Immigration Bill

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I support the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and by other noble Lords and reinforce the points that have just been made with regard to the attitude of the general public towards genuine refugees. They would much prefer that these refugees are enabled to make a contribution to the economy and to the social life of the community into which they move. This was reinforced in my mind the other night—as it possibly was for other noble Lords —when a refugee who was a pharmacist was shown on a television programme. One thinks of the contribution that he could make with those skills, which we need. We are silly not to maximise those opportunities. For those reasons, I support the amendment.

[Baroness Neuberger (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. I declare an interest as senior rabbi of the West London Synagogue, where we run in a drop-in service for destitute asylum seekers, as many synagogues and churches do around the country. Many of these asylum seekers have waited longer than six months. The way they survive—because you cannot survive on £5 a day—is by going from institution to institution—church to synagogue—getting handouts: that is, charity. They hate it. We do our best to make them feel welcome, but it is not what they want to do. They want to work and make a contribution. They do not want to set their children an example of effectively begging. One of the things that we give them, in addition to a decent meal and friendship—I hope—are second-hand clothes. On the rare occasions that we have enough shoes to put out, they go as if a plague of locusts has entered the room. Asylum seekers who are living on £5 or less a day cannot afford to get their shoes repaired, let alone get new ones. They walk absolutely everywhere and they go through shoes at the rate of a pair a week.

People need to understand what it is like to be in that circumstance and to realise that these people do not wish to live like that and it is not their fault that they have waited for longer than six months. I support the amendment very strongly.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I can see the point of the Government’s plan to collect child refugees from the Middle East, but the thousands of children who were seen on our television screens in October and November last year were already in Europe. The impression at the moment is that the Government are refusing to respond to what has become a public demand. I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. This is not just an emotional issue; it is a case of practicality. The Government are talking about an admirable resettlement scheme, but, except in the case of family reunion, they are ignoring unaccompanied minors and ignoring this plea.

[Baroness Neuberger (LD)]

My Lords, I support this excellent amendment. This is the least that we can do. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and my noble friend Lord Roberts said, there is a huge groundswell of support to bring some of these children—as many as we can—into this country. It is enormously important to get those children out of there, particularly out of Calais and Dunkirk.

I have to declare a couple of interests. I am rabbi of West London Synagogue, which runs a drop-in for asylum seekers and asylum-seeking families, and we have a lot of volunteers who have been going to Calais and Dunkirk. What they say about the situation of those children and the degree of risk to them and the appalling circumstances in which they live is truly ghastly.

I am also a trustee of the Walter and Liesel Schwab Charitable Trust, which was set up in memory of my parents. My mother came as a refugee. She was a domestic servant when her younger brother was still at school. His teacher rang her from Germany and said, “You have to get your brother out of here”. So my uncle came as a semi-unaccompanied refugee and was looked after by the most wonderful foster parents, who responded to general appeals for foster parents. They came forward, took him in and looked after him for months until my mother could cope.

It is ironic that we have been holding these Committee stage debates on the Immigration Bill around the time of Holocaust Memorial Day, when we have been saying “never again” and have been remembering the Kindertransport and the refugees who came. When one looks back on those speeches, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, did, on the whole you think a lot of the parliamentarians in 1938 and 1939 were truly wonderful people. However, I want to mention Eleanor Rathbone who is something of a heroine of mine. She also helped my grandparents, who also got out just before the beginning of the war. She said that our being so slow in taking action—in a slightly different area—was the equivalent of saying:

“’We are very sorry for all the people who are in danger of being drowned by this flood, and we will do our best to rescue them, but, mind, we must use nothing but teacups to bale out the flood’”.—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/1939; col. 151.]

The trouble is that we have been so slow and are taking such very small actions. Three thousand is the very least we can do. We should go to Italy or to Greece and see the huge numbers who are there and then ask ourselves whether 3,000 unaccompanied children on top of the 20,000 who the Government have already said they will take is really too many. I hope the Government will accept this amendment.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very glad to speak in support of my noble friend—and he really is a friend. What he has said has been all the more powerful for us because of his personal story. He speaks with all the authority of having experienced exactly what we are talking about. Having had the benefits of the response and care that he received, he is determined to see that shared with the children of today. That is a very powerful position.

