment as drafted, but I thank him for finding a mechanism to raise the issue again.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the Minister has just proved a point that I made to a colleague who asked me whether I could explain all my amendments, and I said, “If I don’t, the Minister will”. Let us see what the Constitution Committee has to say, as I take its concerns seriously. To dispose of one small point, I accept what she says about the “timelessness”, which I think was the word she used, of certificates. I accept that some must always apply, but perhaps it is a point that the Government can take into account when thinking about publication of certificates whose relevance has—“expired” is probably the wrong term—passed.

I am still concerned about what is meant by “defence purposes”. The Minister referred to civilian staff. I cannot remember what the object was in the sentence, but we all know what she means by civilian staff. To take a trite example, can the Minister confirm that in “defence purposes”, we are not talking about records of holiday leave taken by cleaners, secretaries and so on working in the Ministry of Defence? “Defence purposes” could be read as something very broad. I will not ask the Minister to reply to that now, but perhaps I can leave the thought in her head.

Finally, I do not think that the right of appeal provides the same protection as applying oversight from the very start of the process. We have had that debate many times, but I shall leave it there for now. There is quite a lot to read, so I am grateful to the Minister for replying at such length.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response, which was very detailed. It was helpful to the House to get it on record. These are serious matters. The rights of the data subject must be protected, but equally there are issues of national security, and we must get that balance right. The House has been assured that we will get the balance right, which is an important part of our work here today. I am very pleased with the detailed response, and I have no issue with it whatever.

I shall read Hansard again tomorrow, as these are very serious matters, to fully take in all that the Minister has said. At this stage, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Amendment 133ZL is an amendment to Clause 42. Clause 43 deals with a data subject’s right of access. The onus is on the data subject to ask whether their personal data is being processed. If so, they have a right of access, although there are provisions about restrictions and the controller must tell them.

We have already touched on how you know that you are a data subject. The amendment would place an obligation on the controller to tell you. I appreciate that there would be considerable practical considerations. However, in a different context, time and again during the passage of the Bill we have heard noble Lords express surprise about what organisations know about each of us. It is irritating when it is a commercial organisation; it is a different matter when it is a law enforcement body.

Amendment 133ZM is a way of asking why the information to be given to a data subject under Clause 42(2) is limited to “specific cases”. Is this is a bit of the narrative style that I referred to earlier? Restrictions are set out later in the clause. What are the specific cases to which the controller’s duties are restricted? Should there be a cross-reference somewhere? The term suggests something more—or maybe something less—than the clause provides.

Amendment 133ZN takes us to Clause 42(4), which refers to the data subject’s “fundamental rights”— this phrase is used also in a number of other clauses. My amendment would insert references to the Human Rights Act and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, seeking not to reopen the argument about the retention of the charter but to probe how fundamental rights are identified in UK law. It is not an expression that I recognise other than as a narrative term. This is fundamental—if noble Lords will forgive the pun—to my questioning and the workability of all this.

On Amendment 133ZP, the same subsection refers to an “official” inquiry. I know what that means in common sense—in human speak, if you like—but what does it mean in legislative speak?

Amendment 133ZQ is a cross-reference. I queried what was in the clause and have had exchanges with officials about it. I thought that the Minister’s name would be added to the amendment. I would have been very happy if the correction had been made quietly, but apparently that was not possible. So the drafting is not mine, but it corrects a mis-drafting—would that be a gentle term for it? At any rate, that is what the amendment is about. I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, the five amendments in this group are all in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I should say at the start that I am not convinced by Amendment 133ZL and I look forward to the response of the Government. I am not sure that it is proportionate in respect of law enforcement processing. I had concerns about it before the debate and I have heard nothing to change my mind.

Amendment 133ZM widens the scope of the provisions and I am content with that. I am interested to hear from the Government why the three words to be deleted are so important: perhaps they can convince me of the merits of having them in the Bill.

Amendment 133ZN is proportionate and I happy to support it. I do not support Amendment 133ZP and, again, I have heard nothing yet to convince me otherwise. I await a response from the Government. Amendment 133ZQ seems proportionate to me in respect of the data controller being able to record reasons to restrict provision of information to a data subject and the reasons for refusing requests.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, as this amendment involves data provided by local authorities, I should declare my interests as a councillor of the London Borough of Southwark and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Amendment 53 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara would delete the first occurrence of the word “substantial” from paragraph 17(2) of Schedule 1 and Amendment 54 would delete its second occurrence from the same provision.

Healthy-functioning political parties are a vital part of our democracy. Campaigners and campaigning have moved on a long way from the days of hand writing envelopes to encompass much more sophisticated methods of contacting voters using all available mechanisms.

