Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (Cm 7944)

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Lords Chamber

Their average annual income is a tenth of this, at most. Therefore, when the Labour Opposition propose something that would restrict a cap of sorts, we should remember that we have had financial and other caps from them over the years. I regard the opposition Motion as totally irrelevant, and one that the Labour Opposition will possibly not press to a vote.

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

We have had a very interesting debate. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Avebury, for their flexibility in agreeing to debate their Motions together. A large number of points have been raised and I will do my best to deal with the issues to which they give rise.

The Motions before us deal with two distinct subjects: the introduction of an interim limit for applications under tiers 1 and 2 of the points-based system, which is covered by the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt; and a number of other amendments to the Immigration Rules, particularly on asylum seekers and refugees, which are addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I will deal with those in turn, starting with the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

The Government certainly believe that the UK can benefit from migration—on this point there is no difference between us and many Members of your Lordships' House—but equally we do not think that the UK benefits from uncontrolled immigration. That is the purpose of the cap. At the same time, we will ensure that policy is implemented in a way that ensures that Britain remains open for business, and that we continue to attract and retain the brightest and best people who will make a real difference to our economic growth. However, we must recognise that in some towns immigration places unacceptable pressures on public services. The House will be aware that public concern has risen in line with the increased levels of migration over the past 15 years. This is obviously why our predecessors in office began a policy of limitation.

At the same time, we must ensure that those people coming here to work or study will really benefit from it, and will in turn benefit our economy. The figures show that while we may have been open, we have not necessarily been attracting those who could make that real difference. I will give an example. We know from recent research that up to 30 per cent of migrants who came here under tier 1—the highly skilled tier—did not take skilled work. Some of the work that they did was pretty unskilled. We cannot let this kind of uncontrolled migration and abuse of policy continue unchecked in this way.

I think the House will agree that it is clear that migration can certainly increase the size of the population and therefore the economy. I say to my noble friend Lord Lucas that we share his considerable preoccupation with not damaging the economic prospects of this country. Indeed, our aim is, for example, to increase the number of investors and entrepreneurs who come to this country. The previous Government succeeded in getting a rather low number of people in this category—in the low hundreds—to come to this country. We certainly want to increase the UK’s attractiveness to net-high-worth individuals, and that involves creating many other things concerned with the attractiveness of our economy beyond immigration policy. Finally, for clarity, I say to my noble friend Lord Lucas that students do not come under the interim cap. Therefore, if individuals have been experiencing difficulties, the delays must relate to other problems concerning their visas and not to the interim cap on immigration.

As noble Lords opposite have noticed, the pressures on the economy and on social services are real, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, specifically acknowledged. We have to bear in mind that, alongside the economic considerations that I have just mentioned, there are social considerations, which hit some communities very hard. Therefore, it is not quite right to say that introducing a policy designed to bring down the immigration levels, as we intend to do, is purely populist-driven; it reflects real needs and real pressures in communities that we have to look after.

The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs produced a report in 2008 on the economic impact of immigration. It pointed out that economic benefits depend critically on the skill levels of migrants. Returning to the point about pressures, we therefore need to be certain that we attract those with the key skills that we need. In that context, we believe that the bar is set too low and that it cannot be right, for example, for the current system to allow in people claiming to be fried chicken chefs and restaurant managers when there are 2.5 million unemployed people in this country who could fill those jobs.

The coalition programme states that we will introduce a cap on non-EU economic migration and reduce the number of non-EU immigrants. Specifically, we will introduce an annual limit on the number of non-EEA economic migrants admitted to live and work in the UK, and we will introduce new measures to minimise abuse of the immigration system—for example, via student routes. This is the purpose of the policy and, as the House is well aware, the process has begun. However, no decisions—and I mean no decisions—have been taken on the final shape of the policy or the level of the limit. We are consulting. We expect to make an announcement towards the end of the year and intend to implement the full limit by April next year.

I turn for a moment to parliamentary scrutiny. Interim measures were announced by the Secretary of State in a Statement to Parliament on 28 June this year. In that Statement, she confirmed the Government’s intention to limit non-EEA economic migration. At the same time, she launched a public consultation exercise concerning the method by which the limit and levels of reduction should be achieved. She also asked for advice from the Migration Advisory Committee, which assesses need, as to the level at which the limit should be set for the year commencing April 2011, and she announced, as we are debating now, a series of interim measures to apply during the period from her Statement to 31 March 2011. The interim measures apply to tier 1, the highly skilled migrant route, and to tier 2, the route for skilled workers with a job offer, under the points-based system. They include—I make no bones about this—raising the pass mark for tier 1 and the introduction of a limit on both tier 1 general and tier 2 general.

The interim measures were implemented following statements of changes in the Immigration Rules laid before Parliament on 28 June 2010 and 15 July 2010 respectively. Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC 59 implemented the tier 1 interim limit, by setting out that the granting of tier 1 general applications be subjected to a limit; for that limit to be administered during regular allocation periods—I shall return to that in a moment; and for applications in excess of that limit to be carried over to the next, and any subsequent, allocation period. That is in the interests of flexibility. Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC 96 adds a reference to our intention to limit the allocation of certificates of sponsorship to sponsoring employers, in order to implement and operate the tier 2 interim limit.

Questions were asked about the principles used to decide what is in the rules and what is in UKBA guidance. I set that out so that noble Lords can see the picture. The answer is that Section 3(2) of the 1971 Act requires that substantive requirements regulating the entry into or stay in the UK of individuals subject to immigration control must be laid before Parliament. Therefore, any substantive, as opposed to procedural or evidential requirement, that an applicant needs to meet must be set out in the Immigration Rules. I return to the way in which we are trying to implement that because I think this guidance is fairly clear. We introduced an interim limit to prevent a surge in applications before we introduce our permanent limits in April 2011, which would have led to an increase in net migration, undermining the purpose of the limit and putting undue strain on the UK Border Agency.

As the House is aware, the interim limit also set a reduction in numbers of 5 per cent, compared to the same period in the previous year; that is a reduction of 1,300, which is a relatively small number. For the interim limit, which for tier 1 is set at 5,400, we did not include the level of the limit in the Immigration Rules laid before Parliament in order to give the Government additional flexibility in implementation. Noble Lords opposite have commented on that and, at the same time, they have asked for flexibility in the operation of the system. The effect of the noble Lord’s amendment would be to reduce that flexibility. He also wanted confirmation of whether we had ceased issuing certificates in October. That is the case, but we shall start again on 1 November; part of the flexibility of the system which is in operation now is that we are able to do that on a monthly basis. It acts to the benefit of migrants because we are able to carry over any limit allowance not used each month to the next month. This limit applies to main applicants and does not—I repeat not—apply to their family members or dependents.

A point was made about confirmation, but we reached the tier 1 limit only last week. We are still accepting applications so that on 1 November those who are in the pipeline will be able to get their applications granted. We do not stop the system moving; we move the granting of the applications into the next month.

The Government are committed to ensuring that the decisions of substance are announced to the House in the first instance. I have to make an apology. As the House knows, we regard it as regrettable that the Government’s announcement on 28 June was released to the press before it was announced in the House. The Home Secretary, in a Statement on 30 June, made it clear that that will not happen again.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. Perhaps I may say that during my time in the House of Commons, the opposition parties—then the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats—always complained about Ministers and departments releasing information to the press. Will she give assurances that every step will be taken to ensure that the elected Chamber and then this House are notified before information is given to the press?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord is quite right. It was regrettable. I know what happened—it was inadvertent, but it nevertheless happened. It was regrettable and I give the noble Lord the assurance that every effort will be made not to repeat ignoring Parliament.

I also want to give the House an assurance that statements of changes to the Immigration Rules will be laid before Parliament before implementation of the permanent limit. I want to make it absolutely clear that well before any of those statements of changes are made, and those decisions are taken, there will be continuing and extensive consultation.

There has been comment in this debate and in earlier debates about the effect of these limits on certain categories, businesses and universities. We have been talking to businesses about the interim limit and the longer term. We tried to design the interim limits so that they had some inbuilt flexibility. The intra-company transfers, on which many multinationals rely, are exempt from the operation of the usual limit. There is also a small reserve pool of certificates of sponsorship for new requests. The anxieties expressed by companies have been investigated in detail with them. Sometimes we find that in another part of their business they have some certificates of sponsorship that have not been used and they have more latitude and leeway than they realise. Therefore, it is a matter of the system being understood and of the companies knowing what their position is.

We have been issuing this reserve pool of certificates if a company has had a particular need that must be met and it is certainly in the economic interest of this country. Those are issued once a month according to a set of criteria. Some employers have raised concerns about the interim limit and we often find that many of them have not used their allocations. Many companies are able to bring in the people they want via the intra-company transfer route, which is not subject to the interim limit.

The universities have also been concerned and the Government are well aware of the anxieties that they have expressed. Obviously, it is not our objective to reduce the attractiveness of British universities to those who want to come here to study, to teach, or to do their research. Again, to some extent there has been a misunderstanding of the system. Under the interim arrangements, which have been going only for a short time—in fact, since July—more than 2,400 visas have been allocated to universities to recruit the academics and the researchers they need. I am not aware that in concrete cases there are real shortages.

