Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Teverson

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall not keep the House for a great deal of time. This is an issue which I believe to be fundamental, which is why I have brought it back on Report. I thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee for having simplified it down to its basic elements so that we get to the crux of the matter.

When we talked earlier this evening about bringing together families who were asylum seekers, it was interesting how the Minister agreed, as he obviously would do, that it is much better that asylum families are able to live together. I think that what is not recognised or realised by the vast majority of the population is that we do not in many circumstances allow British citizens to live together with their spouse or civil partner. There are many instances where British citizens who have married are not able to bring their spouse or civil partner to this country to live with them, or if they are abroad and wish to do that, they are effectively exiled. If they have children, who are then usually entitled to British citizenship, those younger citizens are also effectively exiled from their country of citizenship.

The reason for that is the requirement of a certain income per annum for the British citizen over a period of time to enable them to live with their chosen civil partner or spouse. It seems fundamentally wrong that we as British citizens are constrained about who we are able to marry or enter a civil partnership with and are unable to live in our home state. Not only is that fundamentally wrong; it is discriminatory in terms of income levels, with those in certain professions or work or those in certain regions less likely to be able to live with their spouse or civil partner in the United Kingdom, with their family, than are those in other trades and professions and other regions.

For a party and a Government who believe that family is of fundamental importance and for a party with many libertarians among it who believe in the freedom to marry and live with who you wish as long as it is not a sham marriage—clearly those exist, and the amendment takes that into account—I have brought this amendment forward again. I believe that there is a fundamental discrimination and a fundamental injustice in terms of what British citizenship should mean and the liberties that this country should offer to its citizens. On that basis, I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, at the previous stage my noble friend and I tabled an amendment that sought to change the financial thresholds that currently apply to spousal visas. The Minister gave as one argument for the threshold the need to protect families, saying that the Government want to see family migrants thriving here, not struggling to get by. But separation does not help people to thrive. The Minister thanked my noble friend for raising our sights at that point by talking about love. So instead of another amendment on financial thresholds, my noble friend and I have decided to say what we mean, which is this: do not set a financial threshold on love.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Teverson

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Amendments 232 and 234AA are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Paddick. They stay on the issue of family visas, although not necessarily in the context of the refugee crisis. My noble friend Lord Teverson is going to remind us about “the party of the family” and marriage in the current context.

As I mentioned, I was involved in work on the impact of the family visa rules that were introduced in 2012. The situation has not eased since. In a search for a solution, my own thinking has developed only as far as, “These rules will not be changed until a Cabinet Minister’s son falls in love with a woman from Costa Rica and wants to bring her to live here”.

The rules apply to refugees; they apply to people who are far from being in a refugee situation. They are academics and businesspeople: people from a wide range of backgrounds and in a wide range of situations. It has to be said that many of them would bring a great deal to this country. A comment that I have heard from so many people who, because of the rules, are unable to live as a family in this country is: “I am a British citizen and I pay tax. Why is this happening to me?”. Families are separated and children are not living with both parents as a result of these rules, which must have an impact on a child’s development.

There are situations where, if the rules were not as they are, savings would be made for the state. I remember a gentleman from a low-earning area with a 17 year-old daughter, from his first marriage, with developmental problems. He married for a second time, to somebody really dodgy—a teacher from Canada, and because he could not meet the threshold, he could not sponsor her to come here. I understand that a lot of spouses are being refused visitor’s visas now, because it is not believed that they will leave at the end of a visit. In the case of the couple I have just mentioned, the last I heard was that she was detained when she arrived here and was in Harmondsworth. She had to stay over two or three nights because her physical reaction to what was happening to her meant that she was not well enough to be returned.

The financial threshold in place is beyond the means of something like half of the British population. The provisions which we are proposing in subsection (4) for the income requirement are, instead of £18,600,

“the equivalent of one year’s salary”.

I have spelled that out a little by saying,

“for a partner … at the rate of the national minimum wage”.

