Immigration Bill (Fifth sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Anne McLaughlin]

I think the hon. Gentleman is making the decision to do what a lot of today’s media do, which is to focus on people who have an element of choice. Most people who are trafficked—well maybe not most people, but a significant number—are trafficked against their will. They are the most vulnerable people and the people we have to protect. This amendment is asking only that the new director pays attention to the rights of the most vulnerable people. We cannot say that one person has had an element of choice but another person has not, so we will not protect the second person. So no, I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

The premise of the amendment is:

“To ensure that the functions of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement are exercised for the purpose of protecting those vulnerable to labour market exploitation and to make this explicit on the face of the Bill”—

Where in the Bill is that purpose not explicit? Clause 3 refers to non-compliance and the interpretation of it. It specifically refers to the Employment Agencies Act 1973, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 and anything else prescribed by the Secretary of State.

[Anne McLaughlin]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that it is already explicitly stated, surely he will have no problem supporting this amendment.

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[Keir Starmer]

I should have said earlier that it is, of course, a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone—better late than never. If it is convenient for hon. Members, I will deal with all the amendments in one go. On the other hand, if that is not the best way forward, I hope that somebody will indicate that.

The amendments address the strategy that it is envisaged that the director will set out. Amendment 57 would ensure that the labour market enforcement strategy would include an assessment of the threats and obstacles to effective labour market enforcement, and the remedies secured by victims of labour rights infringements and labour market offences.

The Bill requires the director to make an assessment of non-compliance in the labour market, but does not require him or her to assess the threats or obstacles to effective enforcement, including, for example, powers and resources, or to examine remedies secured by victims of non-compliance in the labour market. The amendment would oblige the director to incorporate those considerations into his or her strategy—in other words, to add value to what the labour inspectorate is already doing. The director needs to look at how enforcement could be done better, as well as the extent of non-compliance.

We want to build on the victim-focused legacy of the Modern Slavery Act, so we suggest that the director should look at the remedies for victims of labour exploitation as part of his or her strategy. Let me point to some gaps in the data. Recorded data on compensation for infringements of labour market standards are limited. For example, HMRC does not keep data in a format that enables the provision of statistics on the amount of arrears paid or not paid to workers. Data on civil claims brought by victims of trafficking and damages awarded are not available.

During the financial years 2010-11 to 2012-13, no prosecutions by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority resulted in compensation orders for victims of human trafficking. Data on compensation secured through the criminal injuries compensation scheme for victims of human trafficking for non-sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery and servitude are not being recorded, so there are clear gaps. Why does not the Bill make provision for the director to assess why non-compliance is at its current level, as well as an assessment of non-compliance within the labour standards? How can the Government know whether they are making progress on meeting the needs of victims of exploitation if they are not collecting data on remedies?

[Craig Whittaker]

The hon. and learned Gentleman and I both had lives outside this place before we were elected, and I know that he had a high-profile role. Has he written a strategy for any job he has held that did not take account of threats and obstacles relating to the strategy that he was trying to write?

[Keir Starmer]

The straight answer is no; of course that would be within the strategy. The purpose of the amendment is to make it clear that that has to be part of the strategy for this director. I am sure that members of the Committee share concerns about resources. The amendment is an attempt to ensure that this step forward is as effective as possible, and that touches on strategy and resources. While my answer to the hon. Gentleman is no, I do not think that that is a good enough reason not to support the amendment.

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[Craig Whittaker]

Not just amendment 64, which I shall come to, but all these amendments were perhaps summed up best by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, who said that they are about the enforcement of employment law. Is not that amendment asking employers to specifically break employment law, which currently excludes them from employing anybody who is not legally allowed to work in this country anyway?

[Paul Blomfield]

No. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention because it allows me the opportunity to clarify that the amendment is seeking to ensure that labour market offences by employers committed against all workers be included within the scope of the director of labour market enforcement’s work. The point is that, as currently drafted—unless the Minister can provide contrary clarification—the measure suggests that undocumented workers will be excluded. Clearly, it is nonsense that a labour market enforcement director who is seeking to challenge all abuse in all parts of the labour market would have excluded from his terms of reference that part of the labour market which, by definition, is most likely to be subject to substantial abuse and exploitation. The Minister might be able to provide clarification that makes the amendment unnecessary.

Immigration Bill (Third sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we move on, I think that Craig Whittaker wants to come in on that point.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q 195 What percentage of those who apply actually go to appeal?

Colin Yeo: I do not think anybody has the statistics for that. There could be reasons why people do not appeal. Sometimes they are simply not realistically able to pursue it, because they do not have legal aid—

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 196 I understand that, but what I am trying to establish is that if it is 40% of those who apply, but the appeal process involves only 5% of all applicants, it is actually a relatively small number. I was just trying to put it into some perspective.

Colin Yeo: I do not have the statistics for that. I have never seen those statistics, either, so I cannot help the Committee. I am sorry.

[Keir Starmer]

Q 197 Let us move on to the question of appeal and the extension of the “remove first, appeal later” provisions, which is in the Immigration Bill. Will you give the Committee an indication of the practical differences between what is involved in appealing in country here and appealing once you have been removed, just in relation to the nuts and bolts of it? Some of us around the room are lawyers. Some of us have been involved in cases, but not everybody has, so will you give us a practical example of what actually happens if you are here, and what is envisaged, or what does happen, if you are removed, so that people get a sense of the difference between the two?

Manjit Gill: May I say something briefly on that? First, insofar as contact with your own lawyer is concerned, here, with or without the difficulties of funding—and there are enormous difficulties, as you have just heard—at least you can go and see your lawyer, and your lawyer can come and see you. You can get the witness statements sorted and give the instructions face to face. If you are having to give all those instructions from abroad, just imagine the practical difficulties and impediments to instructing your lawyer in the first place in order to prepare the case.

In children’s cases, how do you go about the process of getting an independent expert’s report? How is the child expert going to be able to assess the damage that will be caused by the separation—even a short-term separation—if the separation has already occurred? They are simply not going to be able to do it. Instead of having to prepare their reports from the point of view of prevention of harm to the child, they are going to have to do it from a removed location from the point of view of remedial action to remedy the harm that has already been done to the child by taking the father away and making him appeal from abroad.

Even if you manage all that and get to the appeal hearing itself, how are you going to give the oral evidence? A lot depends on how you come across to a court or tribunal. A lot depends on what happens in the courtroom. Here, we can all see each other and what is happening on people’s faces—who is a little bit upset, who is happy and so on. These things just do not come across when you have to do it through a video link.

Moreover, the tribunal does not allow a system of video links unless they have approved the actual source. They do not allow you to walk into an internet café or to use Skype. British embassies and high commissions simply do not provide the service. The Home Office does not pay for that service, nor does the tribunal; you yourself are going to have to pay to put in place a system whereby you can give oral evidence. There are a lot more things that I could say, but I am trying to keep it brief.

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[James Brokenshire]

Q 205 If I can take you back to my original question on the legal principles of the operation of the Immigration Act that you were challenging just then, the Court upheld the soundness of the principles in the context of human rights legislation.

Manjit Gill: I accepted, as did my co-counsel, Mr Richard Drabble QC, that you do not need an in-country right of appeal in every case. The Court of Appeal has noted that. There is no dispute about that, and I will tell you why it is accepted. The Strasbourg Court says that it is not imperative that in every case you need an in-country human rights appeal. You will certainly need it in article 2 and article 3 cases, which the Home Office accepts. There is no dispute about that; the issue is about article 8 cases. When the European Court uses the phrase “not imperative”, what it means is that you may well need it in a lot of cases but in some cases you may not.

That gets us back to which types of cases there are in which you can avoid giving people an in-country human rights appeal, and the question that was asked there. Supposing you have someone who is going to be a real danger to people on the streets—not just a low risk of reoffending but an Abu Qatada or someone who is going to immediately threaten to go around committing atrocities and so on. We cannot have that sort of person in the country pending appeal. I entirely accept that. Such a person should have to go abroad to appeal. It would depend on the individual case, of course, but I can see powerful arguments for saying such a person should.