Under tiers 1 and 2, academics get points for academic qualifications as well as for earnings, a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. Therefore, the system is not just earnings-related. Several noble Lords raised the question of the impact assessment. We thought about doing nothing under the assessment, but that would not have met our policy objectives, which are given in the impact assessment as reducing net migration, reducing the adverse social impacts of immigration and continuing to attract the brightest and best to the UK. Furthermore, the application of an interim limit is to ensure that the announcement of a permanent limit does not lead to a so-called surge.

The equality impact assessment identifies no adverse consequences. It makes the point that the immigration system has a very wide pool of potential users who can come here from any part of the world. The equality impact assessment (EIA) is focused solely on the impact of the introduction of an interim limit to tier 1 general and tier 2 general and an increase in the point threshold for tier 1 of the points-based system. It does not address the difficulties which some groups may have in accessing those tiers, which may be due to a wide range of social, educational, and economic inequalities from different societies in the world. Although I have sympathy with the points made, frankly, the UK immigration system cannot be used to mitigate such wider-ranging barriers and inequalities in the home countries of those who may wish to use our system.

On consultation, the interim limit on tier 2 is based mainly on past allocations to individual employers, to give employers certainty. We will take account of concerns when designing the permanent limit and will have a more forward-looking arrangement. At the moment, obviously, we are operating on historical evidence, but the idea is not to base ourselves purely on what has happened in the past but to look forward to the future needs of the economy. We will take into account the findings from our consultation with businesses.

The chief executive of the UK Border Agency has met the CBI and its members. UKBA officials have also received 3,500 responses to the consultation and have met a wide variety of businesses and other corporate partners. Our promise of consultation is not idle; it is real, and consultation is proceeding in some detail. Officials have also listened carefully to concerns and have discussed the proposed mechanism as well as the coverage of the permanent limit. We want a system that works both for the people of this country and for those who are concerned with the running of its economy.

One major theme running through the responses to the consultation is that employers attach greater importance to their ability to fill specific posts through migrant labour, rather than through a pool of highly skilled workers. There is possibly a clash between the perceived short-term need of a company to be able to find somebody easily and what the Government regard as the long-term need of this country, which is to create a pool of highly skilled workers. We need our population to be able to take those jobs in competition with others. It is for that reason, among others, that the Government are committed to limiting non-EU migration and to cutting net migration. We make no apology for that. However, as I said, we are listening to business about how that should be done and how we will make the permanent limit work. This is not a question of it not working.

We also want to give some time for the UK economy and UK businesses to adapt, so we intend to phase the system in. We will introduce the policy in ways which make the needs of individual businesses and of the country as compatible as possible at any given moment. The Department for Work and Pensions programme for welfare reform, including the work programme, should also help to make a difference. If we get these policies right over time, the nation should see reduced dependency on migration, and thus, in turn, less demand for migrant labour. We have to kick-start the skills systems in this country to provide the skills we will need in the future and limiting skilled migration is one of the levers we have to encourage business engagement in that agenda. In the short term, it clearly creates some conflict of interest between individual businesses and what we regard as the national need, but we believe that over time the national need has priority. In this way, we want to bring net migration down to tens of thousands from the unsustainable level at which it was previously operating, but we will engage in consultation throughout this.

I now move to the statement of changes against which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has prayed. This statement contains a number of amendments, including clarification of the formal definition of a refugee, further provisions to enable the use of online applications and the correction of certain typographical errors in the rules, but my impression from what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said in the Chamber is that he is principally concerned with the provisions on family reunion for people who have been granted citizenship after having formerly held refugee status, so I will deal with that issue.

The Government recognise the importance of allowing refugees to be reunited with their relatives. The Immigration Rules therefore provide that a refugee’s spouse or partner and children under the age of 18 can join him or her in the UK without the refugee having to show that they can be maintained and accommodated without access to public funds. Also, we do not charge any kind of visa fee. For family members to benefit from these provisions, the family relationship must have existed before the refugee left the country in which he or she used to live. These rules apply where the sponsor in the UK has humanitarian protection, which is a status given to people who are at risk of serious harm in their home countries but who are not refugees under the 1951 convention. However, it has never been the intention that these provisions should apply to people who are not refugees or who do not have humanitarian protection. That is the policy that these amendments are intended to confirm. There is no intention or effect to change policy.

The amendments deal with the situation where a refugee becomes a British citizen. In these circumstances, the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees is very clear. The individual is no longer a refugee because he or she has,

“acquired a new nationality and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality”.

As the person ceases to be a refugee at that stage, our intention has always been that he or she would no longer benefit from the special provisions in the Immigration Rules for refugee family reunion. Instead, the former refugee would be able to be joined by family members in the same way as any other British citizen under the rules for the immigration of spouses and children that appear in Part 8 of the Immigration Rules. I think that most people would see this approach as entirely fair. Once we have welcomed someone as a British citizen, that person should have all the rights and responsibilities that any other citizen would have, including in respect of bringing in family members. We do not think that it would be right to give one group of citizens—former refugees—privileges over the others. The point is not that we are changing the rules. We do not believe that the judgment given in the case of ZN (Afghanistan) and Others dealt with this point. The case dealt with ambiguity in the language of the rules, which these amendments are designed to deal with. There is no change of policy, but there is clarification of the rules. Noble Lords asked various other questions, but the effect of this language is not to make it any harder for refugees’ spouses to join them or to damage family unity.

Subsidiarity Assessment: Seasonal Workers (EUC Report)

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, along with the Benches opposite, I am grateful to the committee for its report and for the unusual degree of unanimity and agreement that has arisen in consideration of a matter concerning the European Union. As the noble Lord, Lord Roper, said, this is a first and our debate is about an important issue—the test of compliance of the draft directive with the principle of subsidiarity. Indeed, as he pointed out, the fact that something is desirable is not enough to meet the principle of subsidiarity; it has to be necessary.

I start by responding to the important points raised by my noble friend Lord Inglewood. The Government are a strong supporter of the Lisbon treaty arrangements for national parliaments to be given a direct say in the application of what we regard as the crucial principle of subsidiarity in EU lawmaking. That is defined in the treaty and the Government respect the right, irrespective of their own view, of the Houses to take their view on the European institutions to ensure that the Commission’s application of the principle remains within the bounds of the treaty. We believe that this constitutes an important step towards the democratic legitimacy of the European Union.

I was asked about the relationship between subsidiarity and the policy objective. When considering any directive, the Government’s policy is to assess as a matter of course the proposal on the grounds of subsidiarity irrespective of its substance. The Government carry out the subsidiarity test by checking whether, where the treaty allows for action by both the Union and member states, the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by member states by reason of the scale or the effects of the proposed action and so could be better achieved by the Union. That is the high test. Should the Government conclude that the action cannot be better achieved at the Union level, they would submit their views to the Commission. I hope that that makes it implicitly if not absolutely explicitly clear that the Government’s view is that subsidiarity takes precedence.

Before moving on to the specific issues raised by the committee, I should like to set out the Commission’s position on this directive. As a number of speakers have noticed, the Government have decided that the UK will not opt in to the measure. The UK’s immigration system does not currently provide for the admission of seasonal workers and our view is that our seasonal labour needs can be met from an expanded EU labour force. The seasonal agricultural workers scheme was closed to third-country nationals on 1 January 2007 by the previous Government and within the EU it is now open only to nationals of Bulgaria and Romania. We have no reason to suppose that that supply of labour will be inadequate. The Government have proposed setting a limit on the future volume of non-EU migrants allowed to enter the UK and are carrying out consultations on the options for implementing this policy.

Against that background, it would not have made sense for the UK to participate in an instrument that provides for common rules for the admission of third-country nationals for seasonal work, nor would it be sensible to lock ourselves into a directive that limits our freedom to decide what kind of controls we might want to apply to seasonal workers in the future.

The subsidiarity test is not always as straightforward as it seems, as it depends on an assessment of whether the proposal would have the results that it sets out to achieve. It is clear that in given instances it is possible for lawyers to disagree on these matters and for legal advice to be different, as implicitly noted in the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. The Commission’s view is that the need for seasonal workers is a “common occurrence” in most member states and that the terms on which one member state admitted such workers could distort migratory flows; it suggests that decisions by one member state could affect other member states. The committee argues that the need for seasonal workers may nevertheless differ between member states and that the treaty on the functioning of the EU recognises that volumes of admissions are for determination by each member state.

The Commission argues that the action is needed to reduce overstaying and illegal entry in an area without internal borders. The committee rejects this view on the basis that it does not see why having common rules would reduce this risk. The Commission’s proposals include provisions that would facilitate repeated re-entry as a seasonal worker on the basis that those admitted as seasonal workers would be less likely to overstay if they had some certainty that they would be able to re-enter after they left.

The Commission’s third argument is that exploitative working conditions need to be addressed by a,

“binding and thus enforceable EU-level agreement”.

The committee has objected that national measures may be equally binding and at least as effective. The test in this case, therefore, depends on whether we think that the intended result is better achieved through collective action.