Then there are figures, which I accept are arbitrary, that would allow for children and for third-party support, because there are many examples of where families would help. The amendment says that,

“subsidies and financial support … shall be applied towards the calculation of income”.

The cost of the application is also of course an issue. During the debate on the last group of amendments, I read out a letter that I had just received. Because my name has been associated with some work on this, I quite often get letters and emails from people asking me to help and telling me of their situations. I will read just a little from the most recent, which came from a gentleman yesterday. A British citizen who had been living in Argentina, he came over here to a job. His wife and three year-old daughter were in Argentina, and when he tried to bring them over, he discovered the problems. He says:

“I understand the importance of doing everything by the books and would be ashamed to do it any other way. The difficult situation for me to understand here is how, being a British Citizen, should I have to wait for nearly a whole year without seeing my wife and daughter”.

He says that it is,

“unexplainable to a 3-year-old … All the thousands of pounds paid can be made with hard work but the time lost is never coming back”.

The second of our amendments refers to adult dependent relatives. As I said in the previous group, that route has now become more or less theoretical. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, mentioned the gain to this country from two daughters of a refugee qualifying as medical practitioners. The story I have to tell, which I dare say the Minister has heard me tell before, is of a woman who could not bring her elderly parents over from Singapore. She was a consultant in the NHS, so she decided she should go there to look after them. Her sister, also a senior person in the NHS, thought it was unfair to leave all the burden on her sibling and went out as well, and then the husband of one of them, also a consultant in the NHS, went out to join them. Those are three senior people lost to the NHS because we cannot somehow sort this out.

I am very aware of the time; I am also aware that I am not bringing any new points to the Committee because, by definition, they are not new: this has been going on since 2012. That does not diminish the importance of the matter, and I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I speak to my Amendment 239A, and I very much agree with all the points that my noble friend Lady Hamwee just made.

It is quite obvious to all of us that we live in a global society. We welcome that, we participate in it and encourage it. We study abroad, we work abroad and we are proud that Britain is an outward-looking nation. As part of that, our sons and daughters and other relatives go out as students, to work and for leisure to other parts of the world—we are not just part of the European Union. It is quite appropriate in February, the month of St Valentine, to say that they occasionally fall in love—I expect that some Members of the House have come across that—and get married. All too often, when deciding to take that step, they do not think about the practicalities. They do not think about the fact that they might not be able as a couple, as a family—in future, as a larger family—to live back in the United Kingdom because of that decision.

As my noble friend said, I have made that point before, so I too shall be brief. It seems to me fundamental, perhaps more so to those on the Benches opposite than anyone else, that family life is sacrosanct. Subject, clearly, to the legal restrictions in the Marriage Act and elsewhere, which we all accept, a British citizen should have the right to marry whom they want, and then be able to live with their spouse or civil partner back in their home in the United Kingdom, should they wish. That right should not be discriminated against by income; in effect, that discriminates against certain ages, those in certain parts of the country or in certain occupations more than others, and perhaps on gender as well. People should have that freedom. If anything should be the birthright of us as proud citizens of the United Kingdom, it should be that. That is the simple thing that my amendment tries to achieve. That was all swept away in 2012, during the period of a coalition Government— unfortunately, as far as I am concerned.

Since I have got involved in this issue, I can name all sorts of instances of people affected by this who have come to me on the internet. Most recently, there was a young man whose family live near me in Cornwall and who is working for a British company out in South Korea. He has married a Korean national and is unable to come back. He earns a lot of money out there, and she is very capable as well, but because of the rules they cannot come back together. That is completely wrong. There are an estimated 33,000 people in that position.

This problem does not make a huge difference to migration figures, but if the Government ever introduce a British Bill of Rights, please make this right No. 1. I ask the Minister to look at this again, think about the principles that the Government espouse so well in this area, listen to that rhetoric and correct analysis about the centrality of the family and family life, and change this policy area so much for the better in the Bill.