Immigration (Health Charge) (Amendment) Order 2018

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Hylton

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium is deeply concerned about this order, which doubles the health surcharge. These concerns are, I suggest, important because of the interaction with other charges. In the past, people who were here legally but with uncertain future residency could expect to remain after six years, with good behaviour. Now they will be granted only two and a half years in extensions and thus may have to pay over £6,500 just to remain, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, pointed out. On top of this, they may have to find £2,000 for an immigration health surcharge, in what one might call a double whammy. This is particularly hard on those on low earnings because of their uncertain status. They are also doubly taxed if they suffer PAYE and national insurance on their wages.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, rightly mentioned the case of nurses from the Philippines. Ill health, or health at all, may thus become a cause of homelessness if rent arrears lead to eviction. The Government may say that there are exemptions for some. However, children in care are exempt, but not children who live with their natural family. A family with four children may have to pay £8,100 on several occasions. The situation may be even worse if the family is also paying fees to register for British citizenship. An impact assessment has been published, but it makes no reference to working parents and their children.

This is an anti-family measure. Her Majesty’s Government should withdraw this order and think again. They must consider its impact on those least able to pay and not just on fat cats and non-doms. Will they please also rethink the exemptions? I support the amendment.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Rosser, particularly its reference to those who came to the UK as young children. I apologise if I repeat some of the arguments already made, but they bear repetition. I am grateful to the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium for drawing to our attention the implications of doubling the surcharge for children and young people making immigration applications from within the UK on the basis of prior long residence in the UK, many of whom are vulnerable and living with parents who cannot possibly afford this surcharge.

I am struck by how the Government constantly refer to it as a charge for “temporary migrants”. The evidence base attached to the statutory instruments says that. The Minister’s Written Answer of 14 November to the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, said it. The Minister for Immigration said it when introducing the statutory instruments in committee in the other place, and this afternoon the Minister constantly used the term “temporary migrants”. As my noble friend said, these children are not temporary migrants. Many have grown up here, look to make a future here and have a legal right to do so. Why are they and their parents being expected to pay a surcharge which is designed for temporary migrants? I would be grateful if the Minister could answer that.

As we have heard, when added to the fees that families are already required to pay for their children to acquire indefinite leave to remain, the total bill over a 10-year period will come to more than £10,000.

Last week, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families made a Written Statement to mark the anniversary of the UN’s adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. He stated:

“The UK is a proud and long-standing signatory of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child … and this Government remain fully committed to the promotion and safeguarding of children’s rights.


The UNCRC sets out an enduring vision for all children to grow up in a loving, safe and happy environment where they can develop their full potential, regardless of their background. This Government share that vision and are dedicated to providing the best possible opportunities for all children but especially those who have the hardest start in life”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/11/18; col. 21WS.]


Will the Minister explain to your Lordships’ House how doubling the surcharge on top of the exorbitant fees these children and their families already face squares with that very positive vision?

According to the consortium, the cumulative cost of the fees and surcharge is,

“seriously impacting on the quality of children’s lives, affecting their development and forcing families into long-term poverty”.

Do the Government know that or even care, given that they have not even bothered to make any reference to the potential impact of the surcharge increase on children and young people and their rights in the impact assessment provided? Will the Minister undertake to rectify this omission and at the very least ensure that a child’s rights impact assessment is provided retrospectively and, perhaps more importantly, in all future regulations relating to both immigration and citizenship fees and charges affecting children? This is not the first time that we have had regulations of this kind without any assessment of the impact on children.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Hylton

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and I have just one question for the Minister. I wonder whether he has noticed a statement by a small and rather obscure English NGO that has a database with the names of 10,000 would-be English foster carers. I apologise for not having the name of the organisation with me but, even if that figure has become inflated or if, when those volunteers are vetted, not all of them are suitable, surely there must be enough to cope with the 3,000 children mentioned in the amendment. Taking up those offers would greatly ease the burden that presently falls on the local authorities in, for example, Kent and Sussex, and it would spread the load much more evenly around the country.