Finally, the Commission suggests that the measure is crucial for effective co-operation with third countries. The Government share the committee’s assessment that this is unpersuasive given that nothing in the measures provides leverage for negotiation of wider agreements with specific third countries.

The Government take the view that the case for compliance with the subsidiarity principle is arguable, as noble Lords on the Benches opposite have noted, in respect of migratory flows and the risk of overstaying. However, the fact that there is a divergence between the applicability of compliance with this directive and the principle of subsidiarity does not detract from our belief that the view of the House on the European institutions and their duties should take precedence and should not be trumped by the Government’s view on compliance with given articles. The earnest of our view is that we give precedence to the committee’s view despite our differing opinion on the application of subsidiarity in relation to a couple of the clauses.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am sure that the House will be gratified to learn that the Government are not going to disagree with the Motion being put forward tonight, which is the implication of what the noble Baroness has said. Yet the fact is that the Minister clearly said, at least to the Commons scrutiny committee, that he believes the draft directive complies with subsidiarity. If that is the case on that particular aspect, to what extent does that create a precedent in relation to the Government’s approach to the EU’s clear wish to develop a comprehensive immigration policy? For instance, if the Government are unwilling to argue with the Commission on subsidiarity in relation to this order, does it go wider than that?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord grossly overstates what I have just said, which was that in these two instances there was an arguable case. Every single proposition put forward by the Commission will be treated on its merits by the Government and, as I have indicated, it will certainly be subjected first and foremost to the test of subsidiarity. The general position of the Government is well known; we regard immigration as something which is in the purview of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness again, but when she says it is arguable that that is the Government’s case, that is not what the Minister in the other place told the scrutiny committee. I have already read out what he said. He does not say it is arguable, but that he is satisfied that the draft directive complies with subsidiarity. I would have thought that that sets a precedent for other areas of immigration in which the Commission may wish to involve itself in future.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am saying that we will treat each of these proposals as put forward by the Commission on its merits. I hope that it will be discouraged from putting forward further proposals by the reaction from member states. It does not follow that, because we have taken a view on a couple of these articles, we will take a wider view of the rights of the European Commission or the competence of the European Union in immigration policy.

I turn for a moment to the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. He asked what was likely to happen next. As a student of these matters, he will know quite as well as I do that if one-third of national parliaments object on subsidiarity grounds, the proposal is sent back to the Commission. That is the yellow card; if a majority of parliaments oppose a Commission proposal, it gets the orange card. I do not know how many cards there are on the table, but we certainly regard this process of showing the European Commission what position the national parliaments take as being an important part of the process—and well said that this is a direct intervention in the legislation process of the European Union.

The noble Lord’s other point was about financial supervision and the progress of what the Commission is doing. I am afraid I will have to write to him on that, as it is not something on which I have been briefed. I think it is something in the purview of the Treasury, but I undertake to write to him.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

I think the noble Baroness rightly said that one-third of national parliaments would be necessary before the Commission had to think again. As I understand it, we have only five houses of parliament, so there is the difficulty of our being a long way from what is required to make the Commission think again, is there not? Riding over and above that, there is surely the question of the law. Assuming that the committee is right—I think that your Lordships are taking that view this evening—my question was: what hope is there that the law will prevail, or will the juggernaut carry on regardless, as usual?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I would hope, given that this is the first test for the European Commission, that it would take note of the reservations being expressed in a number of parliaments of the European Union, irrespective of whether there are enough for it to be obliged to take notice. There needs to be further discussion in the European Union. If we have one of those situations in which the formal requirement has not been fulfilled but nevertheless it is clear that there are reservations, this is a moment when the Commission should be given pause to think again about the direction in which it is trying to go. I cannot anticipate what the result of that debate might be, but I hope that there would be one.

I can say that, irrespective of what that discussion would lead to, the United Kingdom will not be bound by this directive. We have not opted in and we have no plans to consider so doing after adoption. In the rather unlikely event that there was some consideration of that possibility at a future date, there is no doubt that the Government would take full account of the committee’s view on subsidiarity at that time.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Will the Minister clear up one point? As I understand it, the Government are not going to oppose the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, today. Undoubtedly, the Motion will therefore be passed. But suppose that the Government did not agree with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Roper—then what? The Lisbon treaty refers to national parliaments, not national governments. Can we have an assurance that if the Government disagreed with a Motion coming from the European Select Committee, Parliament would be allowed to make the decision unwhipped?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, clearly I did not make myself clear enough; I hoped that I had dealt with this point in response to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. It follows from the Government’s position on the sovereignty of Parliament that Parliament’s view on subsidiarity would trump—would come ahead of—the view that we would take on substance. I hope that that is clear.

Immigration: Jimmy Mubenga

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[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.

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I declare an interest as patron of Haslar detention centre in Portsmouth. Will the noble Baroness kindly tell the House how many Zimbabweans are proposed to be removed from this country and over what period that will happen?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I regret to say that I do not have that figure to hand, but I will certainly write to the noble Earl on the matter.

[Lord Judd]

Does the noble Baroness agree not only that this issue is grave in this particular instance but, with her responsibilities for security, that the trouble is that, when something goes wrong, it plays directly into the hands of those who are trying to manipulate opinion in support of militant rebels, terrorists and the rest? It is therefore essential to get the administration of policy in this area right and humane in the cause of winning hearts and minds.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am quite certain that the Government agree with every single point that the noble Lord has just made. This is the first time that there has been a death of an escorted individual and it is extraordinarily regrettable. We entirely take the point that this is exactly what we do not wish to happen. We will take the consequences and the findings of any investigation very seriously.

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, the report that I authored, which has been referred to, made specific recommendations on the type of technique used for control and restraint and the training provided for the use of that technique, which was a “one size fits all”. Although those recommendations have been accepted, are they actually being implemented? Also, can the Minister say whether the chief inspector of UKBA is monitoring the implementation of the recommendations, as I also recommended?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

On the noble Baroness’s second point, the chief inspector of UKBA is doing that. On her first point, there is a review going on of the whole question of accreditation. The techniques used, as the noble Baroness will know, are ones that are used by the prison officers’ administration, but we are looking, with its help, at whether we can find further training with regard to the process of accreditation. We agree that it is important that the correct techniques of restraint are used, because that issue can give rise to the sort of difficulties that we may have seen.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I should declare an interest as the person who forwarded the report Outsourcing Abuse to the Home Secretary more than two and a half years ago, which prompted her to ask the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, to conduct an inquiry. The report was about the use of force during the detention and removal of asylum seekers and many other issues as well. Are any of the recommendations in that report also being processed?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, my belief is that, given the seriousness of this issue, the recommendations that were made have indeed been implemented. In the light of what has happened, we need to go through those recommendations as well as those of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, to see whether there are things that we can do better or in addition. We will look seriously at the outcome of the investigations that are taking place. We do not wish to see this happen again.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that regard is being had not only to training but also to including the correct requirements in the commissioning of private organisations so that regard is had to this matter at the highest level initially? What training and instructions are there with regard to other passengers who may be forced to witness such an unhappy occurrence? This may be a second-order matter, but the incident must have been extraordinarily distressing for the other passengers on the flight.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Baroness’s last point is right, although I hope that we do not get to the point of having to train passengers to witness unfortunate events. On her point about accreditation and the requirements laid down for the private sector escort companies, this issue is taken seriously. Requirements are laid down and such companies receive training, which is compulsorily renewed. We have an accreditation system and companies and individuals do indeed lose their accreditation. We are trying to inject a great deal of discipline into this system.

Northern Ireland: Police Evidence

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cope of Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how long it takes on average for evidence to be transferred between police in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa through the Letter of Request procedure.

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

My Lords, recent requests to the Home Office took between 12 days and 202 days from receipt of request to delivery of the evidence. This is based on a very small number and I cannot say how quickly Irish counterparts forwarded the evidence to their police. Northern Ireland prosecutors may send requests directly or via the Home Office. The Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland does not keep statistics on how long it takes to receive evidence.

[Lord Cope of Berkeley]

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend would agree that, although co-operation between the two police forces north and south is excellent, the legal complexities of investigating and prosecuting cross-border crime are considerable. A letter of request is only a small part of that, but it is a part for which the Whitehall Government are responsible, as opposed to the Belfast Government under devolution. Why is it necessary for London to be involved in these cases? Would it not be better if a method of short-circuiting was found so that at least this aspect of the legal complexities could be speeded up?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

As my noble friend says, active co-operation between the police forces on the ground is very good, as I think his parliamentary committee had reason to say recently. On the involvement of the central authority—that is, the Home Office—it is normal form for letters of request to come into the central authority for the purposes of ensuring that they are properly dealt with. The central authority in London has taken considerable pains to reduce the backlog and to improve its performance, as we were aware that there were complaints; indeed, the previous Government took some measures to improve the situation. It is fair to say that the performance now by the central authority is regarded as good and the Irish authorities have so said.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware of discussions in March this year between the police forces on both sides of the border, which identified the desirability of a faster transfer of evidence and suggested bypassing London and Dublin. Would it not be a good idea for the Government to look seriously into that proposal?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

On the transfer of information, the outgoing request goes from the local authority—that is, it would go directly from Northern Ireland—while the incoming goes via the central authority. That is the system that is normally used. Occasionally, there are instances of that not happening but, as a general proposition, requests come that way. Our understanding is that that is what Dublin prefers.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, is the Minister aware how complicated a letter of request is? I have had personal experience of this and it is a nightmare. Will the Government consider simplifying the formula for letters of request, because the lawyers have an absolute field day?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble and learned Baroness has raised an aspect of which I was not aware, but I shall take it back to see whether it is possible to reduce the formula. I imagine that this would probably be an EU-wide issue, but we would certainly want to do so.

