Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I appreciate the tone in which the hon. Lady has asked the question. If she actually looks at the HMIC report, she will see that it is clear that this is not about levels of funding; the report is very much about how the police use the funding they have. I gently point out to her that, if they are using the precept abilities they have, not only is every single police force in the country, bar one, protected, but indeed, this year overall we are seeing an increase in the resources for police forces. Even in London, the police have seen a £30 million increase in their reserves, which means there has been money that they have not used.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

14. If she will make it her policy to (a) end indefinite detention for immigration purposes and (b) introduce a maximum time limit of 28 days for such detention.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

Detention and removal are essential parts of an effective immigration control system, but it is vital that they are carried out with dignity and respect. When people are detained, it is for the minimum time possible. We take the welfare of detainees very seriously, which is why the Government commissioned Stephen Shaw to carry out an independent review of the welfare of vulnerable people in the detention system.

[Caroline Lucas]

Numerous reports suggest that the Government are using indefinite detention. I commend to the Minister a report by Women for Refugee Women that sets out practical alternatives to detention as a routine part of asylum policy. I would like to see the reality for myself, yet my application to visit Yarl’s Wood as a party leader appears to have been blocked. Can he tell me the status of my application, which was first made in November and has, I understand, been referred to his office? When can I expect to get clearance?

[Mr Goodwill]

We are still considering that suggestion. I know that the shadow Home Secretary would like to visit as well.

Calais Jungle

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking any of his constituents, particularly Mr and Mrs O’Connor, who have been so helpful in supporting vulnerable people in the camp. With regard to the Le Touquet agreement, it is well known that in the French political engagement, there is a certain discussion about it. I believe that it serves us as well as it serves France, and I confidently expect it to stay in place.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I echo the deep concerns about the condition of children in the camps. More generally, will the Home Secretary acknowledge that the Government’s approach is leading to a toxic, two-tier system focused on distinguished between “good” refugees and “bad” economic migrants, even if they are fleeing equally desperate situations? Can she say whether an adult who fled Afghanistan, faced mistreatment in Iran, travelled through Turkey, where he had no chance to work, and is now trapped in Calais, desperately trying to meet his brother in the UK, would be defined as a migrant or a refugee?

[Amber Rudd]

I respectfully say to the hon. Lady that we have legislation and regulations in place to help the people we can help, and they are also there to prevent people thinking that they can come here when they cannot. We must have clear signs about who this country will willingly and enthusiastically protect and look after, because we have strong, proud British values, and about who we cannot. We should not do ourselves damage or in any way downgrade our values by saying that we should do more.

EU Nationals: UK Residence

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. We want to make sure that EU nationals who are already here can stay in Britain, but we also, as I have already stressed, need to guarantee the rights of British nationals living in EU member states. That needs to be a priority of our negotiations.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

On exactly that point, can the Minister explain how it can possibly be likely to prejudice the rights of UK nationals in the EU if we do the right thing—if we do the moral thing—and uphold basic human rights by extending the rights of EU nationals here? Does he recognise how out of touch he is on this issue, and will he take that message back to the Home Secretary in no uncertain terms?

[James Brokenshire]

Of course, I understand the point that the hon. Lady makes about wanting to act. We need to be careful about the unintended consequences and other implications of things that we do now, up front, to ensure that we get the best possible outcome for British citizens overseas. It is about looking at this in the round to achieve the best outcome. I think she and I both agree on that, but we differ on how we should go about it.

Hate Crime

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Lady has experienced far more than her share of abuse, particularly online. She is a stalwart for standing up and being there, and for still being on Twitter—I am not quite sure why she is.

I spoke to my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General before I made this statement to ensure that he heard exactly that point: that the CPS needs to take this seriously and that we need to see prosecutions and convictions. It is very important that people are punished for those crimes.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I, too, welcome the Minister’s statement and her clear commitment to doing what she can to crack down on such appalling hate crime. She will be aware that a National Audit Office report showed that real-terms funding for individual police forces was reduced by an average of 18% from 2011 to 2015. That same report noted that the Department does not have good enough information to work out by how much it can reduce funding without degrading services. Does she know how many services to support victims of hate crime are at risk of being lost or have already been lost? What can she do to remedy that?

