Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hamwee

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick has his name to Amendment 170. I know that he—I join him in this—is always pleased to have an opportunity to support the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich. Given that we are now past 4 pm, which, in the terminology of this House, was to be the lunch hour, I will not say anything more on this amendment. I hope that noble Lords can read between the lines.

Similarly, I particularly support Amendment 171A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for reasons to which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred.

Finally, when I bumped into the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, the other day, I said, “I don’t know what you’re going to say but I’ll support you”. He said, “I thought you would”.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, we have been quicker than I anticipated but what my noble friend said is true; I must admit that I am starving.

I will speak to Amendments 171 and 172 from the JCHR, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. They aim to remove the worst of Clause 64. Leave to remain is important for victims who are vulnerable to destitution and further exploitation without welfare benefits and other entitlements but, according to the anti-slavery commissioner, the number of victims being granted discretionary leave is very low. In 2015, it was 123. In 2019, it was 70. In the first three months of 2020, it was only eight; we do not have statistics for the whole of 2020-21.

Being granted leave can improve mental health by offering stability and thus a chance of recovery, but the equivalent reference to assistance and support in the Modern Slavery Act reads “physical or psychological harm”; that includes social harm. This Bill would put the law out of line with that and raise real doubts about compatibility with Article 14 of ECAT, which uses the phrase

“necessary owing to their personal situation”.

That is wider than what is in Clause 64(2)(a), which is why I commend Amendment 171 to the Committee. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, refer to the JCHR’s report; he also mentioned the importance of family relationships.

Amendment 172 aims to rectify the omission from Clause 64 of any consideration of the best interests of the child so as to make it compatible with ECAT and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I seem to have mixed up my notes; I am sorry about that because I will now go back to Amendment 171.

In a case last year, the High Court held that refusing to grant discretionary leave while a slavery victim’s asylum application was being processed violated Article 14 of the European Convention on Action against Trafficking. It appears that, before amendments were made in the other place, Clause 64(2)(a) included a reference to the victim’s social well-being as well as their physical and mental health. However, it was removed on Report. Can the Minister explain why? Would the Government like to rectify this omission in the Bill regarding personal, situational and social harm so as to make me, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the JCHR very happy?

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hamwee

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

The Minister keeps saying that each state will define the refugee convention, and he alluded to the EU qualification directive; there is also the procedures directive. I declare an interest, as I worked on both directives as an MEP. Of course, that was an attempt not for each state in the EU to do its own thing but to have a collective set of laws which interpreted the refugee convention in detail and, as far as I know, complied with it. That prevented each country doing its own thing in a potentially destructive way.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I have an associated point, to save the Minister bobbing up and down too much. I entirely take the point about non-political crime. I just wanted to make it clear that I was referring only to that bit of the Bill when I mentioned the case. I was not suggesting that it was the prompt for the whole of this part. But can the Minister explain more about the impact of our leaving the EU? Does that give us a legal opportunity, or is this happening because it is a convenient political point in the calendar, as it were?

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hamwee

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, as I said in an earlier group, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who is the lead signatory of these amendments, could not stay so I am moving our amendments in this and the last group.

Clauses 65 and 66 amend LASPO—the Legal Aid, Sentencing and something Act—to allow for people already in receipt of legal aid for an immigration, asylum or human rights claim, under the exceptional case determination procedure, to receive legal aid advice in relation to a referral into the national referral mechanism, whereby they seek a positive reasonable grounds decision as a potential victim of slavery or human trafficking.

However, these provisions help only victims who already receive legal aid and know how to ask for it. It does not cover all victims. Exceptional case funding for legal aid is very difficult to secure in practice, so Clauses 65 and 66 will help only a small number of people, not least, as the Anti-slavery Commissioner has noted, because it requires a lot of time-consuming work up front to get that exceptional case funding and the solicitor is paid only if the application is successful.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights supports the request of the Anti-slavery Commissioner that legal aid advice of seven hours—or preferably more, as my noble friend’s Amendment 94A probes—should also be available to those in receipt of a slavery or trafficking notice in the same way as for those in receipt of a priority removal notice, to avoid victims of severe trauma remaining unidentified and unassisted. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, like others in Parliament, as I know from these Benches, has also repeatedly expressed its concern about legal aid deserts, but that is a wider debate. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 94A in this group. I am sorry that I could not respond to the Minister on the previous group, but I am sure we will come back to that. I was going to observe that the Chamber seemed largely to have cleared, possibly because other noble Lords could not bear this Bill any longer today, but some noble Lords have rejoined us.