[Viscount Brookeborough]

My Lords, does the Minister understand that many of us find her answers slightly confusing in that, on the one hand, she said that there are no statistics while, on the other hand, official letters are going backwards and forwards? Will she agree to ask for statistics to be made up from those records now? When she says that the response has been good, by whose judgment is it good? It is quite clear that a lot of people are not satisfied.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I did not quite say that there are no statistics. I was asked about present performance and I said that my answer was based on a very small set of statistics. I can give some figures: 17 requests have been received in total this year from the Republic of Ireland, of which six concern Northern Ireland. That is against a background of 1,585 letters of request overall. We are dealing with low numbers, which is why averaging statistics is fairly misleading. My other point was that, in relation to outgoing requests from Northern Ireland, the Northern Irish authorities do not collect those statistics, so I am not able to give that figure.

[Lord Smith of Clifton]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is something special about requests regarding details from Northern Ireland and the Republic, which is that we have a land border, the only one that we have? Does she also agree that, with the increase in dissident republican paramilitary activity, this issue is becoming urgent and should not just be left for the lawyers to take their time?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, in this particular instance we are talking about evidential letters, but there is the quite separate and important issue that the noble Lord has raised, which is cross-border co-operation between police authorities in relation to terrorism. However, that is not dealt with through this system. Even so, we agree entirely with the importance of what he has said.

[Lord Glentoran]

My Lords, does my noble friend realise that for some years we worked with the previous Government to try to get the bureaucratic processes and the legislation in place to change exactly this problem? The police in Northern Ireland are constantly under pressure to get more prosecutions through the courts, so this is an old problem, not a new one. I have certainly had conversations with two previous Attorneys-General, in particular the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, who is a long-standing friend, and I have been told that it is possible but that a lot of work needs to be done. This problem is serious—much more so than it appears—so will the noble Baroness please endeavour to get something moving?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I take note of what my noble friend says. There are two issues here, one being the appropriateness of the system and the other being how well it is performing. I think that its performance is greatly improved: the backlog, which was a source of complaint, has been greatly reduced, while more measures are being introduced to reduce it still further. The second point is that the procedure followed itself. Our belief is that that suits not only the UK end but also, as things stand, Dublin. However, we are always looking for improvement and I am aware that there are other areas where we are trying to progress further improvements in co-operation.

Identity Documents Bill

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That the Bill be read a second time.

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

My Lords, the Bill is short, and it is precise in achieving its aim of scrapping the identity card scheme and destroying the national identity register. Enactment of the Bill will meet the commitment set out in the coalition agreement and deliver the commitments made in both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos for the 2010 election. We very much welcome the opportunity for debate today and will consider the matters raised in this House together with the content of the legislative scrutiny report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I have not yet seen the contents of the report but I understand that it supports the Government’s approach.

A number of your Lordships will recall consideration of the Identity Cards Act 2006 and the fact that our opposition to the introduction of the scheme was focused on preventing the state from intruding unnecessarily into the private lives of individuals and wasting taxpayers’ money. We have not moved from that view, or on the inadequacy of the implementation of the 2006 Act, which has served only to confirm why we were right. The ID card scheme has not delivered the promised benefits. It has been an unjustifiable burden on the taxpayer and very poorly received by the public, with only 15,000 cards in circulation, of which some 3,000 were issued free of charge by the previous Administration.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. Before we go any further, I must say that I am finding it very difficult to concentrate on what she is saying because of the conversations that are going on on the Back Bench. Could the Chief Whip, or the noble Lord who is a Whip, remind noble Lords that if they wish to have a conversation, the Companion suggests that they retreat to the Prince’s Chamber?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am sure that the House will take note of what has just been said.

Those are the exiguous outputs of the scheme and confirm our long-held concerns that the scheme was expensive, ill thought out and unlikely to find favour with the public. I will return to those aspects and to the issue of passport security later, but I will concentrate for a moment on our fundamental concerns, which lie in the gathering by the state of information that is neither proportionate nor necessary.

The setting up of the national identity register has meant gathering voluminous biographical and biometric personal data on the individual, on the sole criterion of having applied for an identity card. Under the 2006 Act, the individual is required by the state to notify any change in personal details—for instance, a home address—for the lifetime of the card. As things stand, any failure to do so within that period of 10 years could result in the cardholder paying up to £1,000. One has to ask what kind of big brother state that is.

The crux of our deep concern with the ID card scheme is that the purpose of gathering and retaining data was not clear either in the 2006 Act or in how the national identity register operated since its inception. There is the potential for the state to use gathered information for any purpose which it thinks fit. In effect, each cardholder has paid £30 to be photographed, fingerprinted, put on a database and tracked by the state for the following 10 years. Your Lordships may consider this an exaggerated view of the ID card scheme, but sadly it is the reality. We do not always agree with Liberty, but in this instance it is spot on. In its oral evidence in Committee in the other place, the director of Liberty said:

“One of our fundamental concerns about the national identity register was that it was a multi-purpose and non-purpose-specific database, which meant that by definition the amount of information on it would inevitably grow and by definition it was not necessary and proportionate to a particular cause”.

That view was echoed by Justice in the same Committee, and it reflects the importance of ensuring that databases are subject to openness, accountability and proportionality. In our view, the ID card scheme meets none of those key requirements. Instead we have a scheme with little or no purpose that allows the state to intrude into the life of the citizen. There was no attempt in the legislation to achieve the right balance between national security and public protection and the rights to safety and privacy of personal data. The ID cards legislation is a measure without equal in gathering large quantities of personal data from members of the public not suspected of any wrongdoing, which added insult to injury somewhat by requiring them to pay £30 for the privilege.

On cost, the previous Administration expended a total of £251 million. This went on projects to establish identity cards, passports with a second biometric feature and other related programmes. Prior to that, the Home Office spent an additional £41 million developing the policy, legislation and business case for the introduction of identity cards. Furthermore, it was estimated that a further £835 million would have to be spent on the national identity scheme by 2018. This is a huge waste at a time of financial stringency.

When promoting ID cards, the previous Government indicated that the existing and proposed spend was an investment and that the return from ID card sales would recoup taxpayers’ money, but the reality has been different; £251 million to issue 12,000 chargeable cards might be called reckless, which is why we have stopped all spending on the scheme and closed down the existing card-issuing operation, pending the outcome of parliamentary consideration of this Bill. We anticipate savings of £86 million over the next four years through cancellation.

Your Lordships will be aware from consideration of the Bill in the other place that there was a great deal of debate on the issuing of refunds or the provision of discounts or credits against future passport applications. The cost of providing refunds would be in the region of £400,000, which is not a trivial sum. We have come to the conclusion that it would not be right for the taxpayer to foot this bill and to add to the already excessive spending on the scheme.

We realise that some people who spent £30 for a card with a 10-year life expectancy will be disappointed that it will be cancelled later this year without any refund, but those who chose to buy a card did so in the full knowledge of the unambiguous statements by the coalition parties that the scheme would be scrapped if we came to office. They cannot now expect taxpayers to bail them out.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, is the Minister saying that it is a general principle that members of the public are meant to read through the manifestos of all the parties before making a decision, and that that decision is at risk if another party wins? That is an extraordinary argument.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, citizens have to be aware of what is going on around them. It was clear that this scheme would have a risky future ahead of it. I shall deal in a moment with one or two of the other points that were implicit in the noble Lord’s question.

Another idea that was advanced in Committee in the other place was to allow existing cards to remain valid until expiry. That would have required maintaining the infrastructure for the next 10 years or so—another problem. The cost of so doing would have been in the estimated region of between £60 million and £80 million, and we do not consider that spending at that level is justified.

My final point on refunds relates to the statutory basis for the issue of ID cards. There is no contract here; an identity card has been provided in the context of a statutory framework and is not available for the remedies that might be forthcoming where an agreement is governed by contract or consumer law.

The 2006 Act makes no provision for a refund policy, either in the case of early cancellation of the scheme or withdrawal of the card by the issuing authority, or by the individual who simply wishes to get out of the ID card scheme. There has been no provision in the law.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Will she give sympathetic consideration to the possibility of refunding those who took out their ID cards before the manifestos were published? They seem to me to be innocent citizens, if I can put it that way, and I am sure that it would please a lot of people if it were possible to do that.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the opposition of both coalition parties to ID cards was well known well before we incorporated that in our manifestos. This was not a surprise to the world. I am afraid that I cannot hold out any prospect of acceding to the noble Lord’s suggestion.