We are not talking about such a person. We are talking about people such as the person Mr Yeo mentioned. To give a practical example, we mean someone who has been here since the age of six or seven, breaks up with his girlfriend, goes back to the flat and breaks the door down, frightens the girl but does not harm her, takes his belongings and goes. Quite properly, he gets locked up for a couple of years. That is a foreign criminal under the legislation. Should such a person, who may have been here for 25 years, and who may have a child from that relationship, then be forced to appeal from abroad? That is not an Abu Qatada-type character.

What is now being proposed is that the out-of-country appeal rights, which in principle can be had in a limited category of cases, should not be limited to that category but should be applied for everybody. That is contrary to a principle.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 206 Just to clarify something you said, Mr Gill: this character broke down the door, scared his girlfriend a little bit but did not harm her, and got two years for that. Is that what you are saying?

Manjit Gill: I am giving you a practical example.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 207 That does not sound practical to me. That is why I am asking the question. Which court in this country would give someone two years in prison for breaking down a door and scaring his girlfriend?

Manjit Gill: Mr Whittaker, I made up the example just now. I do not have a particular case relating to it.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 208 So it is not true?

Manjit Gill: No. I am giving you an example, which I am sure you can add in, Mr Whittaker.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 209 Well, it is a poor example in my opinion, Mr Gill, because actually that is not a relevant case. We are here to take evidence from you. Making stories up along the way is not evidence.

Manjit Gill: With respect, that is completely unfair.

[The Chair]

Order. I know that this goes right to the heart of the issue, but we have four other panel members and we have been speaking for quite a long time on this particular point. Going back to you, Mr Starmer, do you want to move on a bit?

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[Gavin Newlands]

Q 224 My second question is about enforcement. What concerns do you have about the new enforcement powers that immigration officers will be given, particularly in relation to their lack of training compared with police officers, and the lack of judicial oversight?

Colin Yeo: Very concerned. The best evidence base on this is the work of the chief inspector of borders and immigration, formerly John Vine and now David Bolt. In the reports that the chief inspector has put together, he has been very critical of the exercise of enforcement powers by immigration officers. In a couple of reports from March 2014, for example, he found that immigration officers were granted the power to enter business premises without a warrant in two thirds of cases, without justification; he also found unlawful use of power, ineffective management oversight, major variations in local practice and inadequate staff training across all grades—really serious concerns are being raised. Reports on removals and emergency travel documents are, again, very critical of Home Office management of the process and training. The idea that more powers should be given to people who are already exercising them in a very questionable way is somewhat dubious, in my view.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 225 I want to clarify a couple of things that were said a little earlier. Mr Flynn and Mr Berry, you were talking about migrants in general, and I presume you were not talking about the vast majority of migrants who come to this country in a legal position. I just want to clarify that you were talking about potentially illegal immigrants, rather than the vast majority of immigrants, who are legal.

Don Flynn: I was talking about the general effect of migrants in the labour force, which is often cited as having a role in making conditions worse for UK workers. That has been particularly accentuated by what are called illegal migrant workers—there is an added emphasis there that it is causing wages to be forced down and exploitation to flourish.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 226 So we are talking about illegal immigrants, then. I am a little bit confused about what you were talking about. I do not think that anybody questions for one minute that migrants play an incredible role in our country. Just for clarity, I wanted to make sure we knew whether you were talking about illegal immigrants—or potentially illegal immigrants.

Don Flynn: I thought I was addressing the position of people who seem to be vulnerable as far as the Bill is concerned, who will find themselves subject to additional powers of scrutiny and who are at risk of enforcement action being taken against them.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 227 So potentially illegal immigrants, then.

Don Flynn: Yes. I would make the point that any of us who have day-to-day practical experience of this—I am continually coming into contact with people whose designation as illegal immigrants has come about not because of any action on their part, but because of a third party who has been involved in their case, typically a sponsoring employer who has not complied with some aspect of their responsibility to the Home Office.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 228 The point I was trying to make is that it is still a very small part of the overall migration to this country, but that is not my real question. For my real question, I just want to take you back— I think it was you, Mr Yeo, who mentioned abuse within the system when we were talking about detention. I apologise if it was not you, but it was a while ago now. Is there any evidence that there is abuse within the detention centre? I am struggling to find any.

Colin Yeo: I do not think it was me who mentioned that.

[Craig Whittaker]

Do any of you have any evidence that there is any abuse in the detention centre?

Jerome Phelps: The most apposite evidence would be the series of finding by the UK courts of breaches of article 3 in relation to highly vulnerable mentally ill migrants in detention, who should not be detained anywhere except for under exceptional circumstances. Article 3, on inhuman and degrading treatment, is a very high threshold. Until recently there had never been a case of this, but in the past four years there have been six cases of desperately vulnerable people who have had complete psychiatric collapse in detention, to the article 3 breach level.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 229 I do not want to undermine or belittle the six cases by any stretch of the imagination, but from the thousands who have been through the system in the past four years, which is what you mentioned, it is an incredibly small part. It would therefore be very difficult to say that the system is broken. Is that right?

Jerome Phelps: I do not think any of us have suggested that everyone in detention is abused. It is a small part but we have functioning safeguards, such as the bail system. What is concerning about the Bill is that it is removing some of those safeguards.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q 230 Could I follow up on Mr Newlands’ question about enforcement powers to which Mr Yeo gave a fairly powerful response? The provisions of the Bill give immigration officers what might be described as police-like powers. Could you reflect on the different way in which immigration officers are subject to challenge, scrutiny and oversight in the exercise of their powers in contrast with the police and the exercise of theirs currently?

Adrian Berry: My role in looking at enforcement is largely concerned with policy innovation rather than practice, because a lot of these things are not litigated in court. Immigration officers’ powers have grown piecemeal over the years through a series of legislative innovations, to the point where they now look like a parallel police force in respect of migration issues. In that context, there is not the same culture of scrutiny and oversight that one sees under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and with the Independent Police Complaints Commission and various other bodies. It is a developing situation.

Our concerns—whatever one thinks of the situation of the use of police powers by the police—is that this is a piecemeal accrual of powers without, if you like, a moment where it is recognised that you are dealing with a secondary form of police force. You need to develop not just the legislative framework, but the culture of scrutiny and good behaviour within an institution if you are going to have a police force. This sort of innovation—for example, the ability to enter private homes and search without warrant—can affect all of us. It is not just a situation of powers relating to migrants. Any investigation could come to anybody’s front door. The proper control and scrutiny of those sorts of powers is vital.

Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Starmer]

Q 250 I just want to pick up a second point. Evidence has been given that the objective is that people leave, and therefore there is no burden on anyone to provide any support, but the evidence from the 2005 pilot seems to show pretty strongly that if that is the objective, this is not the way to achieve it. The likelihood is, therefore, that local authorities will be picking up the burden of supporting families, particularly those with children—children are children, in this.

You talked about a cost shift. What is the cost increase when asylum support is swapped for putting a child or family who are not going to go voluntarily—a child may not have any choice at all—on local authority support? It seems to me that under these provisions the cost will go up, because you take someone from one regime to a regime for which they have to go through two assessments, which someone has to carry out, and be put on to temporary support and further support. They could have become more destitute and so need more support. Am I right in thinking that this is not just a cost shunt—you are not simply moving cost x from the Home Office to the local authority but shifting and increasing it, so the cost to the taxpayer goes up?

Paul Greenhalgh: Potentially, yes, under how the Bill is currently drafted.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q 251 I want to drill down on the shift of the cost burden from the Home Office to local authorities. We already know that schedule 3 to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 broadly limits access to local authority social care for families anyway. Is there not a mechanism between local authorities and the Home Office that is triggered when a family present themselves and it becomes clear that they are in this country unlawfully, so that they get deported and the local authority does not have to shoulder the burden of the cost?