Political parties and their members need clarity and certainty as to what they are required to do, what they are able to do and what they are not able to do, so that they act lawfully at all times and in all respects. We cannot leave parties, campaigners and party members with law that is grey and unclear, and with rules that mean that campaigners, in good faith, make wide interpretations that are then found to be incorrect, due largely to the required clarity not having been given to them in the first place by government and Parliament.

I am also very clear that political parties are volunteer armies, with people volunteering to campaign to get members of their party elected to various positions in Parliament and in local authorities and to run various campaigns.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. I do not necessarily expect to get answers today but I hope that when he responds he will agree to meet me along with other interested Peers on the matters I am raising. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, from the Minister’s Benches would certainly like to meet him, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, would also wish to be involved in those discussions. I hope that the Minister will agree to that. I also think that it would be useful if any such meeting involved officials from the three parties to discuss how we can get this right; otherwise, there will be all sorts of problems for parties, party members and campaigners, and none of us wants that.

Therefore, my questions to the Minister are as follows—as I said, I shall be happy for him to write to me. Will he provide a list of the characteristics or activities that are required for a political party to conduct operations? Does he believe that the terms in relation to political activity in paragraph 17 of Schedule 1 definitively cover the required activities of UK political parties? Will he clarify what constitutes profiling with regard to the activities of political parties? What activities or operations with reference to paragraph 17(1)(c) of Schedule 1 would be considered necessary for a political party? Does he think that the procedure detailed in paragraph 17(3)(a), whereby a data subject can give written notice to require the data controller—in this case, a political party—to cease the processing of their data, is consistent with Section 13(3) of the RPA 1983, where parties hold and process data on the basis not of consent but of being supplied that data by a local authority via the electoral register? Given the regular transfer of registers to political parties, does the Minister think it is practical or enforceable for a party to cease processing the data, which will likely be resupplied by an authority?

Let me make the point this way: take elector A, who instructs the party to stop processing their data, and the party complies. But the party then gets given data from the local authority in the next round, and elector A’s information is included. As soon as the party processes that data, it will technically have infringed the law. This is very complicated and it would be useful if the Minister’s officials could meet people interested in this area and come back to us. Whatever we end up with following this process, it must be consistent and work, and it should not bring into conflict two different Acts of Parliament. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the rules as a bit grey and asked for clarity for the volunteer army. I should declare an interest as a foot soldier in that volunteer army.

The noble Lord’s request that party officials should be involved in this process is a good one—I would have thought they would have been. The Minister should be aware of my first question as I emailed him about this, over the weekend I am afraid. Has the Electoral Commission been involved in these provisions?

The noble Lord mentioned the electoral register provided by a local authority. My specific question is about the provision, acquisition and use of a marked electoral register. For those who are not foot soldiers, that document is marked up by the local authority, which administers elections, to show which electors have voted. As noble Lords will understand, this is valuable information for campaigning parties and can identify whether an individual is likely to turn out and vote and so worth concentrating a lot of effort on. I can see that this exercise could be regarded as “campaigning” under paragraph 17(4) of Schedule 1. However, it is necessary, although I do not suppose that every local party in every constituency makes use of the access it has. It is obvious to me that this information does not reveal political opinions, which is also mentioned in the provisions. I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s comments. I am happy to wait until a wider meeting takes place, but that needs to be before Report.

I want to raise a question on a paragraph that is in close geographical proximity in the Bill—I cannot see another place to raise the issue and it occurred to me only yesterday. Why are Members of the House of Lords not within the definition of “elected representatives”? We do not have the casework that MPs do, but we are often approached about individual cases and some Peers pursue those with considerable vigour. This omission—I can see a typo in the email that I sent to the Minister about this; I have typed “mission” but I meant “omission”—is obviously deliberate on the part of the Government.

Criminal Finances Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 3rd April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, if the Minister needs to answer my question after today, that will be fine. I well understand what the noble Baroness has said but some of the provisions to which this amendment will apply deal only with one area—mostly with Northern Ireland but one or two with Scotland. If there is a provision that regulations may apply to areas, how does that work when you have only got one area, as I understand it, being one of the four nations? They are not sub-divisible after that.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I am happy with the amendment. It is, unfortunately, necessary in this situation. I hope the parties can get round the table and get the Administration back and up and running again.

Criminal Finances Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, we have had groupings which have covered half a dozen big issues; Amendment 107 would amend the definition of SFOs— serious fraud officers—in Schedule 1, where we are told that an SFO officer is,

“a member of staff of the Serious Fraud Office”.

My amendment would add to that,

“of such minimum level of seniority as may be designated by the Secretary of State”.

