Student Visas

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The two countries that send the most students with dependants are Nigeria and India. Our points-based immigration system prioritises skills and talent over where a person comes from, in any event. We consider any impact of our changes proportionate in achieving the overall aim of reducing net migration and allowing dependants only for a specific cohort of students with the types of skills the UK is specifically seeking to attract to assist economic growth. In answer to the second part of the noble Lord’s question, on whether one would separate a mother from a child, obviously every case is fact-specific but the principle remains that if you apply for a student visa for a course other than a research graduate study course, you are not entitled to bring a dependant.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister just be clear? He talked with some pride about the Government’s international student strategy. If the outcome of this policy is fewer overseas students coming here to study at master’s level, will he consider that the policy has been a success or a failure?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Clearly, the purpose of the policy is to bring down net migration.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to speak against this amendment, because on first reading it set off a number of alarm bells. But I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, that I listened carefully to what he said, to try to understand his arguments. For me, there are consequences for trans people in the amendment that no other group of people with protected characteristics would have to face in our society.

Those who have laid and spoken to amendments to this Bill against transgender people have repeatedly said there is a data collection problem. But I do not understand why the data needs to be collected by the police, given that for most crimes—whether the victim or the person being arrested, as set out in this amendment—being a trans person is just not relevant.

A parallel example would be requiring a disabled person to register with the police. I have chosen this example deliberately because, four years ago, I was physically attacked in my wheelchair at Euston station. For that incident, the wonderful British Transport Police recorded the crime as a disability hate crime—the crime, note, not the victim or the perpetrator. I would be appalled if every time I reported a crime thereafter—online fraud, for example—I had to say, “By the way, I’m disabled and I’m on your disability register.”

Rape offences are probably the only offences where the police need to know the sex of the offender because the legislation is dependent on the person’s genitals. It is otherwise not relevant information because the police do not need to know it. The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, says that it is easy to add one section to the crime reporting information system—CRIS—but is it so easy? Adding just one extra category will take time and, for an existing reporting system, is usually very much more expensive than expected. Just ask the Government about the costs of adding the booster jab details to the Covid app, when they have thrown millions at IT during the pandemic.

I note that the amendment says that the above

“does not constitute an offence under section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004”,

which prevents the disclosure of this protected information. On what grounds, then, is it acceptable to share people’s protected characteristics when the GRA says that is private information? In the context of personal information, can the noble Lord confirm whether the amendment complies with GDPR? I am not sure that it does, as it is not personal information that is essential to record.

I return to why the amendment was laid. Can the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, answer some questions to try to explain the aims of his amendment? I will give a hypothetical example: a trans individual is subject to house burglary or to a street mugging unrelated to their gender. This amendment requires them, if they report that crime, to out themselves to the police. Why should they suffer that loss of privacy and human rights, and to what end? Why should trans people face such a disincentive to report crimes perpetrated against them? Why is this the one group of people being singled out as victims?

I have a second example. A trans person is arrested for being drunk and disorderly but they have been assaulted and in fact are suffering from concussion, which can give the same appearance. That would be a defence to any charge but they are required to out themselves upon arrest. Why? A key tenet of our law is that accused persons are presumed innocent and mostly have the same right to privacy and liberty as all citizens. That is different for criminals. The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, referred two or three times to crimes and criminals but that is not what this amendment says. It concerns anyone who is arrested. What is the position of an accused person who refuses to provide the relevant information? The amendment does not make this clear. Would they be obstructing a police officer in the execution of their duty under Section 89(2) of the Police Act 1996?

A further real concern about this amendment, if enacted, is that it would prevent trans people coming forward to report being victims of crime as they would have to out themselves. Many would not be comfortable with disclosing that sort of information. It also implies that a gender recognition certificate is what defines gender, whereas many trans people do not have or want one of them.

The fundamental problem for me, though, is the labelling and targeting of trans people, either as victims or those arrested by the police, alone of any group in our society. While this amendment may not be being instructing them at this stage to wear a pink triangle on their jackets at all times, there would be a data pink triangle. It would set them apart from every other grouping in society. It sets a dangerous and unacceptable precedent. I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment and I shall speak in support of it. I very much welcome the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, presented the argument. He gave a lot of detail, and at this time of night I will not go over it again, but I want to emphasise one or two points.

To begin with, I say that I sort of understand the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I take them seriously, because anybody who thinks that any proposed legislation will discriminate against one group deserves to be heard and to have those questions explored. But at the core of this is the collection of data; we are an immensely data-rich society at the moment. Sitting here, throughout the debates this evening, there have been so many times when the argument that has been put forward has depended on the collection of data. Whichever public service you look at, whether it be education, health, the criminal law or whatever, much of the progress that we have made over previous decades has been because we have had the ability to collect data.

I am a woman, and I think that my sex has made many advances over the past decades because people arguing for legislation that has protected women, men, people with disabilities and people who are transgender have been able to make the case only because they have been able to collect the data. Unless you have the data, you are arguing vaguely about some impression about something that might happen, so I am deeply wedded to the idea of collecting data in the formation of public policy and the advancement of political ideas.