It is clearly better that legal aid is available than not, but I am aware, as my noble friend is, of the shortage of provision and some of the problems here. I would say that it is not a matter for today, but actually it probably is. It is very significant, because the words in the Bill will not provide the advice. The Minister has referred two or three times very confidently to the legal aid offer; we are concerned to ensure that that offer has substance.

I have heard over the years of the difficulties of solicitors—if you can find one—advising and taking instructions in immigration removal centres, with the restrictions there on time, of 30 minutes eaten into by the client having to be fetched and then returned. I do not need to say again, but I will in one sentence, that the client often needs a lot of time over a period to tell his or her story.

My amendment seeks to understand how the Government have landed on seven hours. The Minister gently chided me for the use of the term “arbitrary” before. I will acknowledge that my proposal of 20 hours is arbitrary, but it is my way of probing why the Bill provides for seven hours. I asked ILPA whether that would be sufficient, and the reply was:

“I do not think seven hours of legal aid is sufficient to advise on the notice, the person’s immigration status, the lawfulness of removal, and immigration detention. The immigration system is complex, and the Bill makes it more complex through the expedited processes, priority notices, and new definitions/standards … It is also of concern”


that the Bill

“would allow a power to alter that 7 hour time limit.”

There must have been evidence for coming to the seven hours. If that is so, what evidence would the Minister apply to reduce that figure—or indeed extend it? ILPA says it does not

“have a sense as to the specific number of hours needed for this advice, as it would be so case-specific,”

which is entirely understandable,

“including the immigration and procedural history of the case, novelty of any legal arguments, number of bases on which to raise a claim, the legality of detention”

and so on. So I hope that the Minister can flesh out this provision in the Bill so we can understand what the Government think can be achieved with the seven hours of scarce legal aid.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hamwee

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, this will not be the last time we talk about the need for a trauma-informed approach. I think the expression “necessary delay”, used by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is very useful and applies much better to this situation than “without delay”, which is what we are faced with.

Even without the background and experiences referred to in this amendment, I cannot imagine undertaking the sort of journey that most people fleeing from the situations they are in will have undertaken. Any asylum seeker will be in a pretty awful state. Many will be anxious about authority figures. It is incumbent on us to ensure that they are not retraumatised. We should not require them to present a coherent explanation and make a claim so quickly.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, talked about the possible survival of Clause 11. I would add Clause 36 to that. I do not think this provision can be read without looking at Clause 36, which deals with Article 31 of the convention. Clause 36(2) says:

“A refugee is not to be taken to have presented themselves without delay”—


“presented themselves” is the phrase used in Clause 11—

“unless … they made a claim for asylum as soon as reasonably practicable after their arrival in the United Kingdom.”

I do not think it is necessary to read the whole clause.

I hope the Minister can explain how, in practical terms, given the life experiences that we are suggesting, “present” and “make a claim” relate to one another. Does making a claim

“as soon as reasonably practicable”

mean presenting the substance of a claim? If I read these two clauses correctly, we now have “presenting oneself” and “making a claim”. Failure, under Clause 11, to present not just oneself but one’s claim takes one straight into the territory of late evidence and all the horrors of criminality and second-class status.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly. The remarks by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, made me reflect. She was talking about how it takes a year, 18 months or two years for the people whom she has met in the course of her admirable-sounding charity, to be able to fully open up and explain themselves. This makes me think how similar this is to grief. For asylum seekers who have been forced to flee everything that is familiar to them—their home, country, family and links—and arrive in a strange place, this is a form of grief and bereavement.

I am not the only person in this Chamber who has suffered a relatively recent bereavement. I would not say that I have fully recovered after a year, 18 months, two years—even two and a half years. Indeed, I never will be. Given the disorientation and the inability to fully function, a year, 18 months or two years is not wide of the mark for how long you need to get your act together to handle an asylum claim.

Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hamwee

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee [V]]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has added his name to Amendment 3, as the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Anderson, did to a similar amendment at an earlier stage. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Ludford, who dealt with the matter on our behalf on Report, when, with the leave of the Minister, it was agreed that it be taken at Third Reading.

We often hear from the mover of an amendment: “This is a simple amendment.” Often, it is not quite that simple, but I believe this one is straightforward. When the Secretary of State lays regulations under new Section 74B(7)

“to add, vary or remove a reference to a territory”—

it is the addition that is the issue here—those regulations should apply only to a single territory. What I hope makes this simple to noble Lords is that there is nothing to prevent several instruments, each relating to one territory, being laid at the same time so that several territories can be specified within a matter of minutes of each other. But the crux is that Parliament should be able to reject one territory while happily accepting others.

