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

Baroness Stroud Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Loomba (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall focus on Amendment 31, spoken to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool. This is an important amendment that brings a sensible and balanced approach to immigration in the commercial sector, to build up our economy—not just hospitals and care homes, but businesses, which also need to employ skilled and semi-skilled people. The amendment will help those fleeing conflict and persecution in their own country to build their lives in the UK.

Employers and businesses are interested and keen to take part in schemes to support such workers. I declare an interest: after running a fashion company in the UK for over 40 years and employing over 300 staff, before the pandemic, I know that the majority of businesses require all sorts of people, such as accountants, HR people, salespeople and cleaners, as well as warehouse staff.

I support the amendment because it has the foresight to do something positive for displaced people at a time in their life when they often have no one to turn to, and no means of supporting themselves and their family. This country has a long history of helping displaced people, and the humanitarian kindness it has shown countless refugees over the years is well known. Through this amendment we will do something truly remarkable—helping people in need while enhancing this country through the skilled workers who wish to make it their home. We will maintain our world-class image by helping refugees and displaced persons in their time of greatest need, while also filling skills gaps in this country.

However, the existing and future tier 2 general framework creates structural barriers, preventing applications from skilled refugees and other forcibly displaced people, due to issues such as stringent restrictions and the demand for documentary evidence. Fragomen, a leading immigration law firm in the City which conducted a survey of 500 corporates with operations in the United Kingdom of various sizes and in various sectors, found that 73% of respondents said that they would consider skilled displaced people with the required skills and experience, or would actively pursue the opportunity to employ displaced people. This level of demand is likely to grow, as businesses become more aware of the opportunity to hire displaced talent.

[Baroness Stroud (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I add my support for Amendment 31. Three tests must be met when a democracy considers the development of a robust immigration system that serves both its own citizens and those seeking to make the UK their new home. First, does the system serve the demands of business and the economy? Next, does it provide equity for those applying to work here, so that it is their skill set, not their passport, that determine eligibility? Finally, does it provide genuine asylum for vulnerable and displaced people, not only expressing Britain’s humanitarian commitments but reflecting the values of the British people?

The amendment, through the introduction of the tier 2 displaced talent visa stream, responds to all three of those questions affirmatively. In connection with the first test—the business test—the end of free movement will, as this House knows, impact on the availability of EEA and Swiss nationals, leading to a contraction in the number of skilled workers available to UK employers. This means that, after focusing on the development of UK workers, employers may still need to look overseas for suitable talent, where shortages exist.

This is particularly true of, say, the health and education sectors. It is estimated that the care sector requires 520,000 additional workers before 2035, just to support the UK’s ageing population. For the past decade, approximately one in six of the 1.5 million care workers in England have been non-UK nationals. Furthermore, previous recruitment drives have done little to alleviate the sector’s chronic labour shortages. Despite a 20% increase in advertised care roles in the first quarter of 2020, applications decreased by nearly 20%. This is just one example of the many sectors that would greatly benefit from the creation of a new displaced talent visa.

The second test is the equity test. The Government have been right to champion a points-based immigration agenda, with a focus on equity for applicants, by seeking out people’s skills set not their passport. But there must also be a recognition that there are significant structural barriers facing displaced people, which prevent them participating in that level playing field. These include, as we have heard, the payment of substantial government fees, charges, difficulties in securing official travel documents, and an inability to evidence English language competence.

According to Talent Beyond Boundaries, it can take over six months for a displaced person to access an English language test when applying for asylum from Lebanon. It has a ready-to-use programme with an extensive talent catalogue, and a model that has already been successful in Canada and Australia. It manages this talent catalogue of nearly 21,000 skilled forcibly displaced people living in Lebanon and Jordan, many of whom have fled the conflict in Syria. The registrants represent more than 150 occupations, most of which are included in the UK’s skills shortage list. A large proportion of registered candidates already fit the UK’s targeted profile of being the “best and brightest”.

That brings us to our third test—the humanitarian test. The amendment is not intended to replace our UN commitments to refugee settlement, but rather to answer the call of employers who are willing to support vulnerable people, while closing their own labour and skills gaps. As we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, in a survey of 500 corporates of varying size and sector conducted by Fragomen, 73% said that they would either seriously consider, or actively pursue, the opportunity to employ displaced people. The British people are instinctively responsive to those who are vulnerable but want to work hard to give their families a better future, and to contribute to the building of the nation that offers them safety. They want to be responsive.

Calais: Refugees

Baroness Stroud Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Roberts for securing this timely debate. He and many of my noble friends in this House have done a great deal of commendable work on this issue. A year ago, when the Jungle in Calais was cleared, 750 children were transferred to the UK—200 of these under the Dubs scheme—and the rest reunited with family. Many of these children have gone on to flourish under this country’s protection and I am proud of that record. However, we are still failing a great number of children.

Children who find themselves unprotected by official channels are extremely vulnerable to traffickers and I am greatly concerned by the reports of children being trafficked illegally into this country. This is a devastating fate for a child, many of whom are desperately seeking to join family or simply seeking safety but find themselves trapped by traffickers. Some of these children—so far, around 170—have been recognised and referred to authorities. However, these same children are reportedly being failed again and we have no idea where more than 100 of them are. These children are at grave risk of being re-trafficked. They are greatly at risk of sexual and labour exploitation. The true number of trafficked children is likely to be far higher, with some hidden from authorities and many more at risk. I deeply value the steps that my noble friend the Minister has taken to ensure the safety of children but what action is being taken to bring them back into a safe environment? What is being done to ensure that there are legal, accountable channels to help refugee children in Calais and across Europe?

