Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Lord Paddick

2nd reading
Friday 8th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister was not wrong in that last remark. I thank him very much for his reply, which I will come back to, but I want to thank everybody who has spoken in this debate. I was extremely pleased that we had the bonus of two extremely valuable extra speakers in the gap, which was wonderful.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, made a salutary correction to our historical perspective on the story of the Kindertransport. It was, of course, incomplete and she is right to focus our attention on the sadness and despair—I must get her note on the name of that book, though it will be in Hansard, obviously. I found what she said about the sense of abandonment very moving; how can children prosper in such circumstances? I was pleased that the Minister also picked up on that point. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham also raised the question of the trauma for the child in expecting them to grow up without their parents and quoted very moving testimony from Afghanistan.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked a pertinent question: do the Government want to be world leading in cruelty to child refugees? It is a fair question. She talked about not only having no one to embrace us, as refugees, in our sadness, but also having no one to share our successes with. I thought that was a very good point; it is not just about comfort but about celebration when we do well.

I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, reminded me; I second his thanks to the Library for its briefing note. Like everyone else across this House, I just think Alf, the noble Lord, is brilliant. I am pleased to serve with him on the Joint Committee on Human Rights. His efforts since 2017 especially, trying to keep the Dubs scheme going in the face of a disappointing response from the Government is nothing short of heroic.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, rightly reminded us of how the pandemic has highlighted our appreciation of family. Not to get noble Lords weeping for me, but I spent Christmas Day 2020 alone as a widow; I was supposed to go to a family Christmas but, because of lockdown, I could not. It was not that bad—I had loads of chocolate and silly TV and in my neck of the woods at least three shops are open on Christmas Day. I am not asking people to feel sorry for me but Christmas, if you celebrate it, is not normally a time when you like to be alone in this country; perhaps it brought home to me that sense of being alone.

My noble friend Lord Paddick talked about putting some heart back into immigration policy in this country. That is what this whole debate and the Bill are about. He reminded us of what a small fraction of total immigration family reunion—indeed, safe and legal routes generally—is. We are really not talking about some large extra cohort.

I very much welcome the support of the Labour Front Bench, expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark. He made the very correct point that we get loads of new legislation. Like him, one loses track of all the immigration and asylum Bills, but what is lacking is any real action on tackling the criminal gangs, for which we certainly need co-operation with France and Europol. Of course, one of the great holes in the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU was any co-operation on security and justice issues, which is absurd given the history of how the UK championed a lot of the co-operation. We had the director of Europol for 10 years, for goodness’ sake, and now we have made ourselves absent. We need to put the criminal gangs out of business, and the way to do that is through safe and legal routes, of which this Bill is one.

That brings me to the response of the Minister, which was not dissimilar to the response I had last September. He tells us that the Government fully support the principle of family unity which is why they have a comprehensive policy. He tried to reassure us of the width and generosity of this policy, but he will forgive me if I am not terribly persuaded of that. The Minister talked about this Bill encompassing an extended family, but it does not really; it is quite nuclear, apart from adult dependent children. It is not nearly as wide, as my noble friend Lord Paddick pointed out, as the Ukraine family scheme. The Minister’s response to why that scheme is about extended family was to say that it is Putin’s war.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

What about Assad’s war?

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Other wars are indeed going on, and that is why refugees are fleeing, whether from Afghanistan, Sudan or the Middle East.

I regret that the Minister trotted out the “children are being forced to travel and exploited” line. It is rather like the debates during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act on the right to work, when the Migration Advisory Committee told us there was no evidence that the right to work was a pull factor. There is also no evidence that the ability of a child refugee to bring their nuclear family to join them is a pull factor or used as some kind of anchor. I am afraid the Government are playing into the hands of the criminal gangs by restricting safe and legal routes, of which family reunion is one of the strongest. Many of us in this House, certainly on this side, deplore that the Nationality and Borders Act brings in this restrictive treatment of so-called group 2 refugees, who are going to be in a worse situation regarding rights, including to family reunion. You cannot have it both ways; the Government say they have a broad and generous policy but have brought in an Act which deliberately restricts family reunion rights. I am afraid that what they are saying simply is not true.

Finally, the Minister talked about the burden on the public purse. But how do you know whether child refugees, or any refugees, are going to prosper? The Minister gave me a name about a war, and I will give him a name: Nadhim Zahawi. He came here, apparently at the age of 11, unable to speak any English.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Lord Paddick

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

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I hope not to have to detain the Committee for too long on this admittedly complicated subject of the anomalous historical legacy of comprehensive sickness insurance—hereafter CSI—because I am hoping that the Minister will spring up, interrupt me and pledge that the Home Office will resolve all the left-over problems faced by some EU citizens today. She was kind enough to meet me virtually last week, and I detected a degree of thoughtfulness in her department on the subject. I cannot yet put it higher than that, but I am hopeful.

Attentive listeners might recall that some of us— especially, perhaps, I—banged on about the obscure issue of CSI at various points in the debates on EU withdrawal and, in particular, on the UK’s EU settlement scheme. It is a long and, in my view, sorry history. I will recap as briefly as I can: in the EU citizens’ rights directive of nearly 20 years ago—which I worked on as a Member of the European Parliament, hence my long-standing interest—so-called free movers were required to have comprehensive sickness insurance; that was the term used. On the continent, health systems are often covered by state insurance systems. In the UK, we have the NHS or private health insurance. Although of course we have national insurance, people do not think of the NHS as an insured scheme. So there has been a long-running problem of EU citizens in Britain who are not employed, such as students, the self-employed and homemakers, being expected—although, crucially, not usually told—to have private insurance. This was a matter of legal dispute in Brussels, which rumbled on, and I do not think it ever got resolved.

