Immigration (Health Charge) (Amendment) Order 2018

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Rosser

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

I appreciate that the Minister said that she would write. I would be very grateful indeed if, when she writes, she will address this issue of the impact of the charges on the incomes of those who will have to pay it, particularly those on low incomes and with families with children.

There is another example of the way that the Government look at the issue. When reference was made to the impact on nurses, the answer was: “You solve it by increasing pay”. Yes, there has been a small increase in nurses’ pay, but there have not been very big increases over the past eight years. The charge is being doubled but I do not think that nurses’ pay is being doubled. I do not think that nurses will necessarily feel that the relatively small increase they have just had—they have not had much over the past few years—will be any real compensation for having to pay, for one specific item, a doubled charge. One does not get the impression that the Government have looked at this from the point of view of the impact on incomes, particularly for those among the less well off.

I think I heard a comment—I will withdraw my remarks if I am incorrect—which almost seemed to say that when low-income families are faced with this additional charge, it is up to them to arrange their finances accordingly. That was the thrust of the argument and how it came across to me. That is another indication that this has not been looked at from the point of view of the impact, particularly on people on low incomes and with children.

I am grateful to the Minister for saying that she will write. I hope she will perhaps reflect further on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, and my noble friend Lady Lister about the child rights impact assessment. I hope she will address that issue in her response on behalf of the Government. I know that she will give examples, but I also hope that she will reflect further on looking at the fee-waiver rules on destitution. “Destitution” implies that one must be in a pretty desperate state before receiving any assistance. The figures on the numbers of those getting the waiver appear to bear that out. No doubt the Minister will give examples in her reply—without indicating who she is talking about or anything like that—of the kinds of situations and income levels to which those fee-waiver rules have been applied up to now. At least then we could get a feel for the issue.

The answer given on why there had been no public consultation rather took my breath away. Apparently, it was because there was a manifesto commitment to £600. That seems an extraordinary reason for saying that there will be no opportunity for people to comment on what the Government are doing in the sense of how it will apply and its impact. I would have thought that any Government would want to put something like that out for consultation to get responses from people on the impact of such a doubling of charges.

I was very surprised to find that we have a Government who believe that they should not do any further consultation on the impact of something—not the principle of whether they will do it—and on how they might mitigate that because of a figure in a manifesto that they intend not to keep but to put at a lower level than is in the manifesto, which I am not complaining about. However, if the argument is that people voted for an increase in the charge to £600—it is difficult to believe that votes in the general election were determined solely by that—then they have not got what they voted for because the charge is less than that. Again, I am not complaining about that. I find it extraordinary that that was used as a reason for not consulting and giving people an opportunity to comment on the impact on certain people of doubling the charges.

I raised the issue of the child rights impact assessment. As I said, I hope the Minister will address that in her response. I will bring my comments to a conclusion. We opposed this matter in the Commons, where the order was agreed to in a vote. I tabled my amendment today to emphasise our continuing serious concerns about the impact of this increase in the immigration health charge but it is not my intention to press it to a vote.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

Before the noble Lord sits down, will he reconsider withdrawing his amendment? I honestly think that the Government have got this completely wrong. That is the mood of the House. Therefore, he might get considerable support.

[Lord Rosser]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for that contribution, but I have to say no; I am not prepared to reconsider the decision not to push it to a vote. We made our intentions clear beforehand and I have no intention of going back on what was said about pursuing this to a vote. However, I appreciate where the noble Baroness is coming from.

I hope that the Minister will read through this debate—I know she will, she does it automatically—because questions have been raised and, inevitably, she has not been able to respond to them all. I hope she will look at that and respond to ones she has not been able to reply to at the Dispatch Box. She has replied to a great many questions.

I also hope the Government—this pursues the point the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made—will have got the message that there is a good deal of disquiet about the impact of doubling this charge in particular areas, not least in relation to children and school shortages. I hope the Government will have got that message and will look at this again when they come to their White Paper on the future immigration system. We have to await the chief inspector’s report on Home Office fee levels and see what that says; it may or may not make a comment on the charges we are talking about. I will leave it in that context and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Rosser

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, I spoke earlier in Committee about my opposition to the whole of Schedule 3. I shall now speak to my Amendments 68 and 69. I declare an interest: I have a journalist daughter and know many of her friends, and they could be very adversely affected by this part of the Bill because it is about the protection of journalistic material.