[Karen Bradley]

The prevalence of hate crime is not on an upward trend. According to the crime survey, prevalence is on a stable if not downward trend, depending on the type of hate crime, but we see more of certain types of hate crime and there is more reporting of it. The reporting of hate crime and prosecutions of hate crime is to be welcomed. We need to ensure that there is more reporting, because I am clear that there is still a very big gap between prevalence and reporting. The hate crime action plan has specific measures on victims, and I hope the hon. Lady comes back to that to discuss it when it is released.

Unaccompanied Children

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Burrowes]

There is a proper long-term duty that has a disproportionate impact on Kent County Council. A case has been made in previous debates for how we could find a new way of enabling a fair distribution across the country. We recognise that local authorities have been willing to come forward, along with many community and other organisations. Towards the end of my speech I will mention some organisations that want to share the burden with local authorities. Communities want to come alongside to provide that long-term support.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and on his commitment to the issue. When unaccompanied children are settled here and a parent is later found, does he agree that they should have the same rights to family reunion as adult refugees? I know that is a controversial subject, but other countries seem to manage it without any fear of abuse. There are fundamental rights to family reunion that should be upheld.

[Mr Burrowes]

Family reunions are currently prevented by the rules on unaccompanied children, which are not in line with the rules for adults. The position that children cannot sponsor their parents or carers to join them means that they do not have the same rights as adults, which is a particular concern. The Government, considering their own and international legal obligations to protect the best interests of children already in this country, should not be in a position where they are effectively denying a child the right to be reunited with their family and to be safe.

It is important that we consider the situation more broadly, such as the issue of dependency in relation to families. Who is the family? There should be a broader understanding of dependency. It might not be the father or the mother; it might be a brother. I have visited Calais, and I have seen the appalling conditions at the Dunkirk camp. I spoke to a young person from Afghanistan who was fleeing a war-torn area, and he was desperate to be with his brother—this was when the French police were dispersing people, and he was at risk of being dispersed into the hands of traffickers. We need to find ways of providing safety for such people, and of recognising that his dependent relationship was with his brother. We need to find practical ways of supporting such people.

Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Friday 11th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

That is a good point. I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will know the answer to that question and will be able to enlighten my hon. Friend when we hear from her later in the proceedings. As my hon. Friend noted in his speech, foreign national offenders are from every corner of the globe. It would indeed be an enormous task to ensure that the form sent to each foreign national offender was in a language that that individual could understand. I rather wonder whether all the forms are sent out in English. That might go some way towards accounting for why fewer than half are returned to the Home Office.

There were 1,453 failed removals in 2013-14, and although 36% of the cases in which the Home Office tried to remove a person but could not occurred for reasons that the Home Office considered to be within its control, nearly two thirds of the remaining 930 were classified as being outside its control. If the Home Office has lost control of the process, I think it fair to ask who has that control.

Another issue that arises from the removal of foreign national offenders is the compensation that is payable to those against whom legal proceedings are taken by the Home Office, and who then take proceedings against the Home Office for unlawful detention. That, I think, is another reason why it is so important for the Bill to be passed and the law clarified. The National Audit Office reported that between 2012 and 2015, £6.2 million in compensation was awarded to 229 foreign national offenders. It really is a case of adding insult to injury. On average, about £27,000—approximately the average UK salary—had to be paid out following claims alleging breaches of the processes under the Immigration Act 1971 and the UK Borders Act 2007.

Not much has been said today about prisoner transfers. On 5 November 2014, when asked about transfer agreements, the permanent secretary to the Home Office said in evidence to the Public Accounts Committee:

“Most prison transfer agreements are with the consent of the prisoner, and that is worldwide. That has mostly been because we have tried to get Brits back to serve their sentences within the UK. The big change in the EU...is to make prison transfer compulsory—without the prisoner complying.”

The permanent secretary was referring to a fundamental change from the previously exclusively voluntary approach to international prison transfers. He went on to say:

“There are specific arrangements in place with the Irish Republic. For Poland, there is a stay in implementation while they improve their prison system.”