Fast forward to Brexit and the acute issue of whether those lacking private health insurance were legally resident in the UK and could seek settled status under the withdrawal agreement. Fortunately, the UK Government wisely cut through that residual red tape and said, in an admirably pragmatic decision, that they would let everyone get settled status. However, often unbeknownst to individuals, they fell into one of two groups: the true cohort and the extra cohort. The significance of this distinction arises only—indeed only becomes known —when a settled person seeks to register a child’s birth, to naturalise themselves as British or to bring a family member to join them in this country. Then they face a veritable series of snakes and ladders, because any historical gap in CSI—private insurance—may make them slide down into a pit of reptilian problems. Only when they seek to register a child, bring in a spouse or become a British citizen might they be told: “Aha! Your historic lack of CSI is a bar.” Noble Lords will recall that it was not a bar to them getting settled status, but it raises its ugly head at this later stage. At the risk of mixing my metaphors, it is Kafkaesque.

Certainly, in the case of bids for naturalisation, caseworkers have—but only through guidance—been given discretion to waive this historic need for CSI to meet the lawful residence requirement. On Report in the other place, the Minister, Kevin Foster, said that

“no one has been refused British citizenship purely on the basis of the CSI requirement in free movement regulations.”

The trouble is that if an applicant has to stump up around £1,300, without the certainty of the outcome because of the discretion for the caseworker, that is a gamble—potentially an expensive one.

I am asking the Government to carry through the pragmatic logic whereby they decided to ignore the past lack of CSI for settled status and now to wipe the slate entirely clean for subsequent immigration applications and statuses. On 7 December, Minister Foster told the other place

“we are considering how the issues could be picked up as part of our work on simplification”.

He hoped that MPs would

“be pleased to hear that we are looking closely at that work.”—[Official Report, Commons, 7/12/21; col. 260.]

That was a bit encouraging.

Perhaps the Minister could give us a more solid basis of hope, in relation not just to naturalisation but to the other applications, such as the registration of a baby’s birth and family reunion. I am sure that millions of EU citizens, resident in and contributing to this country, would be immensely grateful for the peace of mind they would thereby secure. Who knows? Their gratitude might rebound on this Government. I hope for good news. I beg to move.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I hesitate to follow my noble friend, who is an expert on this issue. I declare an interest as a British citizen seeking a residence permit in Norway, where I have lived with my husband for the last 14 years. I have always had access to the Norwegian national health system. My application for a residence permit—the equivalent of settled status—has been outstanding for over 12 months because of issues with comprehensive health insurance.

I start by thanking the Government for their generous approach to EU and EEA citizens seeking settled status in the UK. The Government have taken the general approach that, if someone has been living here for years and was legally accessing the NHS when the UK was part of the EU, they do not need to have, to have had or acquire comprehensive health insurance, even if—as with me in Norway—they are not working or studying. This goes beyond the Brexit agreement, but is entirely consistent with the principle that EU and EEA citizens living in the UK prior to Brexit should be able to continue to live here on the same terms after Brexit. It is the right thing to do. I am grateful to the Government for taking such an approach. I wish Norway would do the same.

My understanding of this amendment is that it goes a step beyond settled status—where EU and EEA citizens who have qualified for settled status seek to be naturalised as British citizens, to exercise family reunion rights as a naturalised British citizen, or to have their UK-born children recognised as British at birth. Even though they do not have to have comprehensive sickness insurance for settled status, it currently appears that they may have to have it for citizenship purposes. This amendment seeks to rectify that anomaly between settled status and citizenship. I am getting a nod, so that is okay.

What this amendment seeks to achieve follows on logically from the generous and welcome stance of the British Government on settled status in relation to comprehensive sickness insurance. We support the amendment.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Lord Paddick

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee has comprehensively explained the reasons for these amendments, which we support. On the issue of good character, if someone has the right to become a British citizen—they already have that right; they just want to register it—what has good character got to do with it, particularly if they are children? Even if the applicant is guilty of a criminal offence, surely denial of citizenship is a disproportionate punishment.

What are we to say about people who acquire British citizenship at birth? We do not say to British citizens, “You’ve been found guilty of a criminal offence, so we are going to take away your citizenship.” What is the difference if people have to apply to register their British citizenship? We fully support these amendments.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I just second what everyone else has said, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, whose Amendment 9 I have had the honour to co-sign. As he pointed out, the key element to stress here is that the imposition of a good character requirement for citizenship now would perpetuate discrimination against those who have been discriminated against in the past, when the whole—laudable—point of Part 1, which, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee pointed out, is the only good bit of the Bill, is to rectify historical injustice.

Indeed, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights believes, it could well amount to

“unlawful discrimination, contrary to Article 14 as read with Article 8 ECHR, to require a person to prove good character when remedying previous unlawful discrimination against that person.”

When applied to children, it is even more unfair and obviously against their best interests. Hence the need to delete Clause 3(4), which is the focus of Amendment 9. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, referred to the quotation that this is “divisive, alienating” and unjust, compared to the treatment of other British citizens.