I turn to one other aspect of the 2006 Act that affects the integrity and security of the British passport. The UK passport is a highly secure and well respected document, both nationally and internationally, and it complies fully with international standards. The recent design changes announced on 5 October this year further enhanced the security of the document. It is essential that we ensure that there are sufficient powers available to help prevent and detect fraud. That is why we have proposed to retain the offences set out in the 2006 Act that deal with fraudulent access to, and use of, identity documents other than identity cards. They result in about 3,000 prosecutions each year for an offence with potentially very serious implications for both national security and, indeed, for crime prevention.

The second issue relates to the decision of the coalition Government to halt the introduction of the second biometric indicator in passports. The second biometric would of course have been fingerprints, in addition to the existing facial imaging. We do not believe that adding the second biometric indicator increases the security of the document, which is already at a very high level. By halting plans to introduce a second biometric, we are saving the taxpayer a further £134 million. Furthermore, we do not consider that the holding of a database of fingerprints of some 80 per cent of the British population—all those who make passport applications—is a proportionate response to the level of risk. National security and public protection are of paramount importance to the coalition Government, and we will not allow them to be compromised or endangered. We keep such issues under continuous review, but as things stand we do not consider that a second biometric is required to enhance the existing very high security levels of a British passport, or, indeed, to enhance its acceptance by border agencies around the world.

EU countries subject to the relevant provisions of Schengen will require their citizens to provide fingerprints, but we also know of other countries that will not be making this requirement. A country as border-conscious as the United States does not, nor do Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They have no current plans to use fingerprints in passports but are instead focusing, as we are, on the enhanced use of biographic and facial imaging based on identity authentication techniques: so we do not consider that a convincing case for having fingerprints in the passport has been made.

The Identity Documents Bill is about getting rid of an expensive and intrusive scheme that placed unnecessary and disproportionate requirements on the individual to provide information to the state. The Bill is a major step along the route of returning power to the citizen. At the same time, we have been careful to retain existing powers to tackle those who choose to commit, or attempt to commit, identity fraud. We have tabled a government amendment to Clause 10 in the other place to increase the safeguards for the individual in relation to the acquisition and retention of data in connection with passport applications. So while we add necessary precautions, the core function of the Bill is to remove from the statute book the costly, unsuccessful and invasive card scheme, to the benefit of the taxpayer and the freedom of the individual. On that basis, I am pleased to present the Bill for your Lordships’ consideration, and I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, we have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate. My first point is that the various speeches have shown a philosophical divide in the House between those who think that it is a good idea for the state to amass information about citizens and that this is somehow empowering, and those who think that it is a good idea for the state to have as little as is necessary for the discharge of its duties and functions. That is one of the things that divide us regarding the national register and it lies at the heart of the way in which this scheme was constructed.

The Benches opposite challenged me personally on why I had changed my view. I will tell them. My reasons were expressed more eloquently than I can put them by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, who raised all the charges that one could about the flaws in the system, and he was right. This national register would have contained up to 50 items about individuals. That is a very large amount of information and would have included ephemeral details such as one’s address. A constant process of change would need to have taken place and there would have been a penalty for failing to provide the information.

Some noble Lords mentioned the view of Microsoft. It was Jerry Fishenden, an expert in this area, who said that bringing together in a single place all this information about the citizens of this country was a great honey pot and that the likelihood of it being invulnerable to attack and hacking was zero. Those were the moments when I began to have very serious doubts about the wisdom of this scheme, and the more I saw of it the less I liked it. It is partly for practical, but also for many philosophical, reasons that I concluded that the scheme was a bad idea.

The history of the way in which the previous Government’s thinking evolved was spelt out by other Members of the House, and I will not go into that again. Various arguments were put forward and eventually the scheme turned from being a good security precaution into being a good entitlement route. Part of the difficulty shown in defending this was the fact that the previous Government had constantly to change their justification for this extremely expensive scheme. I repeat that it is extremely expensive and it is quite right to say that it was to be the only one of its kind. One could have imagined that every time a swipe was made and the register had to incorporate a transaction—because it was going to be used in that fashion—the number of transactions would undoubtedly have crashed the system.

The design had many flaws. It also has limited validity and limited use because, as was rightly pointed out, the area of online fraud and losses, which increasingly is where identity authentication is needed and where fraud is taking place, would not have been helped at all by the existence of this register. So the design did not deal with one of the main areas where identity authentication was needed.

The noble Lord opposite asked how we would deal with identity issues. I entirely take the point that they are very serious and that further work and protection are needed. However, I am quite clear that the national register as it was constructed, with its associated card, was not the route to go down to get that degree of identity assurance.

Some noble Lords also raised the question of whether we would retain any of the technology that has been developed in relation to second-generation passports. As I said, the Government take the view that it is not necessary for the security of the British travel document, which we all agree is of high-quality, that it should incorporate second biometric data. Most Schengen countries are going down the route of asking for fingerprints. We are not going to do that and a large number of other countries are not going to, either. We do not take the view that there will be any barrier to the acceptability of our document. We also believe that other ways of increasing the security of the biometric data such as facial imaging, which we can certainly do at much less cost, are the way to go. Having said that, we will retain the technology in the Identity and Passport Service to ensure that, should we need to use it or should it be useful, we will have it available. However, we do not consider that it is needed as things stand.

Several noble Lords asked about how the destruction of information would be done and whether we could be sure that it would be done. It is a very important issue. As has been said, all biometric data and the vast majority of the personal data will be destroyed within two months of enactment. We have shared our approach with the Information Commissioner's Office, which is satisfied that all areas have been covered. The data destruction will be handled in accordance with the decommissioning guidance issued by the Cabinet Office and by the information assurance arm of GCHQ, the CESG. I believe that I am right in saying also that my honourable friend the Immigration Minister in the other place said that he would report to the House. I, too, am very happy to report to this House on the destruction process. We entirely agree that if we say we are going to do that, the public must be assured that it is happening. That will be a systematic process. We will not allow data that should no longer be legally held to be held by the Government.

Some noble Lords also raised the question of the power under the Act to sell data. Perhaps I may clarify that. Section 12 of the Act provides for the Identity and Passport Service to provide information to third parties for verification purposes. This permits the Secretary of State, under that power, to supply information to a person registered under the Act. The provision of this information requires the consent of the individual: at least that is a relief. For example, they may be applying for goods and services, which is why the information about them is required. Section 35 allows for a fee to be charged for the application of this provision, so one can see the intention potentially to make this a profit-making possibility for the Government. Our anxiety would have been about whether the information being provided was always accurate.

Some noble Lords asked whether there was an anomaly between our desire and intention to abolish the identity cards system and register and our continuation of biometric permits for foreign workers in this country. In fact, the latter is an EU requirement and, obviously, we undertake to continue to maintain our EU obligations. These are residence permits; they are not identity documents.

On costings, I cannot supply an immediate answer to the question raised by the noble Lord opposite. Our figures are very different, but I will write to him on that subject, as I realise that it is important to have clarity.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

The point is that most of the long-term cost would have been met by people paying the cost of the card. It is rather inaccurate to give a globalised figure and to say that that is the total cost.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The fact is that there is significant sunk investment and there would have been future costs if we had operated the system. Those future costs will now not be incurred.

Here is more precision on the point that the noble Lord has just raised. In October 2009, the cost report provided the figure of £835 million for future investment. Noble Lords will be aware that fewer than 15,000 cards have been issued, which has been against an investment of £292 million. The difficulty is that one cannot be as confident as the noble Lord that the costs would be recouped from fees. Irrespective and independent of the attitude of the Opposition at the time, which I am sure acted as a dampener on the general public’s enthusiasm to purchase a card, it was clear that the public were voting with their feet. A total of 12,000 cards is not a large number of applicants.

[Lord Brett]

The point has been made about the restricted areas—one in Manchester and one in London—but there was also a general inquiry register, to which members of the public from other parts of the country could apply so that they could have access to their cards when the cards became available. That is a rather different issue and a rather different figure.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I hope that the noble Lord will acknowledge that, at the end of the day, this was not going down a bomb.

If the question of refunds is the only complaint that the Opposition can find, that shows that there is not a great deal to object to in the legislation. Several points were raised. I was asked about refunds and whether we could supply discounts against other documents or at least allow the documents to have their full-life validity. As I pointed out, full-life validity would mean keeping the system open, which would probably cost an extra £60 million to £80 million. We simply do not think that that is justified or sensible. Noble Lords have said that this would involve a small sum of money, but we believe that £400,000 can be spent to the benefit of the general public in a rather more useful fashion than on a refund of £30, which is rather less than probably most people pay for a monthly subscription to Sky. We have to have a sense of proportion about this.

One or two noble Lords said that they found the Bill unnecessarily complex. In fact, when one gets into the detail of the Bill, there are quite a large number of complexities to unwind. However, I am happy to talk to them about the issues that they have raised and, if the Bill can be simplified, I shall be most delighted to do so.

A point about fraud was raised. The National Fraud Authority and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau have produced a strategic threat assessment of the harm impact of identity crime—a matter with which I think we in the House are all concerned. It will lead to an action plan, which will be overseen by the Home Office. We have started work on it and the first meetings have begun to take place. I am personally very interested in this subject. The House probably shares the view that identity, and its protection, is something that we have to get right. It relates to issues such as how we combat crime that takes place through cybernetworks, so I do not underestimate the importance of getting this right. As I said earlier, we do not believe that the national register is the way to tackle it. However, we have a great concern about the need to protect victims of crime relating to people’s identities having been swiped.