The Committee noted that over the past few years, the number of British nationals returned to UK prisons through the prison transfer agreements to complete their sentences had been about double the number of foreign national offenders being removed. Noting that imbalance, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) observed during the oral evidence session:

“So we are actually not exporting criminals; we are importing criminals. One of our growth areas is importing foreign criminals. It takes a special genius to put in place a system under which we are net importing foreign criminals into our prison estate.”

There is clearly a real problem here. Surely we ought to be removing more foreign national offenders than we import. The problem is there are relatively few effective prison transfer agreements in place. Poland, which has the highest number of foreign national offenders on the prison estate, has been exempted until the end of this year.

The principle of exclusion or removal of foreign national offenders is at the heart of the Bill, and I think it would be helpful to be clear and simple about that process. I would have hoped that serious offenders would be prevented from entering the country in the first place, but sadly that is not always possible. There are many cases of criminals being allowed into the UK, where, not surprisingly, they commit further crimes. We must improve border checks, but once a foreign national is in the UK, if they commit a crime, the police must check their identity and check whether they have been engaged in any previous criminal activity. Clearly, the administrative process of removal should then be straightforward. If a foreign national is convicted, a caseworker should be attached and should determine as soon as possible whether there are likely to be any barriers to deportation. That could be an appeal based on human rights legislation, a lack of co-operation from the home country, or a lack of co-operation from the offender. If those problems were identified early, the relevant authorities could take action so that when the time for deportation came, it could proceed smoothly.

In his Policy Exchange speech on prison reform only last month, the Prime Minister spoke about action in this area. I agreed with him when he said:

“Of course, there is one group I do want out of prison much more quickly, instead of British taxpayers forking out for their bed and breakfast: and that is foreign national offenders.”

He announced plans to legislate to give the police new powers. In light of those comments, I hope we will hear from the Minister that the Government will support the Bill today.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it within your power to suggest to Government Members that they begin to bring their comments to a close? They have now been debating a two-clause Bill for three and a half hours—a Bill that was debated last year and then withdrawn from the Floor of the House. I think this practice risks bringing the House into disrepute. There are so many people who really want us to get on to the next business about the NHS, which is incredibly important. For these few Conservative Members to be talking for so long is simply not courteous either to the rest of the House or to the people outside the building who want to see what is going on.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear!

Immigration Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am afraid that I do not, on the basis that immigration is a reserved matter. The hon. Lady may be aware that the Migration Advisory Committee analyses differences in this regard between the countries of the UK, as well as regional differences. For example, in Scotland there is a separate shortage occupation list, so there is an ability to reflect variations across the UK in assessing evidence and policy.

New clauses 1 and 11 would widen the scope for refugee family reunion. I am aware of the calls from the Refugee Council and others for that. We recognise that families may become fragmented because of the nature of conflict and persecution, and the speed and manner in which those seeking asylum often flee their country of origin. Our policy allows the immediate family members of a person with refugee leave or humanitarian protection —for example, a spouse or partner, and children under the age of 18 who formed part of the family unit before the sponsor fled their country—to be reunited with them in the UK. The immigration rules allow for the sponsorship of other family members. By contrast, some EU countries require up to two years’ lawful residence before a refugee becomes eligible and impose time restrictions on how quickly family members must apply once their sponsor becomes eligible.

We have granted over 21,000 family reunion visas over the past five years. In our judgment, widening the criteria for inclusion would not be practical or sustainable. It might be a significant additional factor in how the UK is viewed by those choosing where among the different jurisdictions to make their asylum claim, and it would undermine our wider asylum strategy. Some have asked whether we have fully implemented the Dublin regulations. In our judgment, we have. The challenge is to get family members to make claims in EU countries to establish the links that operate under the Dublin regulations. That is often the impediment standing in the way of those who are entitled to this, but who need to start by making their claim in an EU country.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the Minister not accept that the definition of a family is drawn incredibly tightly and is very cruel, for example to those with siblings or children over the age of 18? He says that extending the criteria would not be efficient or effective, but it would actually be one of the most effective ways of granting refugee status to more people. Such people will not put great pressure on our services because they will largely be looked after by their families.

[James Brokenshire]

I recognise the manner in which the hon. Lady advances her point, but our judgment is that the policy strikes the right balance. Our family resettlement policy has rules, but equally, certain circumstances—for example, where there are older relatives, or issues relating to illness or medical need—allow for some greater flexibility within those existing rules. From our standpoint, the steps we are taking on resettlement are about an assessment of vulnerability. That is redolent of the approach we are taking in the camps, through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and how we are seeking to deal with resettlement.