I think that is defensible, but I do not take for granted the fact that we do not give something up in the collection of that data. I will be honest. I am trustee of a number of charities, as I think everybody in this Chamber is. Every year, when I am asked to fill in the data declaration, I see another bit of data there. Sometimes, I think “Why do they want to know that about me?”, and the one I am saying that about at the moment is sexuality. I sit there, I tick the box that says “heterosexual”, and I think “What’s that got to do with me being a trustee of this body?” But I sign it, because I think that, on the whole, that declaration of bits of information about ourselves can be put to the common public good. If we were to look at charities, without declaring that information, how do we ever get to make the argument that women, or people who are black or from ethnic minorities, or from the gay community, are not represented on charities? Whether we like it or not—and I accept that it is difficult to come to terms with it sometimes—it is about the protection, rights and freedoms of individuals. But I would never say that we do not pay a price for the collection of this data, or that we must not continuously and constantly make sure that the data we are asking to be collected is in the public policy interest.

That is why I have come to this amendment and why I very much support the arguments that have been made. What the amendment asks is simply that we collect two bits of data, among others. One is the sex at birth and the other is any gender acquired during the lifetime of the person. Without that, I do not know how we can go on to develop public policy in the pursuit of those who have committed crime and of the public duty to protect those who have been victims of crime. Unless we have the data about how many of which groups there are, they will be ignored.

I have sat through a long and very interesting debate today. My noble friend on the Front Bench said that one of the most important things about the Bill before the Committee is that it is a Bill about protecting women and girls. I do not know how you do that unless you collect the data. We have heard about county lines and knife crime. Unless we collect the data to know that many of the people who are drawn in and persuaded to commit those crimes are young men, we cannot develop a suite of policies that support them. When we collect data about sex, it is entirely proper to ask about acquired gender as well. We must not conflate the two.

The problem at the moment is that different police forces are collecting data about sex at birth and about gender acquired at some other point and then conflating the two. We do not have the sequencing of data and information across police forces in this country that can enable us to make public policy. That is what this amendment is asking. It wants to disaggregate those, as the mover of the amendment has said.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, before I turn to Amendment 60 to which I have added my name, can I say, as a member of the Constitution Committee and a former chairman of the Delegated Powers Committee, I agree wholeheartedly with the searing criticism from the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Beith? I am appalled that we should start to have laws that are incomprehensible. It might be meat and drink for the satirist, but it should be no part of our arrangements.

By contrast, the amendment to which I have added my name, that of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, is clear, straightforward and simple to understand. The noble Baroness gave a very good account of it and its intentions so I will not repeat them now for lack of time, but I want to make a serious point. If young people—minors—are not able to come to this country without a full passport, it is unlikely, when things return to normal, that many of them will come at all. They are far more likely to go to some other English-speaking country—one thinks immediately of the Republic of Ireland or even Malta. One might even think of the Netherlands, where it seems to me that they sometimes speak English better than we do.

Be that as it may, this is a very real worry. It is bad enough that young people have suddenly stopped coming over to schools and organisations as a result of Covid-19. Such organisations are in dire straits and we do not want to put some ghastly obstacle in their way as things gradually return to normal. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will look carefully at this to see if we can simply have the identity cards, which are used at the present time and are simple and easy to use. They would be using only those that are properly instituted by the various countries of the EEA and Switzerland.

There is a further problem, looking forward. Many people first come to this country as a youngster on an exchange. Very often they will return, perhaps for higher or further education. We do not want to cut that off at the beginning. That would be extremely short-sighted.

Some areas of the country have a number of language schools. I am thinking of where I live in East Sussex where, within quite a small area of Hastings, St Leonards and around, there are three notable language schools. The same could be said of the constituency in Plymouth of which I had the honour to be the MP. If one looks round at some of the seaside resorts, one will find a good many more there too.

This is a useful, small part of the major issues of which this Bill is party, but I believe it is very important and I hope that my noble friend will be inclined to accept the amendment.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, I support Amendment 60, which the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, spoke to so ably. It is a good thing for young people to come over to learn English here or to have adventure holidays or to do an exchange. We can all remember it if we had that opportunity. Those, who like me who were teachers, knew the benefit for children, and the children and grandchildren of many of us have taken this opportunity.

I cannot think of one reason why we would want to make it more difficult for these things to continue. It is one of those things that we can all agree on—it is what we would want for young people, whether they are our own children or somebody else’s. It is not just meeting people and learning the language, there is something about it that, perhaps, you only realise as you get older. The seeds that you sow in those early years, culturally and in terms of understanding, stay with you for life. Even if you do not come back to university in the United Kingdom in a few years’ time, in your heart you remain friends with somewhere you have been as a young person. I had an opportunity to be an exchange student in America when I was doing my teacher training. It has had a huge effect on me throughout my life. There is an affection, a loyalty and an understanding that I have never lost. Why would we want to make it difficult in the future for more children to have an opportunity like that?

There is a problem with the Bill. I do not think it is intentional, but an unintended consequence of the rules and regulations. It is not just a few young people who would be affected; most young people in this group travel with identity cards rather than passports, and that certainly makes it easier for the group organisers. If a card is lost, it is easier to replace it when you are abroad than it is to replace a passport. Quite simply, it is an extra cost, and parents will have choices—there are English-speaking nations other than ours that their children could visit. Therefore, it will make a difference. Schools are already trying to recruit for next year and they will be put at a disadvantage because we are now putting a further barrier in the way.

The noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, outlined the solution very clearly. Along with people who are here with European Union settlement status, for the next few years—at least, while we think this through—there should be the opportunity for people to make this kind of journey, restricted to 30 days once a year and very often to language schools approved by the British Council, with an identity card, rather than putting a barrier in their way and making them have a passport if they make such a journey.