Finally, I urge the Government not to insist on deporting children who reach the age of 18. They may once have entered this country illegally but they have been here for a considerable number of years. They have been to school in England and have made friends in England, and they should not be deported.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Hylton

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support Amendments 234B, 234M, 234N and 235A in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to which I was pleased to add my name, not least as he has been such a consistent champion of the rights of care leavers. I am also supportive of other non-government amendments in this group, particularly Amendments 230D and 239B.

On Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, spoke about the deeply unsatisfactory way that this Bill has proceeded, with amendment after amendment having been tabled by the Government since its initial introduction in the Commons. It is particularly inappropriate that amendments concerning an issue as important as the treatment of care leavers should have been introduced in this way, leaving a host of unanswered questions as to how the new provisions affecting such a particularly vulnerable group—as the noble Earl emphasised—will work in practice.

This vulnerability cannot be magicked away by constant referral to this group of young people as adult migrants, as if, miraculously, the vulnerabilities that were recognised at the age of 17 years and 11 months have evaporated overnight on their 18th birthday. As the Refugee Children’s Consortium and the Alliance for Children in Care and Care Leavers point out, it is long established in law and policy that those who have been in care need continued support on turning 18 in light of their vulnerabilities. Indeed, leaving care and children’s legislation is predicated on an understanding of the need to provide additional support beyond just accommodation and subsistence needs after the age of 18.

Likewise, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner points out:

“For the purposes of the Commissioner’s primary function, a person who is not a child is to be treated as a child if he or she is aged 18 or over and under 25, and a local authority in England has provided services to him or her under”,

the relevant sections of the Children Act at any time after she or he turned 16. As the commissioner explains,

“the intention of the Children’s Act was to establish that leaving care responsibilities apply by virtue of the authorities’ position as good ‘corporate parents’ irrespective of the care leaver’s particular circumstances and in recognition that turning 18 does not result in overnight independence from those who have cared for you previously”.

By removing these young people from the protection provided by the Children Act, Schedule 9 also takes care leavers with unresolved immigration status out of the remit of the Children’s Commissioner, thereby overturning a provision introduced for good reason by Parliament as recently as 2014.

Once again, immigration control trumps the well-being and protection needs of children and young people—a more general tendency observed by the JCHR, of which I was then a member, in its report on the human rights of unaccompanied children and young people in the UK. As the Refugee Children’s Consortium and the alliance argue, it is creating a two-tier discriminatory system of support for care leavers based on immigration status. One consequence is that a young person on turning 18 could be torn from their foster parents with whom they may have developed a strong and loving relationship. Think what effect this might have on a young person who had suffered earlier trauma as a result of separation from her or his parents. This really is disgraceful and it makes me both sad and angry to think what we might be doing to this particularly vulnerable group.

Many young people in this position do not even understand that they have no leave to remain after the age of 18. Amendment 230D is particularly relevant here. The JCHR inquiry concluded:

“Discretionary leave to remain is used too readily at the expense of properly considering other options”,

and recommended that decisions should be,

“made about their future on robust evidence as early as possible”.

That this should happen will be all the more important once Schedule 9 takes effect. The JCHR report made clear that:

“The duty towards an unaccompanied migrant child does not end at 18”,

and argued that it is right that local authorities’ duties,

“continue to apply to vulnerable children who may continue to require support as they face fundamental decisions about their future”.

It notes that the Government, in their written evidence to the inquiry:

“stressed that unaccompanied migrant children were supported ‘in the same way as any other child in need’, throughout and beyond the care system”,

but no more, my Lords.

We were highly critical in that report of how effectively existing duties towards migrant young people were fulfilled. But that is not a reason for absolving local authorities of these duties. We recommended that:

“Unaccompanied migrant children must be properly supported in the transition to adulthood”,

and that,

“bespoke and comprehensive care plans”,

that,

“take full account of the wishes of the child … remain applicable up to the age of 21, or 25 if the young person remains in education, to enable children to realise their maximum potential”.