Wilson Doctrine

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I start by paying tribute to the many Members who have raised the issue of the Wilson doctrine over many years. There are many of them and it would be invidious to leave any out if I were to try to name them all, but I pay tribute in particular to the indefatigability of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), the hon. Members for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and, of course, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), whom I congratulate on securing this important emergency debate. There has been a strong sense of common cause here. Contributions from all parts of the House have been very much in accord on the kind of principle we want to see in the future, the fact that we are not putting ourselves above the law, and the fact that this is about securing the confidentiality of our constituents—whistleblowers and so on—and is not about making a special case for MPs per se.

The Cabinet Office response to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruling was that MPs’ communications were not “improperly intercepted” and that

“all activity has been within the law.”

That is true, but I suggest that it misses the point, which is that the activity that MPs have been repeatedly told was not possible because of the Wilson doctrine has in fact been taking place and constitutes a grave breach of our constituents’ privacy. MPs have been misled about the level of protection afforded by the Wilson doctrine and we need legislation that provides a proper framework for future decisions.

The Home Office has responded to the IPT judgment by reiterating that under RIPA the security agencies must apply for a section 8(1) warrant if they want to target a parliamentarian. This is also true, but it also misses the point. GCHQ and MI5 routinely undertake the generic and indiscriminate trawling of everyone’s data to garner what is called metadata. The Wilson doctrine does not prevent communication between MPs and their constituents, whistleblowers, campaigners or journalists from being captured in this kind of trawl. All it does is stop MPs’ names, for example, being used at the next stage of the process when the security services search that metadata. So they could not search for my name, or indeed the name of any other MP, but that does not prevent them from looking at communications highlighted by a search on another term that could still lead them in exactly the direction they wish to go.

As we now know, while the secret services have guidelines intended to enact the spirit of the Wilson doctrine when they make decisions about accessing analysed data gathered in this way, this is not legally enforceable. The IPT judgment refers to previously unpublished guidance issued to the security and intelligence services on the doctrine. The guidance states that, when considering a warrant application to which the Wilson doctrine would apply, the relevant Secretary of State must consult the Prime Minister, via the Cabinet Secretary. The guidance states, and the IPT agreed, that the doctrine only applies to the direct interception of parliamentarians’ communications under section 8(1) of RIPA, and not indirect or incidental interception under section 8(4) of RIPA. Therefore the guidance as quoted does not provide for a procedure to be followed in the event that an MP’s details came up in relation to a targeted search on something else.

Parliamentarians’ communications are not referenced in RIPA and the IPT judgment seems to assume that this means that the Act therefore overrides the Wilson doctrine. I was not a Member of the Parliament when RIPA was passed but many colleagues here today were and perhaps they, understandably, did not seek to amend the Act to refer to their communications because they believed they were already exempted thanks to Wilson.

The judgment casts serious doubt over repeated assurances from successive Governments that MPs are not being subjected to state surveillance or interception. At best, it appears that the Prime Minister, as recently as 11 September 2015, was unaware of the exact status of the doctrine and ignorant of its application. At worst, he may have been deliberately ambiguous in order to lull MPs into a false sense of security. In this I echo the words of the Government’s own lawyer, who described previous ministerial statements on the Wilson doctrine as

“ambiguity at best whether deliberate or otherwise”.

What is unambiguous is that any change in the doctrine’s scope should have been notified to Parliament, in terms, by the Prime Minister. If the Executive have instead unilaterally rescinded the doctrine without notifying Parliament, that represents what Liberty calls

“a significant, constitutional breach of trust between the Executive and sovereign Parliament to which it must answer”.