Henry St Clair Miller: I think you are referring to the exclusions from social services support under schedule 3 to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, whereby if a local authority is working with someone in an excluded group—a failed asylum seeker would likely fall within the excluded groups—the authority is instructed to provide support only if it is necessary for the purpose of avoiding a breach of human rights. It is that exception to the exclusion that gives rise to the human rights assessment, which can be quite time consuming for a local authority.

When you work in this area you have to be quite specific about each client group. It is true that an asylum seeker who has already put in an application has been through the courts, and the courts have decided that there would be no human rights breach in returning the family to the parents’ country of origin. The best interests of the child will have been looked at within that, and the courts will have decided that. It should then be possible for the local authority to follow the same line within the human rights assessment and opt to say that no assistance is required other than a return to the country of origin through assisted voluntary return.

It is a little bit different in our experience, because a lot of the applicants go on to put in further representations under the UK’s immigration rules. That is often on the basis of article 8 human rights and on the basis of there being children. Once the application goes in, there is a legal barrier to that family leaving, and it is impossible to enact schedule 3 to withhold support if the family is destitute.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 252 I am a little confused. Are these families not here unlawfully—has it not been deemed through the court process that they are failed asylum seekers, or whatever category they are in, and so they are staying in the country unlawfully anyway? Are you saying that local authorities traditionally ignore that process and go beyond that? Why would you continue to offer support?

Henry St Clair Miller: At present failed asylum-seeking families are not a group within our cohort. We are usually working with visa overstayers who have been in the UK for many years undetected—possibly with safeguarding concerns about the welfare of children after long periods of forced dependency for the family. In our experience, these people are usually at the beginning of the process of applying for leave once we have come into contact with them. That is quite different from people who have been in the asylum process and all appeal rights have been exhausted. At the moment, we do not see so many of those cases.

So I assume—not I assume—it is the case that if you were looking at schedule 3 and Humans Rights Act assessments, you would have regard primarily for the decisions of the court in that equation.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 253 So the cases that you are primarily dealing with do not apply to the Bill, because the Bill talks about removing support for those who have gone through the process and are deemed to be unlawful immigrants.

Henry St Clair Miller: It is both. Sorry—I will try again and then I will give up. It is both, because you are also looking at measures to tackle illegal migration in the UK such as landlord checking and the rest, which might give rise to more of those.

Paul Greenhalgh: Our concern is about families who have been given that status in terms of how the Bill is currently drafted. The onus will be on the families to leave rather than there being an enforcement to their departure. While they are still in this country, local authorities still have legal duties to them under the legislation that we have previously cited.

Councillor Simmonds: It is probably worth giving you some figures. When we look at the numbers for local authority responsibilities in providing support to irregular migrants, around 80% of those who are supported are those under the section 17 Children Act responsibilities. The remaining group tend to be with care needs under the Mental Health Act and the Care Act, so the vast majority will be entitled to support through their status as families with children, and there will always be further legal avenues by which they can regain that entitlement should one avenue be closed off.

[Sarah Champion]

Q 254 I have just a small question. Currently, when someone has failed their last appeal, what is the average time before they actually get deported? I just want an idea of the timescale in which they would be destitute.

Henry St Clair Miller: I have not learnt of that particular statistic, so I do not have an answer.

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[The Chair]

Can I butt in? I am really sorry, but we have got about five Members who want to get in, with less time than we expected. If you have not got a remit to talk about it, perhaps we should move on. I guess that no one else on the panel is going to answer that question, are they? No.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 310 I want to challenge Ms Grant, but first I will declare an interest, as I did on Tuesday. You have said that it is not right that landlords have to deal with the complexities of people’s immigration status. In fact, we had Mr Smith on Tuesday from the Residential Landlords Association, who said that the sector was made up of amateurs and accidental landlords. Let me just ask you what is so complex about taking an ID, which the majority take anyway. Do you not think it might enhance the situation for landlords along the way?

Saira Grant: I did not say that it was not right; I said that it was difficult. I will explain, because that is the second part of your question. Taking an ID is not difficult. If you have a passport, it is very easy. You can show your passport, and we do show passports in many situations, including when getting tenancy agreements. The complexities arise when somebody’s immigration status is not clear cut and they do not have a British passport. I was pointing to the evidence that backs that. In the Home Office’s own evaluation, the landlords’ checking service was contacted 109 times, because landlords said, “We do not understand what we are seeing. We do not understand this document, this biometric card or this historic stamp in this passport.” Out of those 109 inquiries, 94 people had the right to remain. That demonstrates that it is not me—

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 311 May I just point out to you that that is no different from anyone else in this country who wants to rent any property? I had the same situation myself only three weeks ago. First, living in Yorkshire, I had to be in London on a particular day, otherwise the property went. Secondly, I had to have all the relevant checks in place. If I did not, the property was given to somebody else. How is that discriminating against somebody, when that situation is already in place?

Saira Grant: That is exactly the point. If you do not have your documents to hand—say you are one of the 17% of British citizens who does not own a British passport, so you cannot show that—what happens is that there will be somebody else ahead of you in that queue, but that is not the discrimination I am talking about. I am talking about the difficulty landlords are having in assessing immigration status, as the evaluation demonstrates. It is not me saying that; it is what the evaluation demonstrates. The discrimination I am talking about and which we found was when landlords said to us—almost a third of landlords who responded to our survey said this—“This is really worrying for us, £3,000 is a hefty civil penalty. We do not really want to rent to anybody who sounds foreign, looks foreign or has a foreign accent. It is just not worth our while.” That is leading to discrimination. That is the problem. The scheme is set up in such a way that you do not need to be a racist landlord; you just need to be a cautious one to say, “If I have a choice, who am I going to rent to? Somebody I am not sure about or somebody who has a British passport.”

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 312 Trust me, as a landlord, you have to be cautious anyway.

Saira Grant: I am sure you do.

[Mims Davies]

Q 313 I just wanted to pick up the line about entitlement, which is running through the conversation this afternoon—people feeling that they will get to a point at which they are entitled to be here. This question is for Ms Grant: does your organisation explain to people that there may be a point at which they feel they are entitled to be here, but they will not be? Do you go through the process of what could happen to them? We heard from the Red Cross earlier that it does that, but some organisations do not and it is adding complexity to complex cases.

Saira Grant: Absolutely. We run an irregular migrants helpline to give legal advice. The best advice we can often give is to say to somebody, “You have to leave the UK.” We spell out their entitlements, their rights and what the process is, and then we refer them to the voluntary returns scheme, to the Red Cross or to whichever organisation is appropriate. Absolutely, it is in nobody’s interest to have people who should not be here remaining here, and it is not in their interest either. The destitution we see is heartbreaking, but if they have come to the end of the legal process, we have to give them fair advice. We are a legal organisation.

Immigration Bill (First sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q 10 Mr Kaye, are you saying that appeal rights-exhausted families who could and should leave the UK should be entitled to automatic and indefinite support, either from local authorities or the Home Office, if they do not leave?

Mike Kaye: I am saying that if you are really concerned about immigration control, if you want these families to leave, cutting off support from them not only risks the children coming to harm but impairs your ability to enforce removals or encourage voluntary return.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 11 My question, though, was whether you are advocating that we provide indefinite ongoing support for people if they refuse to leave?

Mike Kaye: I think that for families with children, that is the way to have effective immigration control.

[The Chair]

Could I just jump in? I wonder whether Mr Wilkes and Judith Dennis would like to speak on this particular point as well, so that we hear from all three witnesses.