The Government responded:

“We agree with the Committee that children should be properly supported in the transition to adulthood”.

It would seem that they believe, in the face of all the evidence, that that transition ceases on a child’s 18th birthday.

Schedule 9 raises all kinds of practical questions that must be clarified before it becomes law. We have heard some from the noble Earl and from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. She referred to questions raised by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. Has the Minister met the Children’s Commissioner to discuss these matters? If not, will he undertake to do so before Report, or to include her in the meeting that he has very kindly already offered, because she is charged with protecting the rights of this group? As it is, Schedule 9 will remove rights established to protect some of the most vulnerable young people in the country, as we have heard. I have said this before and I will say it once again: this cannot be right.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I have a question which comes up in parallel to this huge group of amendments. It is as follows: if a young person or adult has been in this country for more than seven years without committing any serious offence and is therefore in a position where they would be eligible for British citizenship, if they applied for it, is it the intention of the Home Office to deport them? I will just explain that this question arises from the visit that my noble friend and I made to Yarl’s Wood today. I quite understand if the Minister does not feel able to give me an answer now but if he does not, will he please write to me and place a copy in the Library?

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Hylton

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I was pleased to add my name to these amendments. They strike me as being reasonable and modest, and a very strong case has already been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton. ILPA also makes the case for allowing payment to be made by instalments:

“The sum at stake, the £200, £150 for students may appear modest. It is not. Factor in that it is a payment per year, that there will be a levy for each family member and then consider average earnings in different countries and exchange rates with the UK and it acts as a bar to entry … Any health levy payable prior to arrival risks presenting a barrier for those nationals of countries where earnings are low and currencies weak relative to the UK. Similarly if a person must pay the levy for their entire period of leave up front: to do so exacerbates the effect of existing disparities”.

The Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit has provided a case study which again illustrates the difficulties that upfront payments can create for low-paid workers:

“F is a domestic worker from South Asia. She has leave to remain granted under the rules for domestic workers in place before April 2012. In 2015 she sought to extend her leave to remain. She faced an application fee of £649 and a health surcharge of £200 so a total of £849 to pay up front. This was more than her monthly wage of £800. From our experience, someone working in a minimum wage job is virtually certain to have their application for fee remission refused, even when human rights is the main focus of the application, which is not the case for domestic worker visa extensions who could not therefore hope to be given a fee waiver. F had to borrow the money from her employer which on this occasion was possible. Not all employers would be willing to assist in this way”—

I suspect that rather few employers would do so. It continues:

“For a domestic worker to find that much money up front inevitably necessitates borrowing, which can put a vulnerable person further at risk. To save that much money each month can be a huge task for someone on a minimum wage income but is more manageable than an upfront payment. The fee for such applications will go up to £811 in 2016 in addition to the health surcharge”.

I suspect that all of us in this House live pretty comfortably, so for us to make a payment like that upfront is something that we probably do not even think about. It might just be a slight nuisance. We must put ourselves in the shoes of someone for whom making such an upfront payment is a huge burden, and something that seems impossible to comprehend. The difference it would make to them to be able to pay in instalments is enormous. It is important that we try to think what it means to the people for whom we legislate.

The exemptions also seem to me very fair. I was going to make reference to the UNCRC, but the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already made it. There are questions about whether charging children is compatible with those provisions. To exclude victims of domestic abuse would simply build on the existing exemptions under the destitution domestic violence concession, without introducing a new principle. On the question of destitution, the briefing that I had from the Caritas Social Action Network gave the example of someone who was not considered destitute for this purpose because they had £60 in their bank account, but they were homeless. Perhaps I should know the answer, but will the Minister tell us the criteria for destitution when deciding on such cases? I hope that he will look kindly on these very reasonable, very modest and very just amendments.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I support these two amendments—in particular, where they deal with exemptions for children who cannot be expected to have large earnings and for victims of domestic violence. May I suggest to the Minister that he consults on this his noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns? After all, she has worldwide responsibilities for protecting women in particular but also, no doubt, children against violence, whether domestic or arising from wars and civil conflicts. It would be paradoxical for us to go to considerable lengths to get better worldwide protection while diminishing it or removing it from people here.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Hylton

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of Amendment 80G—to which I added my name as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights—and to follow the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, who has moved the amendment so powerfully.