In Committee, I used the examples of the Netherlands, a country which we respect, and Turkey, whose human rights record has regressed. I will use another pair today. I couple them only to distinguish between them: Sweden is a country we admire; Venezuela is one we do not, in this regard. If Parliament is presented with the choice of rejecting Sweden from the system because it wants to reject Venezuela, or accepting Venezuela because it wants to accept Sweden, how can Parliament possibly do the job we are all here to do when faced with an SI which is not amendable? The Minister has said previously that she would not present an SI that includes a country whose extradition requests we could not have confidence in due to their human rights record and would risk Parliament refusing extradition arrangements with a country that respects the rule of law. What the noble Baroness as an individual Minister might do is not the issue. I do not for a moment challenge her as an individual. This is a matter of system and procedure, not for an individual.

The previous amendment, which has just been agreed, referred to political motivation, and we must all be aware of the different criteria that different countries apply to the decisions they take as a state. Given the issues around relationships with countries regarding arms sales, for instance, is it any wonder that noble Lords are concerned about extradition to a country whose values, including valuing human life, are not our values?

The shortcomings and difficulties in procedures for dealing with secondary legislation are not a new point, but the fact that no amendments are possible is the most relevant one today. But, for once, we have a solution, which is to deal with these proposals one country at a time. I cannot understand an objection which seems to amount to no more than “It wasn’t invented here” or “not common practice”, to use the phrase used in Committee.

I need say no more, as I know that other noble Lords will contribute to the debate. Unless the Minister concedes, which I do not expect, I will test the opinion of the House, but for the moment I beg to move.

[Baroness Ludford [V]]

My noble friend Lady Hamwee has covered the strong case for this amendment and, to be quite frank, I cannot see on what grounds the Government can resist it. There is no good argument on administrative, parliamentary or human rights grounds not to have one territory per SI, so that Parliament can carefully discriminate between those territories where we are happy to have a law enforcement relationship and those that are, quite honestly, unreliable.

The way that the Government have resisted this improvement throughout the passage of the Bill in your Lordships’ House raises some concerns. Those are not linked, as my noble friend said, to the person of the Minister, but to any and every Government. We know that there will be pressures on this country, which has chosen—wrongly, in my opinion—to exit from the EU and make itself vulnerable to pressures in the context of seeking trade agreements. Those pressures are being discussed in a lively way, as they were last Wednesday in our Second Reading of the Agriculture Bill, when we discussed chlorinated chicken, hormone-treated beef and so on, and one can foresee similar kinds of pressures when countries seek favours from the United Kingdom in order to give us a trade concession. It would be all too tempting for a current or future Government to throw in a favour in a completely different area, such as law enforcement co-operation, in order to win a point for one economic sector or another in a trade deal.

In order to stop any such development in its tracks, it is completely reasonable to ask the Government simply to let Parliament decide on a country-by-country basis whether we want to add them to this system of provisional arrest. The onus is really on the Government to convince this House why it is reasonable to lump them together and not allow us to decide territory by territory, which is the obvious way to proceed.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hamwee

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords & Ping Pong (Hansard)
Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I simply have one request for the Government. What will shortly become Section 37 provides for a statement of policy within two months. The Minister talked about reassuring noble Lords. Those who need reassurance are EU citizens—those covered by my noble friend’s amendment—and those affected by the child refugee situation. I hope that the Government, who have told us that they have been negotiating, can bring forward a statement of policy well before the end of the two months.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I am not quite sure why the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, singled me out for mention. I think that I must figure in his worst nightmares—which obviously delights me.

He referred to it taking three years to get the withdrawal agreement approved, but I remind him and the Benches opposite that the failure to approve it sooner was due largely to the refusal of Brexiters to support previous efforts. We remainers do not accept responsibility for Brexit or for the negative consequences that it will entail. We have played our part responsibly in trying to improve the process and the outcome of Brexit, as we have on this Bill.

I am glad that this House was not bullied or intimidated, and that it has improved the Bill. In better times, the thoughtful contributions that we made would have received a more respectful response from the Government—I agree, for once, with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth—but the Government were dogmatically determined to refuse any positive improvement to the Bill. So here we are, and we will see what happens in the months and years to come.