John Wilkes: I think that we still have to support families and those whose appeal rights are refused while engaging with them about the options for return. Taking away support does nothing to facilitate that; all it does is force them to think about what support they can get or force them to disappear from the system. There are no other families in the UK who do not have some form of entitlement to support, so I do not see why these families, who we are trying to work with on their decision—and ultimately, for people who are in that category, on their removal—should not have support. There is no evidence, from any of the other initiatives the Home Office has tried, that taking away support, particularly for families, is going to achieve the policy goal of removal. That is what the policy goal is: we need to look at other ways of achieving it.

Judith Dennis: I absolutely agree. It is frightening to think of the alternative. We are actually talking about making families destitute, so that they have no means of support. What are they going to do? I do not think that that is going to encourage them to go along to the Home Office and say, “May I sign up for voluntary return, please?” The family returns process is a better process for families, because it takes into account their complex situations and the fact that they have very difficult decisions to make, and that those decisions may take some time to come to. If you are a family who fears that their daughter is going to be subject to female genital mutilation on return, but you have not been able to prove that, you are still going to have that fear. Your fear is then, “Which is better? I’m between a rock and a hard place; I don’t know whether to stay here and take my chances. I may get exploited, I may have to live on the streets, I may have to take support from strangers and sleep in their houses and put myself in dangerous situations. Or do I take my family back to what I think is a dangerous situation”. The family returns process encourages engagement on an ongoing basis. It is a process with four stages; it is very well set out in policy. Family engagement managers are employed specifically to talk to families about those very difficult decisions that they have to make. So I do not think it is reasonable to portray these people as just sitting about, avoiding immigration control and refusing steadfastly to go back to where they came from. It is much more complex than that.

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[Craig Whittaker]

Q 12 Down to brass tacks, then. I think what all three of you are saying is that those families who have exhausted the appeals process, should not be in the UK and should be returning home should get indefinite, automatic support ongoing. Is that what you are all saying?

John Wilkes: People should be supported while we are engaging with them about their choices. There is already a high level of destitution.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 13 How far does that go, though? That is the question I am trying to get at, because at the end of the day these people are in our country illegally. How far do we expect the taxpayer to continue paying, whether it is for housing or whatever, for people who should not be in our country?

Mike Kaye: When you say indefinitely, what we are talking about is resolving that case. That is the crux of what we are trying to do—to resolve the case, by those people either returning to the country of origin or getting status in this country. When we say that you are better off supporting them, we are thinking about the taxpayer. This is not saving money, it is simply diverting the cost to the local authority and building up costs down the line. The longer someone stays in the country without your engaging with them—if you make them destitute and they then disappear—the more difficult it is to remove them later on down the line. That is one of my concerns with the measure. It is not effective for immigration control, it is certainly not effective for child protection, and you are not resolving the case; you are simply abdicating responsibility. The Government should not be doing that.

[The Chair]

Before we move on, let me say that seven Members want to ask questions so perhaps the witnesses could try to keep their answers a little bit shorter.

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[James Brokenshire]

Q 31 Perhaps I could open things up for the Committee by asking an open question. Sir David, what are your thoughts on the establishment of a labour market enforcement directive, the need for greater co-ordination on enforcement, and the impact that might have on the employment market overall?

Professor Metcalf: By the way, the Minister and I are appearing this afternoon as well, so we are seeing a lot of each other today.

In a nutshell, I think the proposals are terrific but let me elaborate. My background includes, as part of the Low Pay Commission, 10 years setting the minimum wage, so I know something about the minimum wage, compliance and enforcement issues.

On the Migration Advisory Committee, particularly when we have looked at less skilled immigration, on which we published a major report in 2014, we do not stay in London; we go on visits. We have seen a lot of exploitation, in some cases bordering on slavery. That in a sense confirms the view that I had when I worked on the minimum wage that we do not have sufficient resources to do the compliance and enforcement as effectively as one would wish. For example, when we went to Wisbech in connection with the low skills report, we came across some excellent examples of joined-up government, with different agencies working together. That got us thinking that we have these very good bodies but are they working sufficiently harmoniously? In our report, we said in no uncertain terms that there were insufficient resources devoted to enforcement and that the fines and probability of prosecution were basically trivial—I do not think we used that word, but I will use it now.

In a sense, many of the employers where the gangmasters operate have no real incentives to abide by minimum standards or the minimum wage. We have a flexible labour market—I think this is a good thing because it helps our productivity and with jobs and so on, although that is a matter of debate—but we are not enforcing the minimum standards.

I think the three main proposals in the BIS-Home Office document will go a long way towards assuaging the concerns that we set out. I know that some of my other academic friends who have thought about this—possibly more than me—share that view. Just as an aside, the consultation document on labour market enforcement is excellent and I am sure that the Committee will recognise the co-operation between the Home Office and BIS. Sometimes there is tension between the Departments, but on this occasion they have produced an absolutely marvellous document.

First, you have a director of enforcement and he or she will, in a sense, set out strategy, report and be the pivotal person in an intelligence hub. They will mainly be dealing with the minimum wage with HMRC, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and the employment agency standards inspectorate. They are the three bodies that he or she will have to engage with initially and set the strategy out for and think carefully about resource allocation.

The second proposal is a new offence of aggravated enforcement, which is in a sense between the rather minor infractions—I do not want to call them less serious—of the minimum wage rules and those that are very serious, almost slavery. Right now, we have not got anything that sits in the middle and the proposal is essentially to have one that sits in the middle. In the extreme, that might attract a two-year custodial sentence, so it is pretty serious.

The third proposal is that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority can spread out—not so much in its licensing role, but it does have considerable expertise in horticulture and agriculture and the proposal is that it could check in particular on aggravated enforcement in other sectors, such as construction, hospitality and so on. When I was an academic in this area, I wrote that there was a lack of enforcement. I have been involved with both the minimum wage and immigration in particular on the low-skilled end, and I think the proposals are really excellent.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 32 For laymen like me, are you saying that the new role of the director of labour market enforcement is a good idea?

Professor Metcalf: A very good idea indeed, yes.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 33 Okay. Do you think the director will provide the focus necessary to bridge the gap you say exists between the current labour market offences? You also mentioned lack of resources throughout your answer. Do you think that the Bill will bridge that gap, too?

Professor Metcalf: That is a tricky one. Successive Governments have indeed put in a bit more resources—for example, for HMRC to enforce the minimum wage—although quite whether they are sufficient is an open question. It depends on how the director works, but on the idea of them thinking through the resources required for the three different bodies, and perhaps in future health and safety, for example, and possibly bringing local authorities in as well—strategy is an overused word, but in this case it really is a strategic role. Thinking through quite what the strategy should be will go a long way towards, in your words, filling the gap with the resources. Frankly, the inspections are very resource-intensive, and I suspect we just do not have the public finances for sufficient enforcement.

As an aside, that also takes you into a point that I made in my one paragraph to you: we need to think about punishments as well.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 34 In your 2014 report, “Migrants in low-skilled work”, which we have quoted several times, you talk about countries that use the International Labour Organisation labour inspection convention 81 of 1947, which seemed to be particularly effective. Will this new director bring us much closer to that working model?

Professor Metcalf: If I may say so, that is a really good question, because in some senses, what we were feeling our way towards in the “low-skilled” report was the notion of having an overall labour market inspectorate, which that ILO convention is about. What happened was the Prime Minister took up the issue of enforcement in the speech immediately after the election and set up an immigration taskforce, but on the immigration taskforce, you have different Departments who have different interests—the Treasury, with HMRC, and now the Home Office, with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and so on. I think it is quite understandable that the immigration taskforce—the ministerial taskforce—and probably, the Cabinet Office and so on, did not want to disrupt the machinery of Government completely and start with a blank sheet of paper and set up a new labour market inspectorate. They wanted people to get on with the job but have much more joined-up thinking and overall strategy.

