Family Migration (Justice and Home Affairs Committee Report)

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I wanted to speak in this debate because I strongly believe in the importance of the subject—hence my sponsorship of a Private Member’s Bill on refugee family reunion which has passed this House—and because this admirable report makes a very compelling case for a radical improvement in the rules and practice of the Home Office. I have agreed with all the excellent speeches made so far, including that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee.

Humanity and decency should be at the heart of rights-based family migration policies, but instead we seem to have callousness, even cruelty, combined with slow and cumbersome bureaucracy and inconsistent practices. The Refugee Council verdict is that:

“Many people with protection needs in the UK are struggling to reunite with even their closest family members. This is due to a combination of restrictive policies and operational failures”.


The committee’s report says that

“we … believe that the current rules do not adequately respect the right for families to be together”.

There is also a damning quote from Professor Audrey Macklin of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law:

“What strikes me about the UK system is that it seems to desire to prevent and deter families from living together”.


Amnesty International, the Refugee Council and Save the Children have concluded that the UK’s restrictive policy is in breach of its legal obligations under both national and international law.

If successful settlement, integration and making a full contribution are in the interests of society, as of course they are, then the actions of the Home Office make no sense at all. As the report says:

“We believe … that policies that respect family life also benefit society”.


There is a sheer—even grotesque—political contradiction. The report quotes the Prime Minister as saying that:

“Family runs right through our vision of a better future”,


and

“Strong, supportive families make for more stable communities”.


I could not agree more, but we want that implemented, because the failure to reunite families has severe consequences for the people who find themselves separated indefinitely from their loved ones. These consequences are particularly acute for children.

I welcome the Labour Party’s pledge to create a system for child refugees in the EU to once again have a facility to join family in the UK. However, we also need to allow refugee children to sponsor family members, which they are not currently eligible to do within the Immigration Rules, with applications “outside the rules” complex, lengthy and frequently unsuccessful.

As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham described, Afghans evacuated under Operation Pitting and subsequently resettled under pathway 1 of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme were granted indefinite leave to remain but without protection status. This means that they are not eligible for refugee family reunion. The Home Office has given them no prospect of that. Noble Lords can imagine the anguish of the 11 year-old child Wasim, referred to by the right reverend Prelate. He has been here since he was nine, while his parents are left in Afghanistan. What is the point of that distress to that whole family? The Home Office is both insensitive and inefficient. The report finds that:

“The Home Office is systematically deficient in its processing of family visa applications. Delays pile up, communication is appallingly poor, evidential requirements are excessively complex”—


as my noble friend mentioned—

“and fees prohibitive. Applicants are left distraught”.

No wonder the report calls for Home Office processes to improve considerably and family migration rules to be simplified. The committee advises that:

“The process for bringing family members to the UK should be straightforward, affordable, transparent, and fair, with the rules applied as consistently as possible across different pathways”.


You would not think that was an awful lot to ask for. The committee wants the financial requirements for spouses and partners to be made more flexible, focusing on the likelihood of future income of the family unit rather than on one individual’s past income. It calls for reform of the route for adult dependent relatives so as to stop damaging family life and impoverishing society.

The Conservative Party likes to parade its belief in “family values”, but they are pretty much invisible in the field of immigration. Please can the Government put this admirable sentiment into effect in the Home Office? I hope the Minister can assure us of that.