Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Green of Deddington

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, briefly, I support Motion A1. I have participated in a number of debates in this House on this issue and I have yet to hear a convincing argument against providing this most basic civil right to asylum seekers.

As the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, made clear when he moved the Motion so ably, we are yet to see any serious evidence in support of the current policy. But there is plenty of evidence of the demoralising impact it has on asylum seekers. For example, a woman quoted in the most thorough research that I have seen into the reasons people choose to seek asylum in this country said:

“Sometimes I just cry. It’s like I am worthless, like I am just this piece of junk”.

No human being should be made to feel like that, and that is why I support the Motion.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I am rather puzzled. If conditions for asylum seekers are so difficult in this country, why are there literally thousands of people camped around Calais who appear to want to get into this country in order to claim asylum? And why is it that, of those who claim asylum, 60% have already been working before they make their claim?

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Green of Deddington

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support Amendments 84 and 85 as a member of the all-party inquiry, which I came away from convinced of the case for a time limit, based on the experience of other countries and on the evidence that we have received from professionals and those with experience of detention about the impact of indefinite detention in particular on mental health. I am going to apply a self-imposed time limit on my own comments, and I am going to scrap what I was going to say about that. However, given the very broad all-party support, which we have heard about already, whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular amendment, when Liberty tells us that this is one of the greatest stains on this country’s human rights record in recent decades, surely we should do something to remove that stain.

I move to Amendment 85 and government Amendment 86. While I welcome the decision to publish statutory guidance on the new adults-at-risk decision-making procedures, I have some concerns, particularly with regard to pregnant women. Although it is welcome that they will automatically be treated at the highest level of risk, it is still not clear why the Government have refused Shaw’s recommendation of an absolute exclusion from detention. I note that the Home Affairs Select Committee has asked for an explanation of this in its recent report, and I would appreciate one, too.

Women for Refugee Women has raised a number of concerns with me and, if it is easier, I shall be quite happy for the Minister to respond to these in writing later. First, can he give some indication of how the new gate- keeper team will operate and explain why it was decided not to include an independent element in decision-making, as suggested by Shaw in recommendation 61? Secondly, it is worried as to how “imminence of removal” will be interpreted under the new adults-at-risk approach, given that this is the wording already used in the current policy. Under this policy, it says that nearly one-third of the 99 pregnant women detained in 2014 were held for between one and three months and four for between three and six months, which suggests a rather loose interpretation of imminence in the context of pregnancy. It is also worried about what is meant when the draft implementation approach states that the level of risk/vulnerability for which someone has been assessed will depend on the type and quality of the evidence available. In the experience of Women for Refugee Women and of Helen Bamber, what is understood as constituting independent or good evidence is often a real problem for survivors of sexual violence. Under rule 35, for instance, evidence such as a doctor’s report on mental symptoms has been dismissed because there is no physical evidence. Will self-disclosure be accepted as evidence, as it is by many other agencies?

I was pleased to read of there being new guidance on care and management of women in detention. That sounds like a positive step. Would the Minister undertake for the Home Office to consult organisations such as Women for Refugee Women, on its contents?

It appears that the Government have also rejected Shaw’s recommendation that the words,

“which cannot be satisfactorily managed in detention”,

should be removed from references to individuals suffering from serious mental illness. Shaw states that,

“it is perfectly clear … that people with serious mental illness continue to be held in detention and that their treatment and care does not and cannot equate to good psychiatric practice (whether or not it is ‘satisfactorily managed’)”.

He concludes:

“Such a situation is an affront to civilised values”.