Realistically, of course, this aims to exclude a very junior member of staff who has perhaps simply administrative duties and so on—I seem to remember the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, saying, “It wouldn’t mean the janitor”. I want to make sure that it does not mean the janitor. The SFO officers are referred to for various purposes, and after all, staff include civilians. I hope that whoever is to reply to this from the Front Bench—it seems that it will be the noble Baroness, Lady Vere—will be able to reassure the Committee as to just what is meant in this context and why there is no obvious limit: or perhaps there is one somewhere else as regards what level of officer we are talking about. I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

The noble Baroness’s amendment is obviously a probing amendment, and I hope that we will get a response from the Government Front Bench that clarifies the situation.

Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 219D, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Rosser, would be an important step in enabling police and crime commissioners to tackle online abuse of children. Only once local police forces begin systematically collecting these data can we know the prevalence of the issue. Only once the prevalence of the abuse is known can commissioners begin to tackle it and to provide adequate resources and appropriate services. Digital technology has fuelled an explosion in these crimes over the last two decades, including children being forced to commit sexual acts online and children being groomed online for the purpose of abuse and exploitation in the real world. The impact of these horrendous crimes can be devastating, and children can be repeatedly revictimised as images of their sexual abuse are viewed online by offenders all over the world.

At a national level, progress on tackling these crimes has been made, such as the Child Abuse Image Database. The centralised expertise of the National Crime Agency also plays a key role in keeping children safe in the most severe cases, but we remain concerned about the ability of police forces to respond adequately to online offences committed against children at a local level. The recent HMIC child protection report found that there is a huge local variation in the response to these offences, including delays of up to 12 months in forensically examining devices. Such delays can have serious implications for the safeguarding of children, including children not being promptly identified and safeguarded and reoffending taking place while a device is still being analysed.

An NSPCC freedom of information request found that police use of cyberflags to monitor online sexual crimes against children is worryingly patchy. A small number of forces said they were not using this or did not know about mandatory cyberflags. It is imperative that this failure to cyberflag offences is addressed. Requiring local forces to collect these data, in addition to the data collection outlined in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, could help address this variation and help to build a local picture of prevalence.

In June, Operation Lattise, Police Scotland’s first national operation to crack down on online child sexual abuse, brought the scale of the problem into sharp focus and demonstrated what can be achieved when there is a focused response. Running for six weeks, the operation resulted in 77 people being arrested and charged as a result of 134 investigations. This led to more than 30 million indecent images of children being recovered.

As police and crime commissioners develop their local plans, the Government must ensure that the police focus their attention on this area, and this amendment would help to do that. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, no one would suggest that the issues to which the noble Lord has referred are not hugely important, but I shall make a point which may not be wholly popular. There is a limit to what legislation can do when—to me and I think to my noble friend Lord Paddick, with whom I have consulted very briefly—it is a matter of culture and practice.

I believe that police and crime commissioners have made a start on sharing information. I suspect there is a long way to go and that most of them would say that there is a long way to go, but to provide that everything that is good practice—I am probably arguing against an amendment that I have already proposed on a different issue, and more that I will propose—and that culture and practice can always be enshrined in legislation, which requires the issue to go up to the Home Office and then come down again, is something that I would not go so far as to say I am instinctively against, but I feel instinctively needs to be questioned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

I recommend the report.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, as the Minister said, understanding the overall scale, complexity and prevalence of the threat is crucial. I am pleased to learn what the department and the police are doing. It is important we understand this.

I accept the point about data that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made. I also accept her point on legislation. This is such a complex problem. We do not quite know what we have here, as unfortunately new things are developing all the time, so it is worth trying to explore and make sure that our legislation is correct.

However, I am very happy at this stage to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, young people aged 16 and 17 are still children although they are legally able to consent to sexual activity, get married and undertake a number of other matters and be deemed responsible for their behaviour. Amendment 220, in the name of my noble friend Lord Rosser and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, seeks to put a new clause in the Bill to create a new offence of the abduction of a vulnerable child. Most 16 and 17 year-olds are not well protected, with a tiny minority subject to the protection of the Children Act or in police protection. Children of this age can get themselves into all sorts of problems and can be targeted by adults who seek to exploit their vulnerability. The amendment seeks to create a specific offence.