We are where we are, and it may well have been that we would almost have had no labour market enforcement for the two years while we were trying to set the inspectorate up. It would be very difficult. Some of the people are not civil servants and some are, and they are located all over the place. Sticking with what we have got and trying to approach it in probably an incremental way is actually very sensible.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Q 35 Mr Bone, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I have a couple of questions. I am a big fan of the anti-slavery commissioner. I think that in six months, he has had a big impact, precisely because he is independent and has a remit that goes across different Departments and organisations. You said that it was key that the post of director is able to work harmoniously with other Departments, but you mentioned the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities, and a lack of clarity about what the relationship would be. Do you think that ought to be fleshed out on the face of the Bill for this post to have the maximum impact?

Professor Metcalf: No, I do not think so at this stage. Doing it incrementally is really a rather good idea. The main enforcement people currently are the three in the Bill—the employment agencies, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and HMRC, with the minimum wage. In a sense, the new director, whoever he or she is, will have a major task to get those agencies to work in a bit more of a joined-up way. There may well be a case in the future for trying to bring in, under the same strategic role, health and safety, local authorities and on occasions, possibly the Department for Work and Pensions as well, which deal with national insurance, for example. For me, it is a major task to do what is being done, and I do not think that at this stage, it is necessary to do that, but it is possible that we might even think, three or four years down the line, when we have seen how it works, “This is three quarters of the way to a fully-fledged labour market inspectorate. Perhaps we could transform it into a labour market inspectorate and bring the other bodies in as well.” But I think this is very good—it is not a halfway house; it is a three-quarter-way house.

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[Keir Starmer]

Q 54 Can I go to the flipside of enforcement and look at protection? The role of the director of labour market enforcement has been widely welcomed, and rightly so. Most discussion so far has been about enforcement. Do the witnesses have views on the protective role of the director and whether the remit is wide enough?

Kevin Green: We certainly welcome the role. We think it will add value in terms of the whole data gathering co-ordination across Government. In terms of its role in protecting vulnerable adults, that is dependent on the resource and the way that it actually functions in reality. For us, extending the remit of the GLA in terms of it being able to investigate exploitation is important. That is welcome. I know that that is part of the consultation. Again, going to the last point, you have to be very careful about any kind of regulation for the victims of these offences, because a lot of the stuff that we see is criminal activity. A lot of legitimate businesses and recruitment agencies are infiltrated. Often, it is dependent on an individual worker being quite brave—being a whistleblower and flagging this up so that authority can be brought in. We need to be very careful that we do not demonise the people who are in vulnerable positions.

We welcome the development. We think it will move things forward. The level of protection is much more about the level of resource available across the breadth of activity that it will cover.

Caroline Robinson: I share that view about protection being linked to resources. We advocated strongly during the Modern Slavery Bill’s progress through Parliament for expanded remit and resources for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and for an overarching labour market focus on inspection and enforcement. We welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement on 21 May, and the measures in the Immigration Bill go some way to address that.

The point about the protective purpose of the director is very important. For us, the core purpose of that role should be the protection of vulnerable workers and the prevention of exploitation. That has been at the centre of the work of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and has been part of its success. That authority, as we know, operates on a limited budget, so the resources are also of critical importance. On the role of the director of labour market enforcement and the labour market enforcement strategy, what most concerns us is the power of the director to hold control of the budgets, governance of those labour inspectorates and shifting budgets according to the strategy.

We know that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is extremely stretched in its current remit and has done a great deal to ensure a level playing field in those core sectors in which it operates. If it is to be shifted into other sectors, we believe that the good work it has done in the existing sectors is under grave threat. This overarching role is a good thing, but it requires extra resources if any changes are to be made, and it definitely needs to have, as the core purpose of that role, the protection of workers and the prevention of exploitation.

John Miley: The ability of the agency to get involved in enforcement workers’ licensing is welcome. It will cut corners—that is not the right phrase. It will remove barriers for them in respect of enforcement. Currently they have to await police action for the licensing authority to attend. To be able to be a responsible authority—to be a responsible body under the Licensing Act 2003—will certainly improve that status for them.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 55 Caroline, I want to come back to you and the answer you gave to my colleague earlier. You said that you were not sure that illegal immigrants are aware of the rules and regulations around countries. Most people in the UK know that when you go abroad there is a huge perception in the wide world that Britain is a light touch.

I grew up in Australia and the children of a lot of my friends I grew up with have come to the UK and know full well that they can overstay their visas without too much hassle. We have 100,000 students who overstay their visa requirements. There are also the heritage cases we know about, and the traditional open-door policy. How can you say that you are not sure whether somebody coming to this country with the intention of being an illegal immigrant is not aware of the rules and regulations?

Caroline Robinson: I was talking about specific rules and regulations and whether the distinction between six months and 51 weeks would be transferred to someone in a village in Nigeria, for example. I am not sure that I agree about the light touch. Your case about Australia is interesting. I once arrived in India without a visa and the Indian officials allowed me to leave my passport at the airport and spend my time in India, and then to return and leave.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 56 We are not talking about India, we are talking about the United Kingdom and what has traditionally happened in this country. The general perception, throughout the world, not just Australia, is that we have traditionally been a light touch. That is among people who come and go just for holiday visas, for example. If you intend to come here as an illegal immigrant, surely you will have the knowledge that you can get away with far more than people who do not intend to do that in the first place.

Caroline Robinson: What I was suggesting was that it is quite a different situation for people from different countries. If you are on a holiday visa and are Australian and overstay, potentially that is a little bit different from arriving here from a country such as Nigeria and overstaying. The situation and the response might be different. That is part of what I was suggesting.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 57 You do not think that the UK has been a light touch, then.

Caroline Robinson: We have had a raft of immigration legislation over many years, with controls and responses. I am not sure whether that means that people think the more immigration legislation that we have, the more of a light touch people perceive us to be. Then perhaps there is a problem with the legislation, I do not know.

[Sarah Champion]

Q 58 Leading on from Mr Whittaker’s question, do any of the panel believe that clause 8, the offence of illegal working, will have any impact on people illegally coming to this country?

John Miley: I am not sure. In terms of licensing, I am not sure there would be any particular effect at all, I have to say. I am not sure that there is a major problem in licensed premises; maybe more so in late-night takeaways and off-licences. I do not perceive that to affect it at all.

Immigration Bill (Second sitting)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion]

Q 83 Finally, do you believe that the director has the remit and the resources to prevent this from being a box-ticking exercise? Would they have the authority to make the necessary changes?

Neil Carberry: That remains to be seen. The director clearly has to develop an enforcement plan, which has to be approved by the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. I would hope that that enforcement plan was well grounded in the effective work that some of the agencies are currently doing and would therefore be resourceable from within that. I had discussions last week with the HMRC team who are looking at non-compliance with the minimum wage; they feel that they currently have the resources to continue the good work they are doing.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q 84 I want to turn back to the evidence given to us this morning by Professor Sir David Metcalf. When he was discussing the CBI, he said that the regulation of the labour market proposed in the Bill would take away the cowboys and help your sector. He went on to say that it would go a long way towards raising the welfare of British residents. Do you think he has applied a risk-based, intelligent approach to his assessment?

Neil Carberry: I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating when it comes to the director. On the existence of a labour market director to do this work, his assessment could well be the case. What worries us is less what is in the Bill as introduced than some of the discussion in the Government’s consultation paper last week, which seems to suggest a broadening of a licensing approach. I think that would ultimately be a doubling up regulation on the compliant and would draw away from kicking down the doors of the non-compliant. From our perspective, there is every chance that the labour market director’s role could be very beneficial to lawful companies and workers.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 85 On the face of the Bill then, it is a good thing.

Neil Carberry: Yes, I think so. We have never been against effective enforcement.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q 86 You talked about parts of the labour market where abuse happens. I am conscious that many of your members might have had their reputations tarnished by unwitting involvement through supply chains. Can you share your thoughts about the Bill in the context of the most effective way of helping your members to achieve supply chain compliance?

Neil Carberry: Any answer to that question will have to take account of some of the responsibilities that companies will take on under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. I actually had a long discussion last night with some of our members about the challenges of doing that effectively—many of them are currently wrestling with that. Of course, there is a limit to what companies at one end of a supply chain can do and assure themselves of, but there is a duty to do some work, as the Act makes clear.

