EU Settlement Scheme

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Elections Act 2022 preserved voting rights for individuals from the European Union who had settled status in the United Kingdom. They can vote and stand in elections in every way, with the exception of general elections, where they cannot vote or stand. This is a Cabinet Office responsibility, but I will ensure that the points made by my noble friend are brought to the attention of the Cabinet Office Minister. There is clarity on the Electoral Commission website to that effect, which gives the information that is required.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the EU settlement scheme has generally been a success, but there are some problems with it, including those attracting legal action by the European Commission that raise the prospect of another Windrush. Will the new Government undertake an overall review of the scheme, including the impact assessment that has never been done of the denial of physical proof of residence rights and the imposition of digital-only status? That is to be extended throughout the visa system, but we have never had an impact assessment.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Government have been aware of both the court cases and the challenges that have taken place—that happened under the previous Government. We believe that we are now legally meeting the obligations of High Court judgments and of the status scheme that was implemented following the withdrawal agreement. However, obviously we keep that under review. We are also aware of the challenges mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, on digitisation and we are working through to, I hope, meet our obligations to those citizens who have a right now to live, work and indeed in some cases vote in this United Kingdom.

Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee and I have played a relay with Private Members’ Bills on this important subject of refugee family reunion. She has explained the history, going back seven years and now five Bills. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield noted, the sustained interest in this cause should tell the Government something. My noble friend’s expertise and commitment to this cause, and many others in the field of asylum and immigration, have inspired me and continue to do so.

The Bill would address some of the key gaps in eligibility and remove some of the existing barriers to family reunion. Notably, it would enable child refugees to sponsor their close family members—parents and siblings—as well as cautiously expand the range of family members that adult refugees are allowed to sponsor to include siblings, parents and adult dependent children. The core proposition is that families belong together and that we should do what we can to mend the effects of war and persecution that tear them apart. It is simply inhumane to keep families apart.

This Government are, thankfully, committed to the European Convention on Human Rights. What about its Article 8, on the right to family life? What about the Convention on the Rights of the Child? My noble friend Lady Walmsley asked why the Government are not prioritising the best interests of the child.

Family ties are a key reason why people risk their lives on dangerous journeys to reach the UK, so safe and legal family reunion routes provide a vital alternative to life-threatening channel crossings, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—still my friend—stressed. Restricting family reunion drives vulnerable women and children into the hands of ruthless people smugglers and traffickers, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, so forcefully reminded us. Family reunion accelerates refugees’ integration in the UK. Permitting a refugee to be with their family will greatly improve their chance of leading a stable and productive life, without threats to their well-being and mental health. Imagine trying to move forward with your life and work while worrying about the safety of family back home.

Family relationships can be key to the psychological recovery of a child refugee. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, referred to the grief of the Kindertransport children. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reminded us, family unity may save the public purse; it costs £30,000 a year to look after a child in a residential home or foster care who might be supported by parents and other relatives if they were allowed to come to the UK—memo to Rachel Reeves.

In 2022, the previous Government demonstrated an admirable awareness of how refugees need their families by introducing the Ukraine family scheme, as has already been referred to, which allowed Ukrainians to sponsor a wide range of extended family members. This Bill suggests definitions of family that are not nearly as broad as the Ukraine scheme.

The previous Government defended the ban on child refugees sponsoring their parents or close family members to join them—in which we are an outlier in Europe, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, stressed—by claiming that it would act as a pull factor, encouraging more children to make dangerous journeys to the UK. As the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, and my noble friend Lord Oates cited, in 2016 the EU Committee of this House categorically concluded that there was no evidence provided by EU member states operating the family reunification directive, which permits children to sponsor family members but which the UK declined to opt into, that children had been exploited by being sent ahead for other family members to join them. Its report on child migrants said:

“We received no evidence of families sending children as ‘anchors’ following the implementation of the Family Reunification Directive by other Member States”.


The Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place reached a similar conclusion under the chairmanship of the right honourable Yvette Cooper, now Home Secretary. In any case, the deterrence argument assumes it to be morally as well as legally sound to block the right to family reunification in order to send signals to prospective immigrants to give it up. This is surely not going to be the new Government’s position.

It is important to note that, while the Bill would make a big change for the families able to be safely reunited, the increase in the number of refugee family reunion visas issued would be relatively small. My noble friend answered the noble Lord, Lord Murray, who made an intervention without a speech. The Refugee Council and Safe Passage have estimated that allowing children to sponsor close relatives could result in between 240 and 750 family members being granted visas each year.