Amendment 222 would require police forces to collect annually the number of child abduction notices issued, the number breached and the number of sexual risk orders and sexual harm prevention orders issued following such a breach. This information would have to be laid before Parliament in the form of a report. This would provide valuable data to both Parliament and the Government so we can see what is happening and make specific policy and legislative changes with relevant information to hand, if deemed necessary. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I can sum up my comments really as, “as above”. The points I made on the previous amendments are relevant, although the report I have just mentioned called Heading Back to Harm is particularly relevant here. There are so many associated issues that I would prefer the focus to be on practice—I will add it to my point about data—including trust in authority. In some situations, lack of trust in authority is a big component in young people who have been rescued going missing again. I do not underestimate the importance of the issues at the heart of this. Can the Minister give the Committee any information about the success of child abduction warning notices, where they apply, now, before we seek an extension?

Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, Clause 114 concerns defectively deactivated weapons. As we have heard, we have some of the toughest firearms laws in the world, and I am very pleased about that.

In this grouping the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has given notice of his intention to oppose Clause 114 standing part of the Bill, although he did not speak to that. However, I do not agree with his opposition to the clause. I think that we would want deactivated weapons to be sold or gifted to people only when they met the highest standards available. If people want to sell these weapons within the EU, they should be certified to the appropriate standard. That is the answer to the problem—not to delete the whole clause.

However, the noble Earl’s amendments raise important points that need to be considered carefully and responded to by the Government. My general position on firearms is that our legislation has had a positive effect and we should always keep matters under review, with a view to seeing where updates or amendments can be made, so that we never relax our tough approach. Having said that, I see the point the noble Earl is making—if you inherit a weapon, potentially an offence can be committed. We need to look at that, although I am not sure that we should do as he suggests.

The noble Earl also made the important point about transferrals to a body corporate, which can be used as a way of getting round legislation. I am not sure what effect the last amendment in the group would have, but he has raised some very important points and I look forward to hearing what the Minister says.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, when the Minister introduces Amendment 203K, which is about extending the period for considering an application for the renewal of a certificate, can she say whether this is being proposed because there are problems generally or in particular forces? In other words, are there just a few difficulties or is this a widespread issue, in that the police do not find eight weeks sufficient? I raise this because of the concern that 16 weeks might easily become the norm, given the opportunity to extend.

Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, told the Committee, this clause confers lifelong anonymity on the victims of forced marriage in England and Wales. The first amendment, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, extends that provision to cover Northern Ireland as well. I understand that this is at the request of the Justice Department in Northern Ireland. That is welcome, and we on these Benches support these amendments. Amendment 215 is the main amendment, while Amendments 237 and 241 are consequential and would bring the provision into effect.

Amendment 219CA is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. She makes a powerful case to right an injustice that leaves the victim unable to seek redress. That is not right, and the Government should come forward to correct this. I will be interested to hear what the Minister will say in her response to this amendment. She made a persuasive argument; I hope that we will get a positive response from the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, and that the Government can deal with it, either now or on Report.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, we on these Benches very much support the noble Baroness’s amendment. She has obviously been working at this for some time—I see from her face that she has—and her explanation is clear and obviously based on the experiences of which she is aware. So we give her our support.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group; most of them are amendments to the government amendments and most of them come in pairs.

Amendment 99A is the first amendment of these pairs and deals with the licensing authority having to set an expiry date for a licence for someone who has been granted limited leave to enter or remain in the UK. The Government are proposing that the licence period,

“must end at or before the end of the leave period”,

which could mean a significantly shorter time before the end of the leave period. My amendments would mean that the licence would end at the end of the leave period. It would be fairly obvious that I would want to ask why the Government think it necessary to make provision for it to end some time before the end of the leave period. Presumably, the licensing authority can grant a licence for a shorter period in any event. I can see the need that it should not go on beyond the end of the leave period, but why does it have to be less?

Amendment 99B is the first of the other pairs of amendments. If leave is extended, the licensing authority can set the duration of the licence, which must not be more than six months. Again, I would ask why. I am proposing that the licence should coincide with the leave period. I make the point that I made in the previous group of amendments that we are dealing with people’s livelihoods.

Amendment 117 is pretty much the same as the amendment in the previous group about whether an appeal, having been successful, can be entertained when a licence has been refused and is appealed on. I lost a grip of what the Minister said on that and will have to read Hansard, but he will probably have the same answer.

On Amendments 120 to 124, Schedule 2 provides for guidance from the Secretary of State to the licensing authorities in determining whether an applicant for a licence is disqualified because of his immigration status. My amendments amount to a requirement to consult with representatives of the licensing authorities, including Transport for London.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, this group comprises a large group of government amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and a number of amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. It is clear that the government amendments are included to make matters clear and consistent across all relevant lines of legislation. That in itself is a good thing. But for me that further illustrates the point that this legislation has been rushed and ill thought out and these revisions should have been in the Bill from the start.