In conclusion, we believe that the Bill is in the public interest and we are pleased to have brought it forward this soon. We believe it is right to start getting the balance that we think should pertain between the citizen and the state more where we would like to see it, and of course other legislation is coming forward which will swing further in the direction of the liberty of the citizen. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I asked two specific questions. If she does not have the answers to them now, will she assure me that she will write to me with them?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Countess is quite right. I do indeed have some information and apologise for not having given it. I think that one of her questions related to the UKBA. She asked about provisions within Sections 5 to 15 of the 2007 Act. We comply with the EU requirements and we have complied ahead of the 2012 deadline. I realise that the noble Countess raised one or two other aspects, but I am not in a position to answer them at the moment and so shall write to her.

[Lord Selsdon]

Before my noble friend sits down, can she help me? Would she be willing to share with the House her full name and her legal name?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I know a trick question when I see one. I shall certainly share my name as registered on my birth certificate. It is Lilian Pauline Neville-Jones.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Grand Committee.

Cyberattacks: EU Committee Report

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I join other Members of the House in thanking my noble friend Lord Jopling for introducing this debate and for his committee’s report. It has enabled us to have what I think has been a rather wide-ranging discussion of the issues. He rightly said that it is one of the first extensive debates we have had on cyber generally and, in particular, on cybersecurity. I join noble Lords in welcoming the two noble Lords who made their maiden speeches and say how valuable their comments have been. We look forward to further discussions, and no doubt we will be talking about this subject in the future. I think that we have a House that has a considerable contribution to make, and our new Members have certainly increased our capability.

I should also like to point out that the noble Lord, Lord Reid, set up the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism in the Home Office which continues to function to this day and plays a central role in counterterrorism generally, while cybersecurity impinges on it. As everyone knows, capabilities for cyber are located mainly in the Cabinet Office, and indeed it was my predecessor the noble Lord, Lord West, under whom the Office of Cyber Security and the Cyber Security Operations Centre came into being. They have provided a central capability in government for the first time, and the Government are building on those structures. I pay tribute to our predecessors for starting down this road; we intend to contribute and to build on it. There is no doubt that the saliency of cybersecurity is increasing greatly.

The first thing we did in the Office of Cyber Security was to make a small but significant move in joining the strategy of cybersecurity and information assurance together. It seemed to us that these were closely related subjects and that it made no sense to keep them separate. Information assurance—which is provided not only by patching but also by people—is a key element in increasing our level of security. In his speech yesterday, the director-general of GCHQ Cheltenham said that we could deal with 80 per cent of our vulnerabilities if we increased good practice. Obviously good practice, to a significant extent, comprises keeping up systems and ensuring that they remain as invulnerable as possible. This also depends upon the human element. It is extremely important that if the Government purport to take a lead in this area—which I believe they should—they should themselves be an example of good practice. So one of the things we will do is increase the emphasis inside government and preach the message of information assurance nationally as being a contribution we need.

One element which has not been mentioned, but which we regard as an integral part of national security, is that we should increase capability in the population as a whole and encourage the use of good practice by ordinary users of computers. Indeed, we should up skill our population and, in particular, the level of expertise that we will need in the future for both maintaining and developing systems. We do not have enough people. A major contribution should come from the academic community, and the Government will certainly support that. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Reid, has a strong interest in that area. It would be a valuable contribution if a good deal were to be said about these subjects; we need someone to talk about them and we should keep them in our minds all the time. This would be a way of incentivising younger people to enter what is and will remain an exciting and expanding domain.

In referring to the SDSR, I am rather constrained by the timing of the debate. In one sense it is very good because it comes at a moment when we are thinking about this subject; unfortunately it comes just before the publication of the SDSR and I am unable to say everything that I would like to. However, I should like to give an indication of the direction of our thinking.

A number of important points were made—including by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, who made the key point that the nature of conflict is changing. Although this certainly applies to the battlefield, in a sense, it also applies to society. There is no such thing as a valid distinction of any real kind between how we deal with the threats and challenges to our country abroad if we do not also deal with them at home. Conversely, in order to diminish their significance and threat to us at home, we need to act abroad—the so-called upstream. In this, cybersecurity is key to our military capabilities on the battlefield and to our navy. It is no good having your carriers protected by your frigates and your submarines if the whole shooting match has lost its communications; it is dead in the water. Similarly, at home, we will not succeed in defeating a cyber-enabled terrorist enemy if our own communications are vulnerable. We need to be able to disrupt them, not them to disrupt us. This is the new national frontier. It offers very exciting, interesting and intellectually challenging opportunities for younger people and it is of great import to the nation.

National security is a totality of security, whether at home or abroad, and cyber is a central element in it. Though I cannot unfortunately give detail, I hope that the House will agree when it sees it that we have given due prominence and priority to the cyber element of our strategy.

Iain Lobban laid out the threat—I shall not repeat what he said, because it was put extremely cogently as well as accurately. However, the threat has a number of elements. There is indeed the threat of state-led espionage, which is theft by states. They are out for our valuable intellectual property, which they can then use for their own ends and possibly turn against us. This is a serious threat. We have also the activities of the non-state actors, who use cyberspace as an enabler. It is our task to disrupt them, too. In both cases, as has been said, you have real difficulty of attribution and, correspondingly, difficulty in knowing how to respond. We need to work on the issue of attribution, because, if we do not, we will never succeed in having a sufficient volume of successful prosecutions to act as a deterrent. However, we should recognise that attribution is quite difficult and that there are other things that we need to do at least at the same time but preferably earlier because they are within our domain. That constitutes better defences, better deterrence and the capability for counterdisruption. We need to be able to patrol our frontier.

There is a feature of patrolling our frontier which is very simple but which points up some the difficulties that we face. When I visited the NSA, it was said to me that relatively few practitioners and security officers in large corporations, and even in corporations which are internet providers, know what the configuration of their system is when it is operating normally and according to the rules. So if you do not know what it should look like when it is operating according to its own rules, you are most unlikely to spot when there is anomalous behaviour. But spotting anomalous behaviour is your first line of defence. We keep on coming back to the need for those skills.

It is a feature of modern, strategic national security thinking that, very quickly, the strategic descends to the nitty-gritty of operation, because you cannot succeed in your strategy unless you go right down into the weeds. It is one of the more difficult parts of the challenges that we face and it is certainly the case in the cyber area.

Clearly, another part of our approach has to be a focus on closing our vulnerabilities. The issue of our approach to the law was raised. We need to bring in law enforcement. I am more cautious about the question of operating within legal frameworks when it comes to trying to regulate the international scene. That is not to say that we can never have a valid convention. Certainly, the idea that we could have a convention that gives us the rules of the road instead of simply codes of conduct is an extremely attractive proposition. But you have to be confident of two things. First, that those who sign conventions will actually then obey their precepts and not seek to go outside them while you observe the rules. Otherwise, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. Secondly, in that situation, you need to be able to ensure that you can verify what they are doing. It adds to your vulnerability when you have people signing up who may not be entirely trustworthy.

With the old-fashioned, legitimate arms control that I and many noble Lords grew up with, you could go out and verify how many missiles you had because you could count them. This is more difficult. We return to the problem of attribution. I am cautious about the notion that conventions in so immature an area would serve our interests. I am keener on the notion that we seek to close our vulnerabilities and ensure that we defend ourselves adequately nationally. We must also propagate best practice among others who are linked to us and who may be less well equipped. I will come in a moment to international co-operation.

Another part of our strategy is dealing with crime. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked whether we are doing enough and the answer is no. We are not doing enough and we have to up our act. We heard that from Sir Paul Stephenson, in terms, a couple of days ago. We have not yet taken a decision on precisely what will happen to the e-crime unit and the position it will have in relation to the National Crime Agency. However, I can say—and I mean this—that it has to be and will be a priority. This sort of crime is theft. It is plain stealing. There is no such thing as victimless crime. People who suffer a major wipe-out through the swiping of their identities can have the greatest difficulty in getting their money back and in establishing their credentials and their financial position again. These are big issues. That is one side of things. We do not know the figures. The potential losses and the span of brackets that we have for the estimates show us that frankly we do not know the full costs because we have very little handle at the moment on the level of losses. It is certainly true that government agencies are becoming rather more conscious and getting a better handle on what they may be losing. As a matter of economic cost to the nation, we are still a long way from understanding exactly what is happening.

Focusing resources on detection and on international co-operation is a crucial part of following any crime chain and this is a classic area where there is international contact and an international link. There are few big scams and crimes that do not have a significant international dimension. An attack that takes place in the United Kingdom could originate in another country, so you cannot bring people to justice without the help of others overseas. The answer is that we are barely at the starting gate and in this whole area the House will agree that we are still doing baby steps.

Points were raised in the debate about the vulnerability of our critical national infrastructure. Our predecessors in office did a great deal of serious work in this area but there is still more to be done. The NPIA—I am not sure that I have got that acronym right, but I mean the agency with responsibility for protecting the national infrastructure, which is the office that springs from the Security Service—has a powerful relationship these days with a number of the really strategic elements in the national infrastructure and gives advice. It has helped infrastructure operators to upgrade their performance.