Because Schedule 3 of the Bill allows border officials to question, search and detain anyone at the border without any suspicion whatever, people carrying journalistic or legally privileged material might want to refuse to hand over that material without committing a criminal offence. Without Amendment 68, journalists and lawyers could be forced to hand over sensitive and confidential material at the border. This surely cannot be the Government’s intention in drafting the Bill, and it surely will not be Parliament’s will to allow such a scheme to become law.

Without Amendment 69, journalistic material confiscated at the border, including information about confidential sources, could be exposed in open court as evidence. This would be an enormous erosion of press freedom and the sacrosanct duty of journalists to protect their sources. It would have a chilling effect on individuals coming forward with information which is in the public interest. I have myself been approached by whistleblowers who are well aware of the severe consequences that await them. We must not add to the burden that deters people from coming forward with information about corrupt practices or wrongdoing.

As drafted, Schedule 3 would put sources in danger of losing their job, their liberty or even their life. The Government would never allow their confidential intelligence sources to be exposed in this way, and I ask the Minister to explain why journalists’ sources should be treated any differently.

Previously in Committee, the Minister declined to put specific protections in law for journalists on the basis that it was too broad a term. This is why my amendments and Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, use the existing definitions in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and the Investigatory Powers Act. I hope that this approach is more palatable to the Minister and could be adopted at Report.

I omitted to mention that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is unable to be here today. I said that I would say a few words on his behalf, and he said that he was sure that I could find the right ones—so let us hope that I have.

My amendments are essential to protect press freedom and the confidentiality of sources. I hope that the Minister will listen to the concerns and bring forward amendments to fix the problems highlighted. I beg to move.

[Lord Rosser]

We have Amendment 69A in this group. The purpose of our amendment is to provide that, where an examining officer wishes to retain an article which the owner alleges contains confidential material, the examining officer may not examine the article and must immediately send the article to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. The commissioner must then determine whether the article contains confidential material and may then authorise the examination and retention of the article under the provisions of the Bill or return it to the examining officer if it is not confidential. This would provide for the independent oversight of confidential material, as required by the Miranda judgment.

I appreciate that what the Government propose is not in line with our amendment. However, we now have the code of practice, which states:

“If during the process of examining an article it becomes apparent to the examining officer that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the article consists of or includes items that are confidential material, the examining officer must cease examining”,


the item. It also states:

“An examining officer should take reasonable steps to review the credentials of an examinee to verify any such claim when considering whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that a specific item is confidential material”.


It would be helpful if the Minister could respond to my points, as the purpose of my amendment is primarily to find out how it is intended that the process will operate—although we would obviously be extremely grateful if the Government decided to accept the amendment. If an examining officer who reviews the credentials of an examinee feels that the credentials stand up, will they still be able to examine material which they think may be confidential? If the examinee has said that there is confidential material and the examining officer is satisfied with their credentials, is that enough to prevent the item being examined, or would the officer still be expected or able to examine an item to ascertain for themselves that it contains what appears to be confidential material?

In other words, on checking or reviewing the credentials of the examinee, if the examining officer is satisfied, does that mean that there is no question of the examining officer looking at any material that the examinee maintains is confidential, but instead they have immediately to send it to the commissioner to decide whether it should be retained?

Data Retention and Acquisition Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Rosser

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has compared these regulations to a dog masquerading as a cat. My feeling about them is that they seem more like the plotline from a political thriller than a reality that we ought to be facing. The regulations are actually a barefaced attempt by the Government to expand their creepy surveillance powers deeper and deeper into our lives. We seem to be the last bulwark here against the Government adopting Henry VIII powers that are simply unacceptable in these areas. These changes are unacceptable and we are going to do as much as we can to stop them. The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act was already hugely controversial, and these regulations seek to extend those powers even further.