Also, the Secretary of State is given powers in these government amendments to amend fine amounts by secondary legislation. That may be perfectly acceptable in this case. But the Government like their secondary legislation, hiding behind the limited ability of Parliament to hold them to account in such circumstances, but that I think is a wider issue for the House.

I have looked at the amendments put down by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and with respect to Amendment 117, they have a good point to make. It is not unreasonable for the courts to take into account that, after the date of a decision being appealed against, the person has been granted leave to remain in or enter the UK.

I take it that the other amendments are probing in nature in order to assist the Committee in further understanding the intention of the Government and satisfying noble Lords that what is being proposed is achievable, and of course they can be retabled later in the course of the Bill if we think it necessary. I very much accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that these are important issues that concern people’s livelihoods.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, Amendment 134 in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Rosser, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, would allow those asylum applicants who have been waiting for longer than six months for a decision on their asylum application to be allowed to work. The latest immigration statistics show that about 3,600 applicants have been without an initial decision for longer than six months. The only exception that they are presently allowed is that after 12 months an asylum seeker can apply for permission to work, but only in national shortage occupations.

When this is compared to other countries in the EU, we are certainly not generous. All EU member states, with the exception of the UK and Ireland, permit applicants to work after nine months, and some have gone further: Belgium and Denmark permit work after six months, and in Germany it is after three months. For many asylum seekers, not being allowed to work means that they are unable to develop and maintain skills, and for professional people this can have a very difficult effect on their future employment prospects in this country, if in due course they are granted asylum status and allowed to work, or return to their country of origin or move elsewhere. Allowing asylum seekers to work after six months would also cut the cost to the taxpayer, as those who found work would no longer need to be supported by the taxpayer.

Amendment 134A, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, would make a small but important change, allowing asylum seekers to work after 12 months as a matter of right without having to apply for permission. I support the aims of that amendment as well. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, my name is to this amendment. I am particularly delighted that it has been moved from the Labour Front Bench since this was not something on which they felt able to support us during the last Parliament. This is something that we sought to achieve then even though we were part of the coalition Government. We have tabled this amendment to the Bill in these terms in the Commons. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno will have a good deal to say on it, as he has had a Private Member’s Bill on the subject and argued for this proposition many times.

I will not take long, but I do not apologise for the fact that the arguments are not novel. According to the latest immigration statistics, I am told by the Refugee Council, over 3,600 applications for asylum have been without an initial decision for longer than six months. As the Refugee Council comments, when you take into account their dependants, that is nearly 5,000 people living on little over £5 a day in asylum support who are unable to work. It seems to us that applications should not drag on and, as the noble Lord said, six months, which is the Home Office target, is not overly ambitious. In any event, what is to be gained by a restriction that continues up to the 12-month point?

It seems that a lot is to be lost: contribution to the economy through work and taxation; savings for the state on asylum support; and, as for the individuals, the impact on their self-esteem, mental health, possible—probably likely—loss of skills, and the ability to find employment when the period comes to an end. It also seems that this restriction reinforces exclusion. For those who stay, their community integration is important and we should not delay it, because more than half of the asylum seekers who come here stay.

This is a very topical point, as a colleague, Suzanne Fletcher, who was a councillor in the north-east and who is still a very active Liberal Democrat, has been all over the media today on the issue of the red doors, on which the Times has reported—doors that were painted red so that the occupants could easily be identified as immigrants. Of course the Minister, James Brokenshire, immediately criticised that, and I believe that the Government are taking steps there. However, from the emails I have seen on this subject today, it has taken years of campaigning to bring this to attention. That shows what power the media have, because Suzanne had taken that matter to the National Audit Office and to one of the Select Committees in the other place.

Would relaxing the current restrictions be a pull factor? Is there evidence of that? I suspect not. If your reasons for coming here are economic rather than to seek asylum, I would have thought that six months would be quite a deterrent in itself.

Our Amendment 134A deals, as the noble Lord has said, with the 12-month period. Currently, if you are here for more than 12 months, although you may be able to work, your work is confined to the “shortage occupations” as designated by the Home Office—for the same reasons, of course, that could be applied to the six months. In addition, however, the list of shortage occupations, which I had a look at over the weekend, seems to be made up almost entirely of technical or professional occupations and often requires references from previous employers, which I suspect are by definition unavailable, or requires UK qualifications. Therefore, asylum seekers would not be likely to get such jobs, because the period of their stay is uncertain, even if they were qualified to do them. They are more likely to get low-skilled jobs that British citizens, frankly, are often unwilling to undertake.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am conscious of the time, but we need to spend just a few more minutes on this. I shall not take too long. Noble Lords who have spoken have identified very serious drawbacks in the legislation, even if one ignores the thrust of these provisions, as I do not wish to do. If they are to be implemented in the way in which the Government wish, the points that have been made are very well made, and I am sorry that we kept the two noble Lords so late in order for them to be able to make them.