I believe we should do what is proposed in the amendment because it is right. I do not see how anybody could argue that it is not. These children—bewildered and bereft—are totally innocent. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, said that they are asking themselves, “Where shall we go?”, but some of them are so bewildered and lost that they are not even asking that. The thought in their minds is, “How are we going to survive?”. They are terrified, frightened and bewildered.

If we have any values in this country, surely we should say that it is imperative to respond. I listened to the noble Baroness’s powerful point about how we are slow to respond, but I am afraid that we are not just slow; inadvertently or not, we seem to be generating a certain message. We have to face the fact that that message is interpreted by many as our seeing something unfortunate or threatening about this situation. The message is that we have to somehow defend ourselves and make concessions where that becomes unavoidable —or clear that it would be impossible not to do so.

We have to face the fact that what confronts us now is only a small fraction of what is going to confront us in the future. With climate change and all the conflicts that are arising, we are going to see the movement of people on a huge scale. That makes it abundantly clear to me that we should establish a record of participation as leading members of international organisations and arrangements, rather than being perceived as defensive and frightened all the time and making concessions. That is not the intention.

I am going to be personal—and this may be embarrassing for the Minister concerned—but I am absolutely convinced that we have a thoroughly decent and very humanitarian Minister sitting with us this afternoon. I have no doubt about that at all. I am also convinced that he doing his level best within government to extend the Government’s response as much as he can. I want the message to go from this Committee that he will have 200% support from us in doing that. I am sure that it will be a message from the House as a whole that he will have nothing but overwhelming support in doing everything possible.

We have to accept that the response of people in this country is not just emotional but practical. I was very struck when all parties in the local authority adjacent to where I live in Cumbria said unanimously—and this very much provides tangible evidence of the case that my noble friend was making—“We must do something. We want to do something. Will the Government help us in pulling our weight as a local authority?”. They were not bludgeoned or cajoled into it. They did it spontaneously. I am sure that my noble friend, who has a home up there too, knows what I am taking about. It was very impressive and I thought it was good: in this community, these values are not just something for individuals but something that the community as a whole is determined to put on record, and we must not let them down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I thought the noble Lord put his view very morally and I do not believe that it can be dismissed out of hand. However, the question I want to put to him is what would he do about the children who are already in Europe? That is the point: they are already there. As my noble friend said, we are where we are. Although there may be intellectual logic and force in his argument, we have a real situation.

[Baroness Neuberger]

Could I add to that? The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has put the specific number of 3,000 children in his amendment, and we know that these are very troubled children. The situation is particularly ghastly right now and we know that some of those children are disappearing. That sounds alarm bells for all of us.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

That 3,000 figure is the figure that Save the Children calculated specifically in relation to children who are already in Europe. That does not, of course, make it inviolable, but I am sure it considered the arguments because, clearly, it will know that those are the arguments that the Government have used. The Save the Children number was accepted by the all-party International Development Committee.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Monday 28th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neuberger]

My Lords, I shall confine my remarks to Part 2 of the Bill. I was honoured to be invited to chair the advisory panel on judicial diversity by the then Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, and to continue its work under the present Lord Chancellor, Ken Clarke. We made a number of recommendations and were absolutely delighted and not a little surprised to find that they were accepted by the Government in their entirety. For that reason, I wish to congratulate the Government, particularly the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who I know has thrown his personal enthusiasm behind all this, on what is proposed in the Bill so far.

In these provisions we have the beginning of a way forward. There is a real need for the judiciary to be more reflective of the community it serves, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, has said. As Lady Hale, the single female member of our Supreme Court, put it in evidence to the Constitution Committee:

“A woman litigant should be able to go into the Court and see more than one person who shares at least some of her experience. I should not stick out like a bad tooth, as I do at present”.