Can the Minister say whether the recommendation has been rejected; and, if so, why? Finally, can he explain why the statutory instrument giving effect to the statutory guidance will be subject to the negative resolution procedure rather than the affirmative, given the importance of these details? Will he commit to independent monitoring of the new regime, with regular reports to both Houses? In this way, we can assess whether the new adults-at-risk policy proves to be the generally transformative approach that has been promised.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, I share the doubts expressed about Amendment 84 by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. We need to be clear on what is at stake here. It is not simply the number of weeks that someone is held in detention, important though that is. The capability to remove those who have no right to be in this country is absolutely fundamental to the credibility of the entire immigration system; and, indeed, the power of detention is essential to effective removal. This is fundamental in a number of respects, not just to the human rights aspects. It is fundamental to the whole immigration system.

Broadly speaking, I would argue that the system is working, although obviously it can be improved. I remind the House that in 2014 nearly 30,000 people were detained in immigration detention centres. But here is the point: two-thirds of them were there for less than 28 days. If you are going to set a limit of 28 days, what you are saying is that there are going to be 10,000 cases a year of people appealing to the immigration tribunal for release—10,000 cases, at a time when the tribunals are struggling to deal with 20,000 or 30,000, an increasing number of asylum cases. Throughout this debate, I think everyone has recognised that we need a faster and more effective system, and it seems to me that to introduce an amendment of this kind would do it very considerable damage. There may be scope for a much longer timescale of 90 days or whatever. That could be considered, perhaps, by the Government. But to set it at 28 days is, I think, quite wrong. As was mentioned in earlier debates on this Bill, it would encourage people to spin things out to get to the 28 days, they could then apply for their bail, and then—who knows?—they might disappear.

This amendment can only help such people. We need a much faster asylum system if public support for the whole system is to be maintained. This amendment would slow it up, and it should be resisted.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Green of Deddington

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Yes, I certainly agree that detention is a very expensive business in all circumstances; that is true. The people I would be most concerned about are those who plan to come here as economic migrants and who would have no right of asylum. They are the people who need to be deterred. It is not so much public opinion; it is having an asylum system which is seen to be effective. By all means, people who have been tortured need to be dealt with, but it would surprise me if many were actually in detention. They would not be there if their cases had not been heard and refused by the immigration courts.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am not sure whether the noble Lord has read the report of the inquiry to which a number of us contributed, but we did quote from the International Detention Coalition about the experience in countries that do not rely so much on detention. The noble Lord seems to be worried about what that might mean in terms of the effect on compliance. The coalition found that alternatives to detention,

“maintain high rates of compliance and appearance, on average 90% compliance. A study collating evidence from 13 programs found compliance rates ranged between 80% and 99.9%. For instance, Hong Kong achieves a 97% compliance rate with asylum seekers or torture claimants in the community, and in Belgium, a pilot working with families facing removal had an 82% compliance rate”.

Alternatives to detention have proved to be very effective and can address some of the concerns of the noble Lord.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Yes indeed, but I would imagine that the conditions are very different in Hong Kong and to a certain extent in Belgium. You have to look at the circumstances that you find in a particular country. What we have here is a very large illegal population which people can quite easily join. I am not against looking at the kind of alternatives being suggested, but let us be pretty sure that they are going to be just as effective. Any move at this point to weaken, not so much the asylum system but our capability to remove those who have failed asylum, would be an extremely foolish step to take.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Green of Deddington

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Well, they come in on a tied visa and then they do a runner and go and work for somebody else. The employer then goes back to his home country and puts in a visa next year for a new servant; he will claim, no doubt, that the servant has been working for a year, because that is one of the requirements, and come with his next servant. So the numbers will certainly increase. If you produce a loophole in these matters, they will increase very fast.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope that we are not moving from waiting for Ewins to looking for loopholes. I was a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights at the time of the legislative scrutiny of the 2014 Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton said, this is a matter of human rights. Not only did we say that the removal of the right of overseas domestic workers was a backwards step but we noted that the 2012 regime had been cited internationally as good practice.