The most important thing is to ensure that, where companies at the top end of a supply chain suspect that something illegal is happening, they are clear about the route to take to obtain assistance from regulators and enforcers, and also that there are simple routes for enforcers to take towards targeted action. We would see that as one part of the role of the director as set out in the Bill. For instance, we would expect them to look to establish ways in which a major retailor could raise concerns effectively and then feed into an intelligence-led action.

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[Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)]

Q 104 Lord Green, in response to an earlier question, you talked about an effective removal system. Could you expand on that and tell us what you think would be an effective removal system?

Lord Green of Deddington: First, it has to be quick. It has to be fair and it has to not be under the impediment of extremely complex procedures and legislation. I think the proposal in the Bill is right in addressing that. There are other issues, of course. They probably need more resources to do it. They probably need a bigger detention estate. With all those put together, one can work on improving the removals, but, as I say, you cannot remove 1 million people. You have to make sure they want to go themselves.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 105 Lord Green, you have already said there should be a duty on employers. I presume you put into the same category people such as landlords, whom the Bill specifically addresses. How can we better prevent illegal working without imposing additional burdens on business generally?

Lord Green of Deddington: I do not think you can, to be frank. There has to be a duty on employers and they have to fulfil it. They have to recognise that this is a serious matter of great public concern. It is a field in which some unscrupulous employers are making a packet at the expense of honest employers. They have to fulfil it.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q 106 I wonder whether I could follow up on your answer to the Minister, Lord Green. You were saying that the criminalisation of workers would be helpful in achieving labour market compliance.

Lord Green of Deddington: Sorry, I am not saying workers should be criminalised; I am saying that illegal work should be a criminal offence.

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[Anne McLaughlin]

Q 124 I want to talk about potential discrimination under the right to rent aspects of the Bill. Not everyone is as enlightened as Mr Lambert, and so not everyone believes that you cannot tell by a face, a name or an accent whether someone is British. I was very struck by a statement sent out by the Residential Landlords Association, which I am going to read from:

“Whilst the Residential Landlords Association condemns all acts of racism the threat of sanctions will inevitably lead many landlords to err on the side of caution and not rent to anyone whose nationality cannot be easily proved.”

How concerned are you that the Bill will allow some people to use it as an excuse for their racism and that others will inadvertently end up acting in a racist manner, not because they want to but out of fear that they may end up breaking the law if they do not?

Richard Lambert: How concerned am I that some will use it? Very. How concerned am I that some will use it inadvertently? Fairly, but our experience is that most of the concern about the provisions is from people who have not gone into the detail, are worried about what they might have to take on, are concerned that they do not have the expertise or knowledge and are very focused on the penalties, because what has been pushed hardest is not the responsibility or the practicality but the level of penalty for getting it wrong.

Having had a quick look, like my colleague, at the evaluation report that was published this morning—we had a chance to look at it before we came in here—something like 22 of the 26 landlords who responded said that it was actually relatively easy to undertake the checks and that there did not seem to be an obvious level of overt discrimination, although there is still an undertone, and in a few cases that does happen.

It is a real risk, but when I said what I did about awareness of the fact that we live in a multicultural, multiracial, multifaceted society, that was not me speaking—obviously, I believe that—but me recounting what has been said to me by landlords at local meetings around the country. They are very concerned about the practicalities of how you make this work, and they realise that you cannot make assumptions, from looking at somebody, about whether they have the right to rent or whether they are a British national. The only way is to check and to check everyone. I recall anecdotally from my colleagues on the Home Office working group on the evaluation report that the largest level of resentment coming back from tenants was from the indigenous white British population, who did not understand why they were being asked to prove the right to rent. You actually get a counter-intuitive response.

David Smith: People who will discriminate would discriminate anyway, so in a sense people who are going to actively discriminate as a result of the Bill would have been actively discriminating before. Our biggest concern is what we have chosen to call document discrimination. Of the UK indigenous populace—or however you want to describe those people—17% do not have passports. If a landlord has two people walk through his door who want to rent the same property, and one says, “I have a passport and can do the right to rent check right now,” and the other says, “I do not have a passport but will come back tomorrow with two forms of identification off the secondary list,” the landlord is technically not breaking the law by taking the first person, and in practice I am sure that he will take that first person.

Our concern is that there are groups of people who are not in possession of passports and driving licences. As a lawyer, I have many such people as clients, because I have a large client base of elderly people or people who are in care. There are substantial numbers of those people, and a lot of them are renting, increasingly in the private rental sector, as there is a change from social renting to private renting. There is a potential difficulty with providing those people with proper identification.

We have called for a much simpler document for people who are on benefits and would already have been checked to receive benefits. Local authorities could provide a single document—perhaps watermarked or stamped—that landlords could be clearly told was acceptable as a single document. At the moment those people are going to need to produce two separate documents. They may not have them to hand, or it may take time to acquire them. The benefits letter has to be signed by a named official, and named officials may be reluctant to put their names on these documents. Our concern is that groups of people who should have no reason to be concerned by this legislation at all may find themselves being put through checks that they cannot easily meet.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 125 I declare an interest as per my declared interest in the Members’ register. For the record, I am probably what Mr Smith calls one of those in his sector who are amateurs and accidental landlords. One thing I know from experience, although I may be an amateur, is that the eviction process is incredibly burdensome for landlords. It is far too lengthy and hugely costly, and when you are going through the process, you do not get any rent from the tenant who is in your property. That is the current situation, whether they are an illegal immigrant or not. I cannot for the life of me understand, and neither can the members of Calderdale Landlords Association, whom I have spoken to, why on earth as an organisation you would be against something that is far better and makes it far quicker for a landlord to evict a tenant in these circumstances.

David Smith: In what sense?

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 126 You said very clearly that you had some real concerns around the eviction process that was being proposed. You mentioned the 28 days, for example. That is a much quicker process than what is currently in place.

David Smith: I said that my concern was that as soon as the Secretary of State had issued a notice to a landlord, they are committing an offence, and it takes 28 days before they can even begin the eviction process. During those 28 days they are committing the offence of having an illegal immigrant in their property.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 127 But they are already committing an offence as the law currently stands, and the process of evicting a tenant takes much longer. What I would like to know is why on earth you are advising landlords that this element of the Bill is not particularly—

David Smith: I think there is a misunderstanding here. They are not committing an offence as the law is currently drafted, because it has not changed yet. If it were to be changed, what we are after is a situation where, provided that the landlord is proceeding diligently to carry out the eviction, they are deemed not to be committing the offence of having an illegal immigrant in their property—so they have what the Act has termed a statutory excuse. As the situation stands, as soon as the Secretary of State issues the landlord with a notification that the tenant in their property is an illegal immigrant, the landlord is instantly deemed to be committing an offence of having an illegal immigrant in their property, and they can be prosecuted for that.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 128 So the new eviction process in the Bill is a good thing. Is that what you are saying?

David Smith: Yes. I have no concern about that at all.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 129 Okay. Can I just ask you about document checks, which have been mentioned? I just wonder whether you guys actually understand what is going on in your sector. If you try to get accommodation from an agency, for example, as I recently did here in London, first, you have got to be there on the day to secure something, and if you cannot get down to London to physically go and see it, you will lose it. Secondly, if you do not have the checks, whether you are an illegal or a legal resident in this country, it is a very difficult process anyway, because that is what people demand. Have you considered for one minute that for the amateurs and accidental landlords that you refer to, the introduction of some form of check, as is happening in the Bill, will protect them in other ways as well as just against potential illegal immigrants?

David Smith: Well, I suppose there are two answers to that. First, the current guidance would imply that using checks in other ways might well be unlawful discrimination, because the document checks are for establishing the right to rent, so that would depend on the guidance that is issued.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 130 But we have that in place anyway. If I do not have those documents to prove to an agency that I am who I am when I want to rent a property, whoever I am, guess what? I do not get the property.