Big changes to legislation, such as this, should be done through an Act of Parliament, rather than sneaking it through, without full scrutiny, under secondary legislation. I think it is quite outrageous of the Government to try to do this. In particular, I too was at that meeting on 10 October—one of the two Peers who attended, out of 800—and I feel that at no point have our concerns raised at that meeting been looked at, discussed or taken into account. I also take great issue with the definition of “serious crime” which these regulations use to justify state intrusion into people’s communications. Serious crime, we are told, is any offence which is capable of leading to a prison sentence of more than 12 months. Such serious crimes would therefore include possession of small quantities of cannabis, the obscene performance of plays or petty theft. I personally would not indulge in any of those, obviously, but I imagine there are categories that I could fall into, in total innocence, and that offends me very deeply.

Detecting and preventing even these pettiest of crimes would be grounds for the state to collect communications data. There does not need to be reasonable suspicion that you have committed an offence, just a general intention to make sure that you have not done anything wrong. Using these powers for so-called serious crime, the police will be able to gather the location data transmitted by your phone and any other electronic device. So with very few legal safeguards, the state can track you at will. These ever more oppressive data collection laws make it ever easier to spy on each and every one of us, for even the vaguest of reasons.

These laws are going the wrong way. Of course we need proper powers to tackle terrorism and truly serious crime, but alienating a lot of the populace is not the way to go. These powers should not come at the expense of the rights and freedoms of the majority of people, who are innocent of any serious crime. I feel that the Government are turning into an ugly, greedy surveillance monster, willing to sacrifice civil liberties that are, or should be, at the heart of real democracy.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

As the Minister said, the purpose of these regulations is to reflect a ruling of the European Court on communications data acquisition and retention that the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is incompatible with European law. In the light of that ruling, these regulations have been brought forward, seeking to bring our legislation in line with European law, and of course what is before us also contains the code of practice to which the Minister referred.

The regulations and the code of practice provide for independent authorisation over the use of the relevant powers. The regulations also restrict the crime purpose for acquiring retained commissions to what is described as “serious crime”.

In the Commons, where this matter has already been discussed, we said that we did not oppose the changes made. We also said that we supported strong powers, but added that we supported strong safeguards. Although it is not entirely about safeguards, the issues that have been raised have also been about powers, but certainly much of the comment that has been made, although not exclusively, has been about the extent to which there are or are not appropriate safeguards in relation to these measures.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, raised issues about the definition of serious crime, which, as I understand it, is up to the member state to define. However, he also raised questions over the issue of whether the Government’s definition is too wide ranging, since it covers offences for which a penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment or more can be imposed, as opposed to what might realistically be expected to be imposed for the offence, and the fact that the definition covers, as the noble Lord said, any crime by a body corporate or any offence that involves as a key part of it,

“the sending of a communication or a breach of a person’s privacy”,

which it would appear could include minor transgressions as well as matters for which one would quite definitely expect these powers to be used.

On the issue of the custodial threshold, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has said, it is in relation to offences which would, as I understand it—and as I think he understands it—carry a maximum of 12 months’ imprisonment. He has contrasted it to the present definitions, which can be found elsewhere, including under the Investigatory Powers Act, where the reference is to three years—I think the noble Lord said he expected it to be three years. That is of course, as he has already said, a very different issue to an offence having a potential maximum of 12 months, which it is now suggested it should be in this case.

Clearly, that having been said, and the decision having been made to lower the threshold—I think I know from what was said in the Commons what the Minister is likely to say in respect of that, and I will listen with great interest to her response—there is the issue of how, as far as the powers stand at the moment under these regulations, we will be able to stop them being abused by using them in respect of offences which could hardly be deemed to be serious. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, if you look at the kind of offences for which there can be a maximum of 12 months’ imprisonment, they can include—because you have a lower and a higher level of defence—types of offence which it would be difficult to describe as serious.

The Minister referred to the Office for Communications Data Authorisations. As I understand it, if there is a desire to use the powers under the Bill, it is to that office under the Investigatory Powers Commissioner that an application will be made. Reference has been made to using the powers in a way that is proportionate and necessary. Bearing in mind that we are talking about an offence being investigated and so do not know fully its level of severity or otherwise, an obvious question in the context of what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has raised is how those deciding whether to authorise the use of those powers will judge whether we are dealing with a serious crime.

I await with interest the Minister’s response to the points that have been raised not only by the noble Lord but by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.