Just over two years ago, during Second Reading on a similar Bill that I introduced, there was an important contribution from the then shadow Chief Whip—I will name him—the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, now the actual Chief Whip. He said:

“I support the Bill and hope that we will get a positive response from the Minister … This issue is not going to go away until the Government deal with the question of how we can have proper safe and legal routes and deal with the criminal gangs. This Bill is one attempt to deal with those problems”.—[Official Report, 8/7/2022; col. 1242.]


I rest my case. This remains the case in October 2024. If the new Government are serious about strengthening safe routes, supporting women and children, endorsing family life and tackling the smuggling and trafficking gangs, they will back this Bill. I sincerely hope that the Minister can give us a positive response today to this modest and doable Bill, as my noble friend says.

King’s Speech

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I applaud the speech made by the noble Baroness and I look forward to seeing her Private Member’s Bill. I too warmly welcome the new Ministers.

I was as delighted to hear the Attorney-General yesterday promise that the new Government would respect and uphold the rule of law as I was to hear the new Prime Minister do the same in regard to the European Convention on Human Rights. The display last week at the European Political Community summit of the London treaty—the London treaty, note—which set up the Council of Europe, which hosts the convention and the European Court of Human Rights, sent a massive and very welcome signal of intent.

I also applaud the fact that not only have the Government scrapped the Rwanda scheme, but yesterday they made regulations to amend the ill-named Illegal Migration Act such as to ensure the processing of asylum seekers.

I very much welcome the proposed Hillsborough law to impose a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities, although can the Minister explain how it will be enforced?

The London Victims’ Commissioner has reported on the inadequacy of action against stalkers—most of whom, although not all, are men—and the National Police Chiefs’ Council has called out an “epidemic” of violence against women and girls, as we have heard often today.

Sky News reports that misogyny, harassment and sexual abuse are even rife in the ambulance service, which is so utterly depressing as it should be all about keeping people safe. A young woman told the “Today” programme this morning that if an objection is made to boys quoting the extreme misogynist Andrew Tate, they are told, “Boys will be boys”, and, “You can’t take a joke”.

What are the Government’s plans to tackle this distinctly unfunny epidemic of violence, not only through the criminal justice system but socially and through an education system aimed at changing the behaviour of some men and boys with a warped perception of masculinity? Can the Government also look at the violence, threats and intimidation from supposedly trans rights activists—often very frightening men in black balaclavas—who have physically attacked women and threatened to rape and kill the TERFs? Has the police response been adequate? I do not need to refer the conversion therapy Bill, as I agree with the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott.

Women in the criminal justice system are described by the Ministry of Justice as among the most vulnerable in society, with complex needs that include trauma, domestic abuse, mental health and substance misuse problems. The fact that this trauma has been increased in some cases by male-bodied prisoners being placed with them shames those in charge of such decisions. I agree with my noble friend Lord McNally in calling on the Government to revisit, and hopefully accept, the recommendation of the 2007 Corston report on trying to avoid custodial sentences for women.

To continue on the subject of women, will this Government amend the Equality Act to clarify that “sex” means “biological sex” in order to resolve some of the problematic interactions between the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act?

I will cite in detail the Howard League’s recent valuable paper on options for a lasting solution to the prisons crisis on Friday, when we debate the report on community sentences by our Justice and Home Affairs Committee chaired by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. Wearing my European enthusiast hat I hope that the Minister’s plans will include looking at practice on community-based and diversionary schemes in the Netherlands and in Scandinavian countries. I also hope that the Government will try to get back into at least some of the EU justice and home affairs instruments and bodies, such as SIS II, which the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, mentioned.

I share the outrage at the IPP scandal, and I would like to hear more detail on the Government’s plans to expedite the safe release of post-tariff IPP prisoners. Will the Government set up a royal commission on the criminal justice system, as suggested by the Bar Council? Will they invest in a sustainable and resilient justice system recognised as a vital public service that truly serves the public? There is as yet no promise of more money.

My last remark is on the need to dig all those agencies supervised by the Ministry of Justice out of the 19th century and get them into the 21st century. Among them are His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, which includes the Probate Service, the Office of the Public Guardian and the Passport Office, which includes the General Register Office. Many of us only encounter some of those agencies on the death of a loved one, and we can have a very unhappy experience of bereavement bureaucracy, as I did, at a time when we need less stress, not more.