Richard Lambert: To be fair, I think that that is custom and practice through tenant checking rather than a strict legal requirement. The other difficulty is that in some elements of the private rented market, lower-income people, people on benefits, vulnerable people and people who are very transient simply do not have that kind of documentation to hand.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 131 Okay. Let me just ask one final question, because I think I have made my point on that one. My question is to you, Mr Lambert, because you mentioned an undercurrent of discrimination in the system. May I point out that no evidence at all from the pilot—which, okay, was only published this morning—suggests that there is a discrimination there? You said that you have heard hearsay from people you have spoken to, but may I ask whether you have any physical evidence to suggest that there might be some form of discrimination in the system?

Richard Lambert: If you read the full report, I think it mentions one or two examples in the focus group that refer to what could be interpreted as minor levels of discrimination.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 132 So there is no real evidence—

Richard Lambert: That is what I am saying: there is no strong evidence of discrimination, although there is the potential there, and some minor level of concern may emerge in the focus group.

[Chloe Smith]

Q 133 Will the panel give us their assessment of what numbers might be involved in the area of policy that we are talking about? Do you have any assessment in particular of how many prospective tenants might present themselves to your members, or how many bank accounts in the case of Mr Leenders?

Richard Lambert: We can talk about how many households are in the private rented sector—there are about 4.4 million at the moment—and I think there is a turnover rate of about 25% to 30% a year, so we are looking at just over 1 million to 1.25 million new tenancies a year.

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[Rebecca Harris]

Thank you.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 160 Mr Gabriel, you mentioned the grey economy of landlords and spoke about more collaborative working. I think you touched on the issuing of notices of compliance and things such as that. Do you feel that you already have sufficient powers to deal with the grey economy? Would you say that the powers in the Bill around the checks that landlords have to do will actually overall enhance your job regarding that particular economy?

Stephen Gabriel: There is more that we can do around trying to understand where the grey economy is, but I think that the Bill and the work that we have been doing go some way to beginning to address that—in particular, the collaborative working between organisations. That is the point to be made here. Previously, it was very difficult for local authority enforcement teams to work with the Home Office and the GLA, but now there is a real impetus for us to work together to deal with some of these enforcement issues, and we are seeing that on the ground.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 161 So the new powers in the Bill, around the landlord checks, for example—will they enhance that role as well?

Stephen Gabriel: That is right, yes.

[Gavin Newlands]

Q 162 Mr Gabriel, the Bill removes support for a majority of failed asylum seekers. Do you have concerns that through this aspect of the Bill, the Government are in effect devolving to local government responsibility for the support of refused asylum-seeking families through its responsibility to accommodate children? At this time of great restraint in local government funding, do you feel that this is an area that might be looked at again?

Stephen Gabriel: It is a challenge. One of my concerns in Sandwell is that we are part of the West Midlands strategic migration partnership and there is the need for local authorities to have parity in numbers in the families whom they are supporting. Yes, in Sandwell our percentage is higher than in some of the other local authorities in the area, so if the Home Office stops supporting those families, that will potentially have a negative impact on the local authority. That could be a challenge for the local authority.

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[Anne McLaughlin]

Q 179 I presume that you will continue to campaign and lobby against parts of the Bill. From what you are saying, one of the biggest things for all of you is the inclusion of children in the groups that will not receive support if their or their parents’ asylum claim has been refused. I do not know whether you were watching earlier, but I wanted to alert you to the fact that you have a supporter in Lord Green of Migration Watch UK. I think he is quite a valuable supporter to have, given that he did not seem overly keen on having too many asylum seekers in the country. He seemed quite surprised that children might lose support. He said we have to make a distinction between those who have children and those who do not, and that they would have to be treated differently. If I were you, I would contact him and get him to support any campaigning that you are doing.

I wanted to ask whether you agree with me that rendering families destitute will shift the financial burden not simply on to local authorities and charities, but on to the health service. I am not sure what the situation is in England these days, but I know that in Scotland, those who have had their asylum claims refused can access free healthcare. I do not know whether it is the same here, and I do not know what Wales and Northern Ireland are like. Do you agree that the health of these families will be so significantly impacted that there will be an increased cost for those services that provide healthcare?

Adrian Matthews: And not only to the families. There is a public health issue if you deprive the children of the right or the means to go to hospital or to visit their GP, or if their parents are too scared to do so. That public health issue affects all of us, not just the families.

Ilona Pinter: I agree. This was the subject of the previous Immigration Bill, where issues around health were debated at length. Like immigration control, public health is a public interest, as are child protection and international protection. There needs to be a review of those and more debate, particularly around other public interests.

Costs shift to health services. We already see in families who are awaiting their asylum decisions, particularly where parents have poor mental health because they have suffered trauma already and because of the pressures that the immigration process brings to bear on them, parents being sectioned under mental health provisions and children being taken into temporary foster placements as a result. One of the ways in which costs could shift to local authorities is through children being taken into care. If families are made destitute and parents have to rely on working without permission, provisions in the Bill will mean that the parents will be criminalised, which will again mean that children need to go into care. There are other considerations to take into account.

Adrian Matthews: I understand you are going to be hearing from local authorities and they will evidence the fact that during the section 10 pilots in 2004-05, a number of children were, in fact, taken into care as a result of what the Government were attempting then, which was to withdraw support and accommodation, so it does not work.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 180 I want to come back to the Minister’s earlier point. The point about assessment is that the children’s best interests forms a part and is an integral part of that process. I think it was Kamena—I apologise if it was not—who said children should not be blamed for the actions of the parents. However, they are in this situation because of the parents. For those families who have exhausted their appeals rights, those who could and should leave the UK, how long do you feel we should give support? Do you think it should be indefinite?

Adrian Matthews: It has to be case sensitive and based on the best interests of the child. Take, for example, a child born in this country. If you are going to send them back to another country, they will need to be returned with certain things that can prove their identity—establish or re-establish their identity—so they will need an original birth certificate and their medical records; they will need documentation from the embassy to show that they have legitimately travelled from the UK to the country of return. All these things are case sensitive. A lot of different factors would need to be taken into account. So I do not think there is an answer to your question in terms of a set time or limit. It has be done on a case-by-case basis.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 181 Sorry to cut you short, but the Minister has already made it clear that it will be done on a case-by-case basis. My question to you is: when families that include children get to the point where they should leave the UK, how long do we continue to support them? Indefinitely? Until they decide to go? I am a little confused by what you say.

Adrian Matthews: In the system currently in operation, families are given a lot of opportunities. They are encouraged to take up voluntary return and they go through various stages. If they do not, there is a required return stage where they are given a ticket and are expected to turn up at the airport. If they do not do that, they enter a stage of enforced return, so they will get a visit from the immigration service, who will take them from the house and to the airport, or take them to Cedars, pending their return. So the answer to your question is that we already have structures in place to ensure families get removed if they come to the end of the process.

Ilona Pinter: On the returns process, one helpful point might be that at the moment there are set time limits between family conferences, but information from Barnardo’s, for instance, highlights that for families that go through the returns process, it can take around a year for those families that go through Cedars. There are other estimates for how long it can take.

We do not advocate for families being on asylum support any longer than they need to be. Asylum support is incredibly low at £5 a day per child, and it has been reduced recently through regulations. Children are already living in very difficult circumstances. It makes it very difficult for families to afford food and clothing and be able to take care of their children. Also, parents cannot work on asylum support, so it is in the interests of children to be taken off asylum support as soon as possible either by families having their determination and being able to integrate or move into employment or other benefits, or, if they do not have a right to remain and if there are not risks for them on return, making that process as short as possible.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 182 But if they are going through the returns process, one would presume that it has already been determined that they need to leave the UK.