Consistent with the absence of any reference to parliamentarians’ communications in RIPA, the interception of communications code of practice, published in 2002, approved by Parliament and in force until earlier this year, is similarly silent on the subject. But its replacement, the draft interception of communications code of practice, published in February 2015, does refer to the potential for parliamentarians’ communications to be intercepted. It has not yet been put before or approved by Parliament, but this change of tack suggests a conscious change of policy and, again, it is unacceptable that MPs have not been properly informed—and, indeed, have actually been issued with ongoing reassurances that the Wilson doctrine protects them. The one exception to this was a comment made by the Home Secretary during the debate on the data retention and investigatory powers last summer, which other Members have already referenced, in which she said:

“Obviously, the Wilson doctrine applies to parliamentarians. It does not absolutely exclude the use of these powers against parliamentarians, but it sets certain requirements for those powers to be used in relation to a parliamentarian. It is not the case that parliamentarians are excluded and nobody else in the country is, but there is a certain set of rules and protocols that have to be met if there is a requirement to use any of these powers against a parliamentarian.—[Official Report, 15 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 713.]

Again, as other Members have said, if there has been a material change, as it appears there has been, it is incumbent on the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister to proactively advise Parliament and detail the implications for our constituents and our wider work. This is not about asking for special privileges for MPs; on the contrary.

I have also been campaigning for nobody to be subjected to mass surveillance. As Amnesty International puts it helpfully: surveillance of communications in any form—from the initial interception itself to access, and further use, whether of content or metadata—is an interference with a range of human rights. Those include the rights to privacy and freedom of expression.

To avoid that interference amounting to an actual violation of rights, it must be lawful, necessary and proportionate. UK law and practice around communications surveillance currently fails not only the lawfulness test, but the necessity and proportionality requirements for non-abusive interference with basic rights. In this instance, it is about members of the public having confidence that their communications with MPs are not being spied upon, and that they can expect representation without their privacy being compromised. It is about trust and about our ability to undertake legitimate parliamentary duties without the security services monitoring us.

I would suggest, as Amnesty has done, that the logical conclusion the Government should be reaching in the wake of the IPT’s judgment is that, in order for surveillance to be both human rights compliant and in line with the Wilson doctrine, those authorising warrants—who should be independent entities—should ensure it is properly targeted at where there is a reasonable suspicion. In other words, there should be no indiscriminate bulk surveillance of anyone’s communications data.

I, too, agree that MPs should not be above the law. If there are grounds to suspect an MP or citizen of any wrongdoing, of course it should be permissible to target their communications for surveillance and interception, provided due process is followed. That is proportionate and appropriate. But it is also quantifiably different from the kind of bulk interceptions to which citizens are routinely being subjected and from which MPs were given the impression that they were exempt.

I want to thank you, Mr Speaker, for your ongoing willingness to facilitate transparency and accountability in respect of the Wilson doctrine. Last week, in the wake of the IPT judgment on the case brought by myself and Baroness Jenny Jones, I was given the green light to ask two written parliamentary questions that would not have been permissible 24 hours earlier—namely, to ask the Prime Minister what information he holds about MPs having had their communications surveilled and further, to ask him whether the Wilson doctrine has been consistently applied to my communications or whether those communications have also been surveilled. I urge other MPs to ask those same questions, as our constituents and other correspondents have a right to know whether they have been spied on. We also need answers to the following questions. Did the Government realise that the Wilson doctrine was not legally enforceable in advance of this ruling? Will the Prime Minister now come clean about how many MPs and their constituents have been surveilled?

The impending publication of the investigatory powers Bill will offer a key opportunity to ensure that the protections supposedly afforded by the Wilson doctrine are indeed properly enshrined in law. I am pleased that the Home Secretary has indicated that she will look at including a principle of that kind in the Bill, but I would be grateful if she could be even clearer when she speaks again in the debate and if she confirmed—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently say to the hon. Lady that I am sure her error is an inadvertent one? I do not think that the Home Secretary intends to speak again in the debate tonight, although the shadow Leader of the House might do so if there is time. Of course the Home Secretary is perfectly welcome to do so if there is time, but I do not think she intends to do so. However, I will leave the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) to her own devices.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful for that clarification, Mr Speaker. I will therefore simply suggest that it would be helpful if the Home Secretary were to intervene on me to clarify that she will definitely include in that Bill the kind of principle that many of us have been describing tonight. I appreciate that she is still thinking about whether this should involve independent judicial approval, as I would suggest, a triple lock or some other mechanism. We would, however, like to hear a firm indication, as a result of this debate, that this issue will be properly addressed and that the hole that has been left as a result of the Wilson doctrine not being properly enforced will be filled by a measure in the new legislation.