I apologise for not being able to be present during the Bill’s Committee stage, but I have read the debate. It was striking that no noble Lord other than the Minister, of course, spoke in support of Clause 91. The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, who is also a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, called it an unhelpful precedent. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, lately of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—who have both already been quoted—called it a step too far. To the Minister’s credit, he has taken note and come back with government amendments. In my view, however, his amendments are a step not far enough. They do not meet the concerns of the Joint Committee on Human Rights which have been voiced in two reports on the Bill and lie behind Amendment 80G. The noble Lords who serve on the JCHR said in Committee that Clause 91 smacks of punishment rather than serving as a means of preventing harm. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, said, it would create a double punishment. The Minister talks about tough action, but tough action was taken after the riots, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, argued strongly in Committee. Moreover, in many cases the punishment will be applied to people who are totally innocent of the behaviour in question. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, talked about the clause creating new victims.

In response to the JCHR’s concerns on this point, the Minister tried to reassure your Lordships that the power would be discretionary and the courts would have regard to what is reasonable before granting a possession order. He also argued in Committee that it is an established principle of tenancy law that a tenant is held responsible for the behaviour of members of their household. Surely tenancy law concerns behaviour that affects the accommodation and/or contravenes a condition of the tenancy and not behaviour that could have taken place hundreds of miles away. Indeed, the Minister himself has dubbed it “riot tourism”. That is not a phrase that I would use but it underlines the fact that we are talking about behaviour that has no implications for the neighbours of those concerned, and nor does it affect the landlord.

Research into existing discretionary anti-social behaviour powers reveals how, in practice, women are often held responsible for the behaviour of sons and/or male partners. Reporting on this research in an article in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, Caroline Hunter and Judy Nixon note that two out of three complaints of anti-social behaviour against women heads of households concern the behaviour of teenage children—mainly sons—or male partners or boyfriends. The article states:

“Regardless of the difficulty and in some cases, the impossibility women experienced in controlling the behaviour of their teenage sons or boyfriends, they were deemed responsible for the behaviour and were as a result evicted from their homes … while the lack of fault on the part of the women in many of these cases was striking and in some cases acknowledged by the judges, this was not a sufficient factor to prevent the women from being punished and evicted from their homes”.

So I am not reassured by what the Minister said about this being discretionary and about the reasonableness of the judicial system.

Subsequent analysis of more recent Court of Appeal cases found a similar pattern, in particular in relation to the behaviour of male partners—not underaged children but partners. Limiting the operation of Clause 91 to cases where a riot-related offence is committed by an adult member of the household, as under the government amendment, in practice makes little difference. In many cases, it will be adults, probably males, sons or partners, who are the perpetrators.

The phrase of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was striking: we are creating new victims here. Those innocent victims who will lose their homes will disproportionately be women and children. The Minister also tried to reassure us by saying that the impact will be small, there will not be that many people affected. What about every woman and child who loses their house, their home, because of this provision? Surely that is not just; that is not fair.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that nobody wishes to condone rioting or the serious damage and intimidation that it can cause. Most of us are grateful to the Government for bringing forward their amendments. Nevertheless, they do not deal with the discrimination against, for example, owner-occupiers, because they touch only on secure and assured tenants. There is the further point that the Bill, even as amended, is very likely to punish the innocent. Unless the Government can come back with a very much better defence of the clause, I shall certainly support the noble Baroness and my noble friend if they wish to press the amendment to a Division.