Ilona Pinter: This is the problem that we have tried to highlight. A lot of the families come to the end of the process, but because they have not had a fair chance to have their claim considered, they have existing fears of return. That is highlighted by the fact that 40% of families that entered the family returns process are actually granted leave to remain. It means that families are not getting proper access to legal advice. They are not having a proper chance to have their claim considered, and more needs to be done on improving the decision-making process in the Home Office.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 183 So it is more about the decision-making process, rather than what is in the Bill, which proposes to remove them or cut off the support once a decision has been taken. Is that correct?

Ilona Pinter: I am not sure what you are asking.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 184 What you are saying to me is that it is more about the robustness of the decision-making process rather than the elements in the Bill that say that once you get to the end of that process, we pull support.

Ilona Pinter: Yes.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 185 If the decision-making process was robust, you would support this process?

Ilona Pinter: We would not support making families destitute, no.

[Craig Whittaker]

But that is not what I am asking; I asked you a specific question.

[The Chair]

Craig, Ms Dorling is trying to respond.

Kamena Dorling: I think it might address the question as well—

[Craig Whittaker]

No, I do not want to adjust the question. I want the question answered; it was very specific.

Adrian Matthews: If we have robust decision-making—

[The Chair]

Order. One at a time, please. Ms Dorling is being patient.

Kamena Dorling: There are two things that need addressing. One, as Ilona has addressed, is the decision-making process at the beginning of the asylum process. The other is how families are engaged with at the end of the process. We are advocating that more energy be put into that family returns process. I appreciate that we do not want a situation whereby families are on asylum support indefinitely, but if they are part of that process and they are being worked with, either through assisted voluntary return—although funding is being cut for that—or through the family returns process, of course, they should be supported within that, and there are timescales as to how long return takes. I suspect you are talking about the families that do not engage with anything at all, which is a very tricky area, and I am not sure that we have cracked it, but given that we know that cutting off support will not encourage those families to return, it seems more practical to think how we would engage with those families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 186 What I am getting at is that a process is in place, which families will go through. I understand and accept that you are arguing that the process is not robust enough, but the great British public cannot understand, once a decision is made to deport somebody in this country, why it takes forever to do so. Let me just ask this question: what is a reasonable time that people should expect it to take for someone to be deported forcibly?

Kamena Dorling: I do not feel I can answer that, but I do feel it is a question to go back to the Home Office, because there is an enforcement question there, is there not?

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 187 The Home Office has come up with the Bill and that is why I am asking. You do not think the Bill is acceptable.

Kamena Dorling: But we know that the great number of people who are here in the UK, who the Home Office believes should not be here, are not being removed by the Home Office. The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has already pointed to the fact that that enforcement process is not working well enough. I am not sitting here advocating that families are all removed immediately, but I think there is a question there. We are saying put more energy into the family returns process and assisted voluntary return, but also that there is something for the Government to think about, which is that if you think that more families need to be removed, then address enforcement. Do not just withdraw support in the hope that they will go. That does not answer your time issue, because I do not know how long that should take.

[Craig Whittaker]

Does anyone—

[The Chair]

I am sorry, but we are going to move on now. A number of people are indicating that they want to speak. I have Mims and Kelly down, but the Minister and Sarah want to make a brief intervention on this point.

Devolution and Growth across Britain

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I congratulate all new Members from both sides of the House on their excellent maiden speeches. I am obviously far too young to understand what my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) was talking about when he mentioned something called “Lovejoy”. To get in my own plug, people in Calder Valley refer to me as the MP for the Happy Valley after the excellent show written by Sally Wainwright—filmed in the Calder Valley and called “Happy Valley”—series 3 of which will air later this year.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this debate on devolution and growth across Britain. We all know and have experienced decisions made at grass-roots level, and devolution does make absolute sense. Who better to take decisions than those very professionals who make and deliver our services at first hand? In the recent referendum on Scotland, we saw at first hand the passion and interest that people have in their own regions and countries. It is only right in a civilised society that people have a real say in what is important to them and an opportunity to shape the long-term decision-making process in their area—local voices with local accountability.

In respect of the northern powerhouse and, more specifically, the Yorkshire powerhouse, people tell me all the time that they want more of a say in determining their own future. After all, why should Scotland have a say on its future when Yorkshire is denied the same opportunity? Our economy is similar to Scotland’s, our population is similar in size to Scotland’s and our county is as beautiful as Scotland, but, of course, Yorkshire is a better place to live than Scotland.

The fabulous Calder Valley not only contributes to the northern powerhouse, but plays a significant role in the northern powerhouse, as do many areas of Yorkshire. More than 19% of my constituents work in manufacturing and Calder Valley manufacturers punch above their weight with exports. The figures are outstanding. A further 22% of my constituents work in the financial services sector and contribute greatly to that massive national sector, which puts billions of pounds per annum into the tax coffers of the nation and pays for vital services like the NHS and education.

Devolution would allow great areas around the UK to make their own decisions and determine their own priorities, but there are also fears. We need to ensure that there is good governance around great swathes of power, and that centrally distributed funds are spent wisely and with accountability. There must be a system of governance that is open, honest and transparent, and models that are designed to be accountable. More specifically, it must be possible for people to be held to account. The elected mayoral system proposed by the Chancellor seems to be a step forward both in governance and accountability, but we have to be careful not to do things just as a knee-jerk reaction to public opinion of the day. Let us not forget that only a little over a decade ago, the people of the north-east rejected the notion of a regional assembly via the ballot box. Let us not make the same mistake and introduce a system by stealth under the guise of a quango.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Will the Minister explain to my constituents—who, in a referendum just three years ago, rejected the idea of an elected mayor—why the Government feel it is right to impose that model on our area and many other cities?

[Craig Whittaker]

I do not believe for one minute that it is being imposed. As the hon. Lady knows, because her constituents rejected that model, they do not have the mayoral system.

People want the devolution of power, decision-making processes and money, but they do not want enlarged government and the further expense involved. Governance and accountability—yes; more government—no.

Then there is the question of the Union. While the intention of devolution is to give decision-making powers to local areas and countries, we must ensure that we do not unintentionally undermine the Union. We are better and stronger together as a Union, so I would like to see an overarching plan to ensure that we make the Union stronger, not weaker—a long-term devolution plan. Has the Secretary of State considered the endgame of a federalist United Kingdom, where the national Government cover certain areas and individual nations or regions cover other areas, where everyone knows and understands their areas of responsibility, and where people know exactly who is responsible for what and can hold those who are entrusted with responsibilities to account?

There are several models of federalism around the world, including in great nations such as Australia, where I grew up, Canada and the United States, to name just a few. Each has the same basic model, and some are even based on the traditional governance of Westminster. What is important is that there are clearly defined areas of responsibility. Those great nations often fall out in lumps because they cannot decide who has each area of responsibility. We have a great opportunity to start with a blank piece of paper and learn the lessons from those great ex-colonies around the world. When it comes to the EU, we balk at the word “federalism”, but we need to have a debate on the merits of federalism within the UK. Can the Secretary of State confirm that we have a long-term devolution plan and not just an ad hoc version that takes us down into the dark abyss of no return?

On the whole, though, the outlook for areas such as the northern powerhouse is great. Our Government have already started the process, with transport moneys, health responsibilities and school responsibilities. We have seen a commitment to expanding rail capacity with High Speed 2, and the great announcement on High Speed 3 to connect Hull to Liverpool via Manchester and Leeds. We have seen investment in renewable energy in the Humber, plans for electrification of the trans-Pennine rail routes and widening of the trans-Pennine motor routes, to name just a few projects.

All these developments contribute to making the huge cogs and gears of the massive northern powerhouse not just fire up but run in top gear. It is a powerhouse that has been held back by the shackles of decades of under-investment. The tools that we need are in the form of devolution. Do not give us the fish; give us the fishing rods to fish. Give us a plan—a proper plan—so that we can not only contribute to the UK economy but be an equal part of it.