All the Members who have spoken in the debate have agreed that this kind of legislation should extend to the devolved legislatures and Assemblies, and to the European Parliament. We do not yet live in a surveillance state, and MPs have a right to expect that their communications, and those of the individuals they have been democratically elected to represent, should not be routinely surveilled or intercepted.

Immigration Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I can easily describe those things as achievements. They are achievements that the Labour Government, which ended in 2010, signally failed to secure. That Government did nothing, for example, about people coming to use the health service and then failing to contribute to it. We have changed the rules and more than £100 million has been injected into the national health service.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the Home Secretary not recognise that this is a nasty, punitive Bill that will inevitably risk yet more racism and discrimination and undermine the social cohesion that she says she cares about? At the very least, will she guarantee full financial compensation to anyone whose livelihood is undermined by action taken by immigration officers that later turns out to have been falsely and wrongly taken?

[Mrs May]

I will tell the hon. Lady what impacts on social cohesion. It is when our constituents see people here in this country illegally and able to continue to be in this country illegally. It is fair that we deal with those who abuse our system and who do the wrong thing. It is fair not only to people who have been born and brought up in the United Kingdom, but to those who have legitimately migrated to the UK, have played by the rules and have done the right thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

No, I am going to make some progress.

The other measure that we support in the Bill is the requirement for all front-line public service staff to speak fluent English, which of course is a sensible proposal. However, I believe that, in legislating on these matters, we all have a responsibility to bear in mind at all times that this is the most difficult and sensitive of policy areas. Unlike other issues that we debate in this House, this one has the potential to cause real harm and strife in our communities.

We will support the Government when they get the balance right, but I want to be clear about what we will not do. We will not support legislation that is introduced in haste or that is not backed up by clear evidence. That is the problem with the Bill. Parts of it appear to have been drafted on the same beer mat and in the same pub as the Home Secretary’s speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester. It is legislation driven by a desire to be seen to be doing something and to get headlines.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that international student numbers should be removed entirely from net migration figures, because otherwise we risk losing key international talent as well as undermining many local economies, such as Brighton’s, that depend on them to a great deal?

[Andy Burnham]

I think that is where the Home Secretary is beginning to cut an isolated figure, as she did last week at her party’s conference. I understand that her own Cabinet colleagues are making the same argument to her—the Chancellor of the Exchequer got dangerously close to making the same argument on his recent trip to China. The hon. Lady is right. If we are looking for an area where there is economic benefit to the country in the long term, it is absolutely that of welcoming to this country students who will then commit themselves to the country for the rest of their working lives.

The critical response to the Home Secretary’s speech last week did not come just from the usual suspects on the Labour Benches. The Daily Telegraph called it

“awful, ugly, misleading, cynical and irresponsible”,

while the Institute of Directors, no less, dismissed it as

“irresponsible rhetoric and pandering to anti-immigration sentiment”—

serious words. They were not alone. The public can spot any attempt to play politics with this issue from a million miles away, and that is why the Home Secretary got the reaction she did. She claimed in Manchester that immigration was undermining social cohesion. I put it to her that legislating in haste without clear evidence and bringing forward half-baked, divisive measures is far more likely to do precisely that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

We have heard much this afternoon about the serious flaws in the Bill. More than anything else, there is a complete lack of evidence for its proposals, and a large number of experts have highlighted their potentially damaging effects. It risks compromising community and social cohesion, putting individuals at risk in the process. I am particularly concerned about the impact of outsourcing enforcement functions to private third parties that are not subject to adequate levels of public scrutiny. Contradiction and conjecture are a recurring theme, and I very much hope the Home Secretary will explain why the proposals have been made when there is no evidence to suggest that existing measures in the Immigration Act 2014 are not working well enough or need to be extended.

Let us take as an example the extension of the “deport first, appeal later” provisions in the previous Immigration Act. They came into force only recently and as yet there has been no impact assessment to determine their effectiveness, but the Bill seeks to widen those powers. I am worried both by the potential consequences of such an approach and by what it implies about the Home Secretary’s motivation.