I have my name to a number of amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy. I think the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is about to speak to them.

On Amendment 152, I want to make a point that once again has come from Crisis, which says that there are a number of situations where a claim for asylum fails but the person is unable to return to his country because there is no stable state to return to, or it is unclear where they should return to—we are familiar with these problems, of course. It says that at the very least the Home Office should clarify these people’s status with regard to the new eviction process.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, this group of amendments contains some very sensible protections for landlords, who could find themselves in difficulties and at risk of prosecution and a fine, imprisonment or both, although they have taken all reasonable precautions and have no intention of breaking the law. Landlords, as has been said before, are not immigration officers. One of the concerns about this section of the Bill is that people will take reasonable precautions but will still find themselves in difficulties and possibly at risk of prosecution.

The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, is both simple and effective, and he has made a compelling case here today: the landlord would not commit an offence if they had taken reasonable steps and there was no reasonable cause not to believe that other persons who met the first and second conditions were residing at the property.

Amendment 149 seeks to afford landlords protection when they are prohibited from evicting a tenant under new Section 33D(4), and Amendment 150, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, would protect landlords who were acting diligently to evict people who were disqualified as a result of their immigration status. Again, the noble Earl has made a compelling case as to why the amendment should be supported.

I have no issue with Amendment 153 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bates. The remaining amendments are in the names of my noble friend Lord Prosser, myself and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. These important amendments would ensure that individuals and families could be evicted only following due legal process, by removing from the Bill the provisions to grant new and extensive powers to landlords outside the oversight of the courts. I say to the Minister that the Government really are creating a very difficult situation here. This whole part of the Bill puts significant pressure on landlords, with tough penalties and little protection, along with extensive new powers with no oversight by the courts.

There is a real risk here, as has been said by other noble Lords, that landlords will just not rent the property to anyone who looks as though they might be more of a risk, and great injustices could take place. To make it worse, the courts are to be excluded from the process of evicting people if they are resident in a property. This is not right, and the Government are going to have to make some movement on these matters again. I hope the Minister will agree to meet Peers who are interested in these matters and campaigners before we come back on Report.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have some amendments in this group. The first is an amendment to government Amendment 47, on the power to make an LME order. Under subsection (1) of the new clause, the court must be,

“satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the person has committed, or is committing, a trigger offence”.

My amendment would change the balance of probabilities to “beyond reasonable doubt”. A trigger offence relates to offences under other legislation as well as being an offence in itself so I do not understand why the civil standard of proof is thought to be appropriate. If the answer to this is that it is in effect covered by the new clause in Amendment 49, which is different, then is there not a problem in having differing standards of proof? I would be grateful for an explanation here.

Amendment 50A is an amendment to government Amendment 50. It would leave out the provision that one of the purposes of a measure—a “prohibition, restriction or requirement”—included in an LME order is bringing it,

“to the attention of persons likely to be interested in the matter”,

and other points. If this is about communication across the actors in labour market enforcement, should it not be for the director to make sure this happens? Why is it a measure in a court order? It does not seem a matter for the courts. I can see that it may be necessary, for instance, to inform employees about an order but it seems very cumbersome and not appropriate in this context.

My final amendment in the group is an amendment to government Amendment 57, which, dealing with “Offences by bodies corporate”, defines an officer of a body corporate as including a “manager”. My amendment would take that out. I am used to seeing directors, secretaries and so on as officers of a company but a manager—though I admit I will be very out of date on company law provisions—to me means something quite different and not with the same responsibilities as a director of a company.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, here again we have a series of government amendments in varying degrees of complexity. I want further information on some of these amendments in relation to other requirements and punishments relating to people who commit the offence under various Acts as listed in government Amendment 43 and other amendments in the group. Is the noble Lord saying that in all cases of alleged offences, first they will be dealt with under the Acts he referred to in his contribution and only later on will an LME be sought? Will he clarify that when he responds and also how it is all going to work?

A trigger offence is committed and action is taken, as the noble Lord outlined in his amendments. Then requirements are sought from individuals and that can be a prohibition, a restriction or a requirement for further action that will reduce the risk of the person not complying up to a maximum duration of two years. He said that this could be reduced on application by the enforcing authority. My concern is that the Government do not always have a particularly good record in ensuring that all these present requirements are enforced to the full extent. If you look at the enforcement activity for breaches of the national minimum wage, I would suggest it was not a record to be particularly proud of. Will these additional burdens make enforcement easier and more effective or not? It would be useful if the noble Lord could respond to that point as well.