However, let us be clear. We did not think back in 2010 when we reported, and nor do we now, that increasing diversity in the judiciary would be a speedy process. Nor did we think that it was only for the Government to change. Legal professionals, the judiciary and some of our senior law firms will also need to take ownership of these issues. We were encouraged by the positive messages coming from some of the most senior judges in the land, but enabling judges in the most senior positions to work flexibly is only a beginning. Of course we need the legislation to make it possible but even more important, as the Minister said at the beginning of this debate, is a change of culture within much of the senior judiciary and beyond. They need to begin to think differently about how people might work and realise that things do not have to be done just as they always have been.

We know that flexible working is possible and that provisions have been made for sick and widowed judges to work more flexibly on an ad hominem basis in the past. If it is possible in these circumstances, it is possible and—for diversity and other reasons—desirable to do it more widely. So we applaud the measures in Schedule 12. We like the idea of,

“no more than the equivalent of 12 full-time judges of the Supreme Court, rather than exactly 12 judges”.

This provision, and the fact that it is being made, sends important messages to women with children, anyone with caring responsibilities and others for whom an absolutely full-time role might be difficult.

We also welcome the so-called tipping point provision in Schedule 12, which we also recommended. Clearly, these changes should not and would not change the overriding principle of appointments based on merit, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has said. However, they should encourage clear career progression—a judicial career, rather than a career judiciary—and applications from a wider talent pool than at present

Let us be clear. We have a wonderful judiciary in this country. It is highly talented, highly independent, not always beloved of Government—nor should it be—and of great merit. None of this desire to increase diversity is in any way a personal criticism of the present judiciary. Perhaps I should declare an interest here as sister-in-law of the Master of the Rolls. However, he is on record as saying to the Constitution Committee:

“The main problem is the cast of mind. Most of us think of a judge as a white, probably public school, man. We have all got that problem”.

I agree absolutely. Even that does not begin to tackle something even more complicated, which is the nature of the selectors if we are not careful. When I gave evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee, I said:

“We all have an inclination to appoint people who are like us”.

I spoke from experience.

“I certainly found as Chief Executive of the King’s Fund that an astonishingly large number of middle-class, white, rather bossy women were being appointed”.

In jest I added:

“I cannot think why that should be”.

Of course, I can think exactly why that is, and I am eternally grateful to David Bewers and others at the King’s Fund who pointed out how we were appointing people and made sterling efforts to broaden and widen our pool. However, appointing people in our own image is a natural human reaction. That is why, where the judiciary plays an even greater constitutional role than it did in the past, it is so important that the judges should not be always in the majority—or arguably ever in the majority—in appointing people to become part of their own number. Like Lord Justice Etherton in his evidence to the Constitution Committee, I think that,

“the judges cannot be purely a self-appointing body”.

I am delighted that the most senior judges will not in future be involved in the appointment of their own successors. Having an independent lay person as chair of the selection panels for both the Lord Chief Justice and the President of the UK Supreme Court, rather than a judge, is a very good thing. I am also pleased to see proposals in the Bill to allow for easier transfer between the tribunals and the higher courts, which was one of our main recommendations for increasing diversity, given that the tribunals are by and large infinitely more diverse in their judicial membership than the other courts.

However, and now speaking personally and not as part of the advisory panel, I do not support the measures to give the Lord Chancellor the right to sit as a member of an appointing panel of the Judicial Appointments Commission. The idea of the Lord Chancellor sitting on the selection committee for the appointment of the Lord Chief Justice or the President of the UK Supreme Court worries me greatly. I have no doubt that this Lord Chancellor would be scrupulously fair and bend over backwards to do the right thing but he will not be in post for ever and he cannot guarantee his successors.

There is a constitutional issue here. The principle of judicial independence is an important one and that means that neither the Lord Chancellor nor Parliament should be given enhanced powers to decide who becomes a judge. That means that lay involvement of the highest calibre and the greatest independence is essential in the appointments process. That puts a huge burden on the Judicial Appointments Commission. It is early years for the JAC and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on all the work she has done to enhance diversity in her time, as has her successor, Chris Stevens. My panel was delighted to the see changes in the specific merit criterion about dealing fairly that were made recently by the JAC. One of the changes was to put in an awareness of the diversity of the communities that the courts and tribunals serve and a commitment to justice, independence, public service and fair treatment. We wait with interest to see how people applying to become judges measure themselves against those criteria in the coming few years.