Anyone who heard the Home Secretary’s speech at her party’s conference earlier this month may share my concern. Despite the stated aim of clamping down on illegal migration, the Bill goes considerably further and extends the principle of “deport first, appeal later” to all immigration cases. Not only is there a complete lack of evidence that that is required, but it signals that the underlying intention of the Bill is to undermine the very principle of freedom of movement.

The Government also clearly stated that they would not go ahead with the ill-thought-out right to rent programme without conducing an evaluation of the pilot carried out in the west midlands. Yet here we are with proposals to extend that programme to the entire country and no sign of any comprehensive evaluation from the Home Office. The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) made an eloquent argument in those terms.

Moreover, the Home Secretary has failed to absorb the results of the evaluations that were carried out by independent experts. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, for example, found that the pilot forced landlords to make poor decisions and that discrimination clearly occurred against both migrants and British citizens, including making landlords less likely to rent to anyone with a “questionable” immigration status—in other words, as other hon. Members have said, anyone with a name that sounds foreign.

What we do have evidence for is the economic benefit of immigration, including in the form of a warning from the chairman of the Institute of Directors, Simon Walker, who has said that the Bill will turn away

“the world’s best and brightest”.

That is already happening in my constituency of Brighton, Pavilion, thanks to the ongoing changes to the student visa regime.

The latest changes include those to the international English language testing system for eligibility to study. An estimated third of international students who come to study at UK universities could be at risk, along with an estimated 27,000 jobs in the UK. In Brighton and Hove alone, a minimum of 1,000 jobs could be lost, although given that two major pathway providers—Into and Study Group—have head offices in the city, the number is likely to be significantly greater. There is therefore considerable concern about the extent to which international students are being blamed for rising net migration—that is why I want to repeat my call for student numbers to be removed entirely from the net migration figures—and about the fact that many students on tier 4 visas will be criminalised under the proposals if they undertake paid work. The competitiveness of international markets is increasing and we can ill afford to reduce our attractiveness to international talent, particularly as such international students sustain our research output, which supports our economy.

The argument about international students is not only an economic one; it says something about who we are as a nation and what kind of people we think we are. Are we outward-looking, confident and welcoming, or are we fearful, inward-looking people who do not want to make the most of the huge opportunities that lie out there? Once again, the Government are pushing forward with their proposals without any impact assessment, nor do they seem to have any concern for the way in which their misleading and often divisive rhetoric affects individuals.

There is plenty in the Bill to object to, and there are also big gaps in what should be in an Immigration Bill, one of which is clearly the measures needed to tackle some of the problems in our current immigration system. The most notable problem is the Home Office’s long history of poor decision making on immigration cases, as demonstrated by the high rate of successful appeals. My surgeries are full of cases that illustrate the abundant delays in processing.

The Bill not only fails to take steps to improve the situation, but in effect removes the right of redress when the Home Office makes mistakes and individuals are wrongly identified as illegal migrants. The knock-on effects may include wrongfully depriving people of their homes, bank accounts and driving licences. That would be a violation of their human rights in and of itself, but it will be further exacerbated by the changes to the right of redress.

The Bill will also have an impact on asylum seekers. Removing financial support from those who have been refused asylum risks consigning vulnerable individuals to destitution, homelessness and exploitation. Many of those individuals may well have their asylum claim upheld on appeal, but I would argue that the measures in the Bill will push them underground, reducing the likelihood that an appeal will be brought. That will create a wide set of knock-on problems, including for local authorities, which have a responsibility to protect children under the Children Acts. Even if there are strong grounds to refuse asylum, when did we become a country that is comfortable removing every kind of safety net for people who have come here and need it most?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we are looking in great detail precisely at placing vulnerable refugees in areas where there are the facilities to deal with them.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

T6. As Ministers will know, crisis funding for domestic violence refuges ends on 31 March 2016, so where should the many thousands of women and children fleeing violence now turn for lifesaving support after that date? In particular, will the Minister commit to the provision of sufficient permanent funding for women’s refuge in future?

[Karen Bradley]

In response to earlier questions, I talked about the refreshing of our violence against women and girls strategy, which includes looking at how we commission services, but it also looks at prevention. We need to make sure that women are not in the position where they need to go to refuges, so we are looking at how we make sure that the right provision is available and at how we do all we can to prevent this crime happening in the first place.