That brings me to one of the major points that I wish to make. I was asked whether we are doing well enough in these areas. I do not think that we are doing badly, but there is clearly more to do. One thing that absolutely stands out when you start to think about cyber is, while the Government must take the lead, where the responsibility will lie. It will lie with the Government, including ensuring that we retain our national capabilities. But we are clearly not going to be able to have an effective national platform, which not only protects the operation of our society but gives us economic advantage internationally, so people decide to invest in the United Kingdom because they know that it has secure communications that they can trust, except in partnership with the private sector. By that I mean not simply getting the private sector to pay or do what we want; I mean a partnership, and developing policy with the private sector. We need to do it at the strategic level, with the direction in which we need to go, and we need both a general and a sectoral approach. We go back to the fact that the strategic level descends extremely quickly to the operation consequence. We need to have a partnership that does both strategy and operational co-operation, whereby the Government’s technical expertise can be brought to bear to help to ensure that private sector operators and companies have the cybersecurity that they and the nation needs for business continuity.

I am trying to paint an approach on the part of Government that is perhaps holistic and which takes all the issues and tries to put them together. We are further ahead in some aspects than others, and when we are not so far ahead we need to catch up. I hope that we have at least analysed what we need to do. There is a significant road to go down.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about the role of the media, which gives me the opportunity to say something about an important aspect. The media are important as they are our means of communication in these issues. They are also absolutely vital to government in an emergency. One thing that we need to be able to do and which we will do is to exercise—and everybody who has been in government knows just how important exercising is. That goes right across the board. One thing that you come across when you start is that you can conduct very few exercises without the electronic and cyber element being an extraordinarily important part of getting through. Making sure that in and of itself we are testing our cyber capabilities and our vulnerabilities is an important part of underpinning other forms of exercising that we do for emergency prevention and preparation.

I was asked about the role of ENISA and the Government’s attitude to it. There is no doubt about the Government’s support for the continuing operation of ENISA. Its life has not been made easy by putting it in Heraklion, and one could perhaps wish otherwise. I gather that the Greek Government are putting in place some facilities in Athens, which will make it a bit easier for people to get there. It is probably fair to say that they have managed to recruit the staff, although they have not made it easy for ENISA staff to travel. But those who know the Union do not think that it is likely that we will be able to change that, so I think that the fact that there are some offices in Athens is probably the way to build. As for its role, we agree that it has done good work. It is a very small agency with a not very big budget. It is being proposed now that it should have quite a significant increase in its budget. Our view of that is: “Give us the reasons why—a justification. We actually want to see what you think you would do with it”. We agree that it potentially has useful roles in the area of crime prevention and of linking up, in the cyberarea, the role of other enforcement agencies such as Europol, and of making them more powerful and effective.

ENISA can do what we hope to do in the national security strategy, which is to bring the elements together. That is a classic co-ordination role and an important and valuable one in this area, given that the elements at the moment are so dispersed and that the performance between member states is so highly variable. The whole notion of bringing others up, who are not as operational but who can represent a weakness in the system, is an important part of what can be done for us. Your Lordships may be assured that we take ENISA seriously.

Similarly, we take NATO seriously. NATO is developing its concept and there is quite a debate going on, as I understand it, about all those things that might fall under the heading of Article 4—the solidarity article, if I can put it that way. To some extent, cyber falls in that area. Personally, I take the view that I would very much like to see NATO active in this area. I gather that the military committee is now beginning a discussion of what NATO might be doing. That is wholly to be welcomed, as is the possibility of NATO-EU co-operation in this area. We all know that there are bigger issues—or, at any rate, other issues—that prevent that from happening, which are wholly contrary to the interests of the member states of both organisations and the organisations themselves. That is one thing that we have not yet succeeded in cracking.

There is also almost certainly a division of responsibility to be found between the two organisations. Your Lordships will be aware that—and we are not alone in this—we do not particularly wish to see the EU get into things labelled “national security”, although I have taken the view that national security is, rightly, rather a big term and that there will be things that the EU can undoubtedly do to contribute to the success of our collective national security. I believe that NATO will also have a role, which I hope it will seize, because I believe that there are important things to be done, particularly in Europe. That will also strengthen the collective approach.

I am told that time is up. Indeed, I have come to the end. Implicit in all that I have been saying is what a number of noble Lords have mentioned: we need strong international co-operation in international organisations, just as we need bilateral co-operation between the competent agencies.

Education: Overseas Students

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to enforce the rules that require students coming to the United Kingdom for study to have an intermediate, rather than elementary, level of English.

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

My Lords, in order to enforce the rule that students must have an intermediate level of English when applying to study in the UK, the UK Border Agency will refuse applications in cases where students who are required to have an English language test set by an approved provider cannot present the verifiable evidence of having so achieved that qualification. These rules came into effect on 12 August.

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, that is a very encouraging Answer, because I have asked questions in this broad field at least four times, and this is the first time that we have heard a positive Answer about progress, compared with the shambles whereby something like 20 per cent of overseas students are still here five years after graduating. Does my noble friend recognise, like those of us who watched the television this morning, that the wonderful rescue taking place in Chile has been achieved by sheer skill, organisation, professionalism and true leadership? Will she ensure that the Foreign Office, the UK Border Agency and the home agencies involved, for once, co-ordinate their activities so that genuine students can come to genuine universities and genuine colleges?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am sure that the whole House would endorse what the noble Lord said about the skill with which the miners in Chile are being rescued from what would otherwise have been a terrible fate. As to the skill with which government departments are to operate on overseas students, we have put in place a number of measures which indeed include co-ordination between individuals in the UK Border Agency and Foreign Office posts. The system is designed to do two things. One is to monitor the conduct of sponsoring institutions so that they do their duty by ensuring that students who are registered with them actually turn up. The other is to ensure that the students actually come; and if they do not come, they will be penalised. If the institutions fail to ensure that their students turn up and do not correct that, they will have their licences taken away.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness acknowledge, contrary to the point of view put by the questioner, that in fact the previous Government took action against unscrupulous course providers through the sponsor licensing system? Can she say how many education providers were closed as a result of those actions?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the previous Government certainly began to put measures in place. This Government have built on those measures, very much strengthened them and are still evaluating whether we have strong enough measures in place. If we want to take further measures, we shall announce them before the end of the year. As to the numbers, 220 institutions have been suspended since the tier-4 system put in place by this Government took effect; 53 of those are permanent suspensions and 78 are still under evaluation. Real measures are being taken—with teeth.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, what is the position of language schools, which are extremely important to some seaside towns?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Indeed, and no part of the Government’s policy is aimed at doing anything other than enabling genuine language schools to offer genuine language teaching to genuine students—one of the points made earlier by my noble friend. The English language qualification for those courses is lower because it is designed to enable people either to do a foundation course or to learn basic English, so different rules apply. On the other hand, we intend those students to actually be in genuine institutions.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

Does the Minister consider that adequate safeguards are in place to detect impersonation in oral examinations by those who present themselves at the borders with supposed qualifications? If so, what are they?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, if you are to be required to have an English language qualification before you turn up, that obviously has to have been acquired somewhere else. A register has been built up of approved institutions, which have to demonstrate that they are both able and capable of providing the necessary qualification. They have to have a trading presence in this country and a reputation established independently of their application to government. If that is done, it is hoped that the qualifications will prove genuine. However, there is also monitoring of those institutions, whereby people go along and inspect whether they are still providing courses of the right level and whether the students are attending.

[Lord Tomlinson]

I go back to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Hunt about the number of institutions that are no longer in business compared with when the previous Government introduced the review that led to the points-based system. Will the Minister agree with me if I suggest that 2,000 colleges did not get the necessary level of accreditation ever to be put on the register, and that the number that she gave was for institutions that were accredited but have since been knocked off the register? Therefore, the total number of institutions that are not providing higher education services where they were previously is around 2,300. Does she further agree that it is imperative for the financial success of higher education that overseas students come to our higher education institutions, to part-mitigate the cuts that have been made in higher education and will be made in the spending review next week?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I think that this Question is about English language qualifications for students arriving in this country. I found it difficult to follow the noble Lord’s logic. Many of the institutions that were operating without either the necessary qualifications or a licence were clearly being allowed to do so under the previous Government. I have said that we have suspended some of the institutions that were accredited, and I shall look at whether others have fallen out of the system. However, we are certainly applying extremely rigorous standards to the 2,000 or so institutions that are accredited as things stand at the moment.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

Does the Minister, who is herself fluent in French and German, agree that it is equally important that English students learn foreign languages?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Je le veux bien. Yes, of course.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, the points-based system does not apply to those who come from the European Community. What is being done to measure their competence in English?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The standards that have to be met for competence in English must comply with a European framework regulation, so a student coming here to do an advanced course has to meet that European level of qualification.

Immigration: Detention of Children

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will end child detention in immigration cases.