My noble friend Lord Rosser made reference in a previous debate to the question of how, with increased work and cuts in resources, we can ensure that these increased powers will be properly resourced. The worry is that there will be so much stuff here that we will actually end up with poor enforcement, not better enforcement.

Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Transparency in Supply Chains) Regulations 2015

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, this is indeed a significant statutory instrument. Whether it will fulfil its potential depends on its implementation and the practice that is adopted by organisations, as well as the response by the public. Like other speakers, I think that the content of the statements is more important than the process, and inevitably the statutory instrument is focused on the process.

Actions beyond the legislation—the statute and the statutory instrument—will be important. Like other noble Lords, the first point that I wrote down related to monitoring and whether there would be a central repository and a website to cover what may be, according to the impact assessment, 17,000 or 11,000 companies—a number of figures are given. It seems to me that the demand for that was reflected in the responses to the consultation, as reported on the Home Office website. This is not just for citizens, NGOs, civil society or indeed government to check and to hold companies to account; surely the repository, or depository, also has a function in spreading good practice and disseminating information about methodologies. The responses to the consultation seemed to show a need on the part of companies for assistance in how to identify slavery. The section on supply chains in the commissioner’s strategy, to which the noble Earl has just referred, under the heading “How will we know that the response is improving?”, says:

“Best-practice models of business and supply chain transparency to be established and widely adopted”.

Clearly there is a lot of work to be done in this area, so the guidance on how to do it is important. We are told that this is to be,

“published to coincide with the duty coming into force”,

which, I understand, will be in October. Can the Minister help the House as to whether the guidance will be published before then? Surely if a duty is in effect, one needs to know beforehand how to comply with that duty in the way that, I hope, the guidance will cover.

I note, too, that transitional provisions are to be developed, and I wonder whether the Minister can explain what that means. The first point that occurred to me on this was that the duty comes into effect in October, but how does that relate to any given company’s financial year? Presumably that will be a basis for making a statement and an assessment. The Government must have thought through whether, for instance, the duty will apply to a report only after there has been a full financial year of experience. I may be barking up the wrong tree here but if the Minister can help the House on what is anticipated in the transitional arrangements, it would be useful.

The responses asked whether the provisions could apply to companies below the threshold. I assume that there is no reason why not. In our debates on the Bill, we talked about the reputational benefits of providing statements.

More widely—I do not know whether the Minister can answer this—what sense does the Home Office have of a buy-in of enthusiasm for this process, for instance among institutional investors? During the progress of the Bill, we talked about the position that shareholders have and the influence that they may have on companies, so the institutions, as the biggest shareholders generally, will be in an important position. I used a search engine to see what was being said about this subject and found that a number of City lawyers and accountants are including advice on the subject in their newsletters, but it will be the shareholders—and the concern not to upset shareholders—that will be central to the operation of this measure.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to the effectiveness of these arrangements. In that connection, I noted that the impact assessment seems to deal with the regulatory burden, not with the costs of the investigation leading to the content of the statement. Checking that there is no slavery in the chain is the objective, despite the get-out of the “no statement”, so it seemed to me that there was a danger that the impact assessment might be sending an inappropriate message.

I was interested, too, that quite a lot of respondents disagreed with providing key performance indicators—not a majority by any means, but the indicators are referred to in the legislation and they are important because they will show trends. We are talking here about not just snapshots but trends. I do not know whether the Minister can say anything about that.

Almost finally, we have heard about the requirements on the Home Secretary to report. Is there an intention to report more frequently than the statutory minimum? And finally—this matter was raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, during the passage of the Bill—can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to check on their own procurement?

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I generally welcome these regulations but have a few concerns. I am delighted that they have appeared before your Lordships’ House as close as we could get to Anti-Slavery Day, which was yesterday. Slavery and human trafficking are appalling crimes. Estimates have suggested that anything up to 13,000 people who are victims of modern slavery could be living here in the UK, and the Walk Free Foundation has estimated that there are 35.8 million people in modern slavery throughout the world. Those are appalling figures.

During the passage of the then Modern Slavery Bill through your Lordships’ House, many examples were given of multinational businesses using very long and complicated supply chains across the world, which, due to their nature, can sometimes allow slavery to thrive. The regulations before us require companies with a turnover of £36 million or more to produce a statement that sets out the steps that the organisation has taken during the year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in any of its supply chains or in any of its own businesses, or a statement that the organisation has taken no steps at all. The statements must be published on the organisation’s website with a link in a prominent place on the home page of the website.