The Constitution Committee argued hard that merit should remain the sole criterion for appointment. We also held that view strongly. The Constitution Committee did not consider merit to be a narrow concept based solely on intellectual capacity or high-quality advocacy. It said:

“We refute any notion that those from under-represented groups make less worthy candidates or that a more diverse judiciary would undermine the quality of our judges”.

We absolutely agreed.

Therefore, we are left with much to do. The advisory panel regarded it as essential to introduce appraisal for the judiciary on diversity grounds, having been told by many more junior judges and possible candidates for judicial office what a difference that would make. The Constitution Committee, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has said, absolutely agreed and supported that. We know there are financial issues here, but we believe that it is possible to have a less than gold-plated appraisal system, fully owned by the judiciary itself—possibly even 360-degree appraisal to allow judges to feel confidence in their performance—which is particularly important for those who do not come from the most conventional backgrounds and legal experience. Benchmarks in the appointment of judges should be set and monitored, and the judicial diversity taskforce should own that benchmarking, examine it and take action regularly. Indeed, today’s Bill is evidence of the Government’s willingness to take these issues seriously. Sustained effort is also needed to improve things, and that needs to be made jointly by the judiciary, the professions and the Government.

I ask the Minister to assure me that the judicial diversity task force will continue to own this field and will benchmark and take action as necessary, with full co-operation with all those who need to be involved. I ask him also to say something about when funding might be found to allow for appraisal in the judiciary.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the chair of the APPG on Drug Policy Reform of which I am also a member, had planned to speak today but has had to attend meetings in Brussels. She asked me to say that she will contribute on that matter at later stages of the Bill, as I imagine will people on all sides of the House.

Immigration: Deportation

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Neuberger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what restraint methods are now used in deportations; and whether there has been any change of practice recently.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the vast majority of people who are being removed from this country depart voluntarily. There is a small category of people who resist. It is known policy that escorts may be used to control and restrain such individuals and that these techniques are accredited by the National Offender Management Service.

Following the death of Mr Mubenga, the UK Border Agency temporarily suspended the use of control and restraint on scheduled flights for a 10-day period between 15 and 25 October. That was for the purpose of carrying out an immediate review to see whether the techniques used on the aircraft were appropriate.

The use has been reinstated. The National Offender Management Service, which conducted this review, has said that there is no substantiation to the claims that have been made that the restraints being used were inherently dangerous. We are now going on to conduct more investigation of the appropriateness and utility of restraint. We do not believe that we have anything like achieved the last word. So I can assure the House that this issue, which I know is a matter of anxiety to us all, will be taken forward and that we are examining what needs to be done very thoroughly.

[Baroness Neuberger]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for her reply. It is very reassuring to hear what she said. Given the news that we are now to have a new contractor, Reliance, conducting these deportations, perhaps I may ask whether its contract will spell out in greater detail than hitherto what control can be used, and, indeed, whether the individual staff members will have to sign up to a code of practice. I think that that would give the House considerable reassurance.

Immigration: Jimmy Mubenga

Baroness Neuberger Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Neuberger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether there will be a full investigation into the death of Mr Jimmy Mubenga during deportation.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the circumstances of Mr Mubenga’s death are the subject of police investigation. A Prisons and Probation Ombudsman investigation and a coroner’s inquest will also take place in due course. Escort staff receive training on issues such as welfare, first aid, use of force and restraint. Prior to a removal, escorts are provided with a risk assessment of the individual, which will include known facts on medical conditions, the risk of self-harm, the likelihood of any attempt to escape and known criminal activities or violent behaviour.

[Baroness Neuberger]

I thank my noble friend for her reply. Have the Government taken full account of the report done for the Home Office by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, in March this year? Were all her recommendations about the use of force taken into account?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, it is indeed the case that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, reported in March this year and all her recommendations are being put into effect. As she reported at the time, she found no evidence of systematic abuse by the UK Border Agency.