I am not going to make a great speech, because I think the case has already been made admirably by other noble Lords. But my noble friend Lord Rosser pointed out that the Minister in the Commons towards the end of the last Government, but a member of today’s governing party, said as a statement of intent that whoever was in government would implement the review’s recommendations. I simply do not understand why this very important report, which we were all waiting for and for which everything had to be suspended to see what it said, was presented to the Government nearly three months ago with a sense of urgency to it, yet we do not yet have the Government’s response to it, even though we have started Committee stage of this highly relevant Bill. Why do we not yet know the Government’s response and how quickly will we know it—and will it be in the spirit of the statement made by Karen Bradley in the Commons last March?

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Green of Deddington

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the opposition to Clause 8 standing part of the Bill and I also support Amendment 63. At Second Reading a number of noble Lords expressed fears about potential exploitation as a result of Clause 8, reflecting the worries of organisations working on the ground. The Minister tried to reassure us that our fears were unfounded, but the range of organisations that are worried about it must give cause for concern. Also a number of organisations, including the Law Society, have stated that the clause is unnecessary. The Law Society argues that,

“the creation of parallel criminal offences is wrong in principle and creates confusion”.

My noble friend Lord Rosser raised the point about the disparity between the defence of reasonableness that is available to employers not being available to employees who are accused of illegal working. That was a point which was raised in the Public Bill Committee by more than one Member, but as far as I can see it was not addressed by the Minister there in his response, so I hope that the Minister here will be able to say something about it today. Why is there no parallel defence for employees?

As well as the risk of exploitation, I am concerned that the state will in effect be exploiting undocumented workers when it seizes their wages. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me as a lay person that there is a distinction to be made between the confiscation of assets that are the proceeds of a crime such as stealing, burglary or fraud and those that are the result of the criminalisation of the sale of one’s labour. In support of my rather basic lay understanding, I pray in aid ILPA’s briefing. It points out, as did my noble friend Lord Rosser, that,

“the Crown Prosecution Service Guidance on the Proceeds of Crime says that it should prioritise recovery of assets from serious organised crime and serious economic crime”.

Surely we are not talking about that here. ILPA continues by stating that:

“A confiscation order must be proportionate to the aim of the legislation, which is to recover the financial benefit that the defendant has obtained from the criminal conduct … The purpose of the legislation is not to further punish the offender by fining them, or to act as a deterrent. If the confiscation order is not proportionate then it will be a violation of the right to peaceful enjoyment of property under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights”.

It would appear that potentially an important human rights issue is being raised here.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to the experience in Italy. Another aspect of that was put by the organisation FLEX in its briefing, which states that evidence from that experience,

“demonstrates the impracticality of attempts to seize undocumented workers’ assets. Under an ‘irregular migration offence’ provided for in the ‘Bossi-Fini Law 2002’ undocumented workers could be fined for working without documents in Italy. This offence was ultimately repealed in 2014, one of the reasons for which was the heavy bureaucracy and limited success associated with gaining financial penalties from undocumented workers”.

On both principled and potentially human rights grounds, as well as practical and pragmatic grounds, I really do believe that the clause should not stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made rather a good case for inserting the words “without reasonable excuse”, and I certainly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about voluntary work. But perhaps I may raise a wider issue. Making illegal working a specific offence will fill a gap, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, pointed out in his helpful letter of 8 January. It means that those who have entered illegally or who have overstayed their visas could now be prosecuted for working in the UK.

When I gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee of the other place, a former DPP said that in practice he had not known of a case where it was necessary to have this law because other provisions could be brought to bear. However, impressions matter. The present situation must be an excellent selling point for anyone who happens to be a people smuggler. Indeed, at this very moment there are literally thousands of young men camped near Calais. They are there because they believe that if they once get into the UK they can work illegally and send home what to them are very substantial sums of money. If detected, they can claim asylum and be here for a considerable period longer.

The fact that working illegally in the UK is not even an offence sends out entirely the wrong message, as the Mayor of Calais never tires of telling us. She is right; we should change the law. This is about deterrence and it is especially important in present circumstances.