I am pleased that following the consultation the Government opted to include within this legislation companies with a minimum annual turnover of £36 million and that they did not go for a maximum threshold as a possible option. It was also clear from the consultation exercise that this figure was supported by most—more than 70%—of the people consulted. Like the noble Lord, Lord Alton, I noted that the Home Secretary has to produce a report. Regulation 4(2)(c) refers to “the extent to which” the objectives,

“could be achieved with a system that imposes less regulation”.

I would have preferred something that referred to more effective regulation rather than the word “less”. This is such an important issue that “less” lays the wrong emphasis on the regulation.

The Home Secretary is required to publish a report within five years of the regulations becoming law and thereafter every five years. Five years seems a terribly long time. We should have more frequent reporting—say every two or three years—which would enable us to more quickly identify issues that need to be addressed. This would ensure that the regulations are having their intended effect rather than to having to wait for just one chance in every Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. We will have the company statements on the company website, but the only issue with the central repository, of course, is that if you have 7,000 to 10,000 companies, it will be difficult if they are not all in one place. I think that there has been some movement from the Minister tonight, but can he explain why he thinks that this should not be done by government? Why should it be left to civil society or a third-party organisation? It is an important point and it seems to be the missing part in all this.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I wonder if I could add to that, because it is part of the same question. I am sure that the Minister does not mean it in this way, but the more it is said that this is not a matter for government, the more one worries about how the Home Secretary is going to fulfil her duties in keeping the matter under review if she does not have that facility available to her. The information is very much a matter for government and therefore the Government must have an interest in ensuring that it is easily accessible.

Localism Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Monday 10th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have Amendments 197FA and 197FAA in this group, and I am well aware that my noble friend at the Dispatch Box will tell me that what I am proposing is not lawful. What I am proposing is that a local authority can apply its own criteria essentially in assessing the expressions of interest, and include whatever restrictions and requirements it thinks appropriate—to very much the same aim, the same end, as my noble friend. I have no expectation about the amendments being accepted but, like him, I am looking for reassurances.

My noble friend the Minister said in response to the previous group of amendments that an expression of interest by two or more employees would not be a proxy for a commercial organisation, and referred to that in terms of abuse. I wrote down what he said about that but confess that, having printed off the policy statement to which he referred some weeks ago, I have completely forgotten about it, and it is probably somewhere in a pile of papers on my desk at the moment. What he said was that those expressing an interest would have to show that they are capable of providing a service, that they had engaged with the staff, and that what they were doing was not vexatious or frivolous. I have to say that I would have thought that any commercial organisation will very easily satisfy those criteria.

A concern to which my noble friend Lord Greaves has not referred is that having set up the arrangement—and this of course is not just something that would apply to the two employees; it could apply to a community body as well—it could then sell the business or dispose of the shares in the company which it had formed to run the service. I have not seen any way in which this could be prevented. I suspect that I would be told that it would be improper to prevent it. But it concerns me that it is taking this proposal a good deal further than appears on the face of the Bill.

I turn to subsections (5) and (6) of Clause 71, the first dealing with an expression of interest, the second dealing with a procurement exercise. Both talk of the authority considering—and I will come back to that term—whether the activity would,

“promote or improve the social, economic or environmental well-being of the authority’s area”.

Well indeed, and well and good. But consider: it is not bound to apply those factors. It needs to consider them. I dare say that means that it must be able to show how it has considered them.

Turning to subsection (7), we are told that this,

“applies only so far as is consistent with the law”.

There is no particular assurance at all here, if I may say so. Subsection (7) refers to the procurement exercise but I am worried that an authority may well read this as applying to the expressions of interest as well. In general, I suspect that local authorities will need quite a lot of reassurance over how they apply these provisions.

I speak only for myself in this. I am finding it difficult to articulate some of the unease that is almost more instinctive than technical. However, general expressions of reassurance and consolation may not go quite so far, technically, as to amount to real reassurance. I have rambled enough. I hope that the House has a sense of my unease.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I shall be brief. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, raises important concerns. The other amendments in the group seek a process to deal with these concerns. Without these amendments or something else, it is all rather open to interpretation, which is not a good place for us to be. I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about the sense of unease.

The amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Tope, and my noble friend Lord Beecham, are absolutely right. They make provision for a consultation process with the users of a service, their representatives and residents of the area. If the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, is unable to accept these amendments, will he tell the House when he responds how he squares that with his previous remarks about localism? I genuinely feel that the Bill is confused. In some cases it gives power to the local community, in some cases it takes it back. There is a lot of regulation. It is all a bit confused here. I would be grateful if the noble Lord could address that point in particular.