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

My Lords, I am unable to provide a date for the ending of detention of children for immigration purposes but we remain determined to end this practice as soon as possible. Working with NGOs, we are designing and testing alternative arrangements to protect children’s welfare while ensuring the return of families who have no right to be here. We are making significant progress.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. Will she make available in the Library every week a list of the numbers of detained children, where they are detained and their ages, so that we can end this practice and monitor it if a list is available for us to refer to? Will she accompany three or four of us to Yarl’s Wood so that we can see the situation there for ourselves?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, it is perfectly reasonable to make these arrangements. We will certainly be glad to arrange a visit to Yarl’s Wood. The number of children in detention is either zero or two. I cannot give an exact figure as it depends on whether the two children in a family who knowingly entered the country illegally yesterday are still in detention; they may have been briefly. However, the numbers are very low.

[Lord Soley]

Is it not time for both parties in the Government to admit that they made promises to the electorate on this emotive issue which they cannot keep because, if they do, they will end up taking children into care or forcefully separating them from their parents? That admission from the Government is long overdue. We all want to minimise this practice to the absolute smallest limit, but let us be realistic and not make promises which we cannot keep, as the Government have done too often on matters such as this.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I do not accept that. We are going to keep this promise. We are trying to go upstream of the previous procedures for requiring families to leave by encouraging voluntary return. We are engaged in that pilot with the help of NGOs. We will, and must, honour an undertaking that we have given.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, bearing in mind that the Royal College of Paediatrics and others have said that significant harm is caused to children detained for immigration control purposes, why has this process not been brought to an end? Will the noble Baroness give a date when the facilities at Yarl’s Wood and other places of detention are to be dismantled so that such detentions cannot happen again?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I wish I could give a date. We cannot do that because, as things stand, we are taking seriously the whole business of how we bring about a situation whereby it is no longer necessary to detain children. It requires time to get the right procedures in place and, if I may put it this way, it is an earnest of our seriousness that we are going into considerable detail to get the right procedures.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Will the Minister consider extending from two weeks to three months the window for families to consider voluntary returns? Is she aware that in Sweden in 2008, 82 per cent of families chose to take the voluntary return route?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am aware that this figure of a fortnight has got around to being perceived as some sort of deadline, whereas a fortnight is the absolute minimum period that the families are given to consider voluntary return. I do not want to set a timetable for the other end. We would obviously like to achieve a high rate of voluntary return which would take place as soon as was possible and at the least cost to the taxpayer.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

But, my Lords, the noble Baroness has not answered my noble friend. The coalition agreement states that the Government will end the detention of children for immigration purposes. Her honourable friend Damian Green said on 6 September in the other place that the policy was to minimise the detention of children. Why the change in policy?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, we intend to end the detention of children for immigration purposes.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, if, in fact, children of school age and their families are still being detained together, will the Minister assure the House that education in outside schooling will be provided?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The emphasis of our policy is obviously on keeping families together. I trust that we will not be in a situation in which children are detained for any length of period at all; but certainly if they were, education would be a very important factor.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, has the Minister taken a view on whether families should be deported to countries such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Zimbabwe, and particularly on the impact, which could be considerable on those being deported, of sending families with children back to those countries?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, if there are security factors in place, those of course introduce elements which are not necessarily present in all other cases.

[Lord Rooker]

Can the Minister confirm that Yarl’s Wood, which was opened on my watch as a Home Office Minister, remains a removal centre and not a detention centre? As she will find out, if people are reluctant to go and they have children, it is not possible to organise removals economically and humanely by knocking on their doors; nor, if one wants to keep the family together, is it possible to do so other than by the family spending a minimum short period in a removal centre. That is not detention in the normal use of the word.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord points to some of the difficulties that arise. In our view, it is certainly not humane to knock on people’s doors and require them to go absolutely immediately to a train or plane. Indeed, removal to a centre such as Yarl’s Wood, which has facilities, is sometimes the right procedure. The situation varies from case to case but we entirely accept that the procedure to be followed should be humane and in the interests of the family, and the children in particular.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, is it possible to persuade the border agency not immediately to deport children, often by breaking into their homes in the early hours of the morning, but perhaps, as was suggested just now, to give the family a little more time to consider its position and return to the country from which it comes so that the children can be brought round to understanding what is going on? There is a great deal of evidence from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and others to show the huge effect on young children of suddenly being forced out of their homes in the middle of the night and compelled to go to a totally strange environment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I entirely take that point. The Government are trying to learn these lessons, and we are piloting this scheme precisely by going down the road of giving families more time and more options, particularly for voluntary departure. The scheme is absolutely in the spirit of the point mentioned by the noble Baroness.

Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Disclosure of Information by SOCA) Order 2010

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 28th July 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That the draft order laid before the House on 18 January be approved.

Relevant Document: 6th Report, Session 2009–10, from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 26 July.

Motion agreed.

Children: Trafficking

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what support they will provide for trafficked children.

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

My Lords, this Government are committed to tackling human trafficking and to supporting and protecting the victims of this vile crime. Responsibility for the care, protection and accommodation of child trafficking victims falls under the statutory responsibilities of local authorities. They must ensure that the child’s needs are assessed, that they are placed in safe accommodation and that they are given social work support to plan for their care.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that positive response. Does she agree that these children are among the most vulnerable in society and, therefore, that they need collaborative efforts to help and support them? What efforts are being made across government departments and across systems at a local level to provide that support?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I thank the noble Baroness for having given notice of her supplementary question and of the view she takes on the need for collaboration across government. We share that view. The previous Government issued extensive statutory guidance to local authorities and other interested parties—the latest guidance being Working Together, issued earlier this year—with precisely the aim of supporting closer working in areas such as finding suitable accommodation. We entirely agree that these children are extremely vulnerable and should get the best protection possible. I think it is true to say that CEOP is currently rolling out initiatives, the details of which I do not have, but I know that they are under way. At the national level, we are reviewing the operation of the national referral mechanisms—which I think my honourable friend the Minister with responsibility for immigration mentioned in the other place—with the aim of encouraging further co-operation among the agencies involved.

[Baroness Sharples]

How many children are involved in this terrible trade?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, this is one of those things where you cannot always be certain what you do not know. However, we believe that the figure for the last year was in the order of 325 children.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I declare an interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking. I assume that the Minister has read the report from the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group, Wrong kind of victim?. In it, it appears that the national referral mechanism treats children who are trafficked as not in fact being victims for the purposes of the convention. What are the Government going to do about that?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I had not heard that the national referral mechanism was not treating children as it should. I shall certainly look into that. But I think it fair to say that observations made by that organisation are among the reasons why the Government have agreed to look at the functioning of the national referral mechanism.

[Baroness Uddin]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that housing trafficked children in care accommodation could place those vulnerable children at risk of further exploitation, particularly of sexual abuse? Will she ensure that work with CEOP and other organisations looks at that in particular and bears it in mind?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I entirely take the noble Baroness’s point and will certainly bear it in mind.

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that there are grounds for thinking that support for child victims is hampered by failure first of all to identify them, often wrongly criminalising them? No adequate facilities are in place to support them yet. Does she agree that that therefore implies that we should have more dealings with children’s services and NGOs at a much earlier time? Furthermore, is she confident that we are complying with Articles 10 and 12 of the convention?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the Government would agree that this is a very difficult area of policy and that we encounter considerable difficulties in identifying the status of children when they arrive. It is not always clear whether they have been trafficked or whether they have been smuggled into the country—and those are two different things. So dealing with some of these individuals lacks clarity. However, I do not accept that the Government are not trying to do their very best. One object of having the review is to see whether we cannot do things better. We believe that we are in compliance with our convention obligations.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, how many prosecutions have there been in the past two years in respect of trafficking, and how many of those have ended in conviction?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

There certainly have been prosecutions. I am not sure that I can give the noble Lord the actual figure, but I shall certainly write to him. The most reverend Primate also raised this issue of criminalisation. There are people who have previously been trafficked who then exploit other children who have been trafficked for the purposes of criminal activity. There have been examples in cannabis farms. So it is right to prosecute those who engage themselves in criminal activity.

[Lord Brett]

The Minister has twice referred to CEOP, a very valuable agency created by the previous Administration which is very highly valued by the public. It is therefore not clear why the Government have decided, in their new regime, that CEOP should not exist any longer. Is it to be merged with another body? More importantly, can the Minister assure me that there will be no less funding than there is at the moment so that its valuable work can continue?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the functions of CEOP will certainly remain within the new structure for the National Crime Agency. There is no intention to abolish those functions. As to the budget figure, obviously I cannot give an assurance of that kind until we know the outcome of the CSR review. But I note the point that has been made.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, we are aware of work going on to anticipate problems around the Olympics as regards trafficked women. Is this a problem that has been identified as regards trafficked children as well? If so, are steps being taken to address it during the two sets of Games?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My noble friend is right to say that this is potentially a vulnerable point. We have the Olympics particularly in mind and will be looking to see what measures are necessary.

[Lord Swinfen]

My Lords, are these children returned to their countries of origin, and what protection is given to those children who have been sexually assaulted, who might be considered by their families to have besmirched the family honour?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am not aware of any particular category of children who fall into those circumstances. But it is certainly the case that every child coming within the category of a trafficked individual has a social worker attached to them who examines and takes account of their needs before putting forward a plan for their safeguarding.