The reason for closing the Dubs channel for helping these children is still unclear. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that providing safe routes for children acts as or creates the pull factor that some fear. Closing legal routes, however, pushes young people into the hands of traffickers. When one thinks of the scale of the refugee challenge, we are hardly looking at a pull factor. There are 6.5 million people, including 2.8 million children, displaced within Syria itself; 2.7 million Syrian refugees have made their way to Turkey; Lebanon hosts approximately 1 million Syrian refugees, which amounts to around one in five people in that country. Only about 1 million out of that entire group have chosen to make the dangerous journey across Europe. These statistics tell us a story of families wanting to stay in the region, not to travel. This is not a pull factor that we are seeing.

My key question to my noble friend the Minister is: what is the Government’s strategy here? We are not faced with a huge challenge, in comparison to the size of the problem being picked up by Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. If those countries are responding to the needs of their neighbours, surely we can do better to care for the 100 who have made it to Calais and the United Kingdom.

Daphne Caruana Galizia

Baroness Stroud Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I totally agree with my noble friend. Malta has great standing in the Commonwealth as its chair. We stand ready to support Malta should it request it, but also to encourage it, as the previous speaker suggested.

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to Daphne Caruana Galizia for her courage as a journalist. I had the privilege until recently of having her son Paul working with me at the Legatum Institute.

Only one in seven people in this world lives in a nation with freedom of the press. What steps is this country, where we do enjoy freedom of the press, taking to preserve our own freedoms and to see them extended worldwide?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very important point. The UK supports freedom of expression as both a fundamental right in itself and as an essential element of a full range of human rights. The freedom of expression is required to allow innovation to thrive and ideas to develop. People must be allowed to discuss and debate issues freely without fear of repression or discrimination.

Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill [HL]

Baroness Stroud Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I begin my remarks by thanking and commending my noble friend Lord McColl for once again bringing the concerns of vulnerable and marginalised survivors of modern slavery to the attention of this House. My interest in this Bill comes from its clear objective: to ensure that we have a framework of support for victims which truly responds to their needs and puts their interests first.

Many people in our society face challenges and disadvantages, but victims of modern slavery are among some of the most vulnerable. The experience of being trafficked or exploited not only takes from them their autonomy and sense of self but leaves them materially exposed, with no home, no source of income, no prospect of work, no protection and no community. The support provided to victims during the national referral mechanism can only ever be an immediate response to a crisis situation. The NRM offers assistance to people at the point of extreme vulnerability, when they are identified as being a potential victim, when the police have raided the place where they have been exploited or when they have managed to escape the control of their traffickers. Individuals are offered a safe home, regular meals, support workers and access to medical care. All of this is a vital immediate response to victims experiencing such a crisis.

I welcome the establishment of this support formally through proposed new Section 48A in this Bill, which will ensure that victims of trafficking in England and Wales have similar rights to support to those in Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, we also need to look at the long-term impact of the support framework. There is no doubt that we must provide assistance at the point where a person is first identified as a possible victim. But if the support we provide does not set them up for long-term recovery, all we are doing is to provide a brief respite from one situation of vulnerability before returning them to another perhaps equally exploitative situation.

I am also concerned by the evidence that, as my noble friend Lady Cox has just said, the current framework does not offer victims the support they need to make the transition from victim to survivor. The Centre for Social Justice, of which I was previously executive director, highlighted this problem in its report, It Happens Here. It says:

“In essence, significant support for a victim of modern slavery ends when the decision has been made over their trafficking status. Aftercare provision in the UK must develop a wider response that is victim-centred, forward-looking and which aims to give the survivor the best possible chance at an independent and self-sufficient future”.


It seems to me that this is precisely what Section 48B of the Bill sets out to do.

By providing victims with guaranteed access to services, benefits, and accommodation for one year, victims will have an opportunity through that period to re-establish their skills and their sense of identity and confidence, enabling them to move forward into an independent future. We need to understand that many will not make this journey without that support as they are still dealing with the impact of trauma and anxiety. Support workers in safe houses work hard to try to put things in place for victims when they leave, but the 14-day transition period is simply is not enough. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner said, earlier this year, that 14 days,

“is often not enough time to establish safe and secure pathways to mainstream services”.

The Modern Slavery Act injected much-needed energy into efforts to tackle this terrible crime, but we now need to continue that work in respect of victim support structures. We need to build on the national referral mechanism to create a statutory framework that will not simply give victims short-term protection only to leave them with no help to rebuild their lives. We need to create a wider system that will take people out of dangerous situations, provide a safe haven for them away from their exploiters, and set them on a path to a new future.

The Bill in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, expertly rises to this challenge and provides a very welcome and necessary stage two to the excellent work that the Government have accomplished through the Modern Slavery Act. I encourage the Government to see the Bill as a great opportunity and to seize this opportunity to make it their own. I commend the Bill to the Minister, with my wholehearted support.

Modern Slavery Act 2015

Baroness Stroud Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

There is at present no intention that there should be such a national website.

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

The anti-slavery commissioner plays a crucial role in tackling modern-day slavery. Given that, will my noble friend please outline plans for the anti-slavery commissioner to be directly involved in the implementation of Part 6 of the Act, with particular reference to work encouraging businesses in this race to the top?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I wonder whether the noble Baroness will allow me to write to her on the position of the commissioner, because I am not aware of his precise role in the implementation of Part 6, as distinct from his other roles.