Data Protection Bill [HL]

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 10th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, with all his experience of providing care and support for children and families. It was very troubling to hear of the case of Graham Gaskin.

I hesitate to speak. I do so because I am very interested in child development and issues of age of consent within the development of children. For instance, I very much oppose the lowering of the age of franchise to 16, which many have argued for, because my understanding and experience is that adolescence is hugely challenging and we should not put additional burdens on young people. Reading a survey in which 81% of adults thought that the age of consent for sharing personal information should be at 16 or 18, with the majority of parents thinking that the age should be 18, I was very concerned and wanted to take part in this debate and learn more.

I was recalling our history with access to the internet and pornography. My recollection was that we did not think about those things from the perspective of children and young people. Thanks to the noble efforts of my noble friend Lady Howe, we are now getting on top of that issue, but a report yesterday pointed to a marked rise in sexual assaults by children on children in the past year. Of course it is speculative to say so, but I would not be at all surprised if access by children to the internet has helped to fuel that rise.

We really need to give these issues deep and considered thought and, looking at the briefings, my sense is that it has not been given to the age of consent. It seems to be the default position because that is what Facebook and the other big companies offer. Even the European Union directive did not seem to involve a deep consultation among parents, children—ensuring that children’s voices could be heard—and experts to determine that the age should be between 13 and 16. I join my noble friend Lady Howe’s request for an urgent consultation by the Government with parents, children—in an effective way—and experts on this issue.

I will try to think through what might be the implications. Please forgive my naiveté, but this might be an opportunity for people to market products to 13 year-olds. My experience and research suggests that where children come from family backgrounds of breakdown or depression, that is reflected in the child’s relationships with other children in school. They can find it difficult to relate to others and become isolated. What do they turn to in those circumstances? The research points to the fact that they will be the children with the most expensive articles of clothes. The most expensive trainers will belong to the children who find it most difficult to make relationships with other children. I suppose that we see the same thing in the adult world: often those who are least sociable spend more money on articles of clothing to compensate for that. One concern might be that marketeers will be particularly effective at reaching out to more vulnerable children and encouraging them to pester their parents to buy more products. There will be more pressure on households to go into debt. In our debate on another Bill at the moment, we are seeing that far too many households are experiencing debt. Perhaps that is not a likely eventuality, but it needs to be explored.

Another eventuality might be political lobbying groups seeking to develop a youth wing to reach out to 13, 14 and 15 year-olds and disseminate information to prepare them to join the party later on. All around the world we see hateful political groups gaining ascendance. That is another risk that we need to take into account: how vulnerable are our young people to such groups?

I should be most grateful if the Minister would make clear what is a child in the Bill. Will he ensure that the Bill is clear that anyone under the age of 18 is a child? On the age of consent, what about children with developmental delays or special educational needs? Obviously, chronological age may not be appropriate, so how does one deal with those children? Finally on verification, how do we know that a child who says he is 13 is really 13 and not several years younger?

I share the concern voiced by many Peers about the age of consent. I was to some extent reassured by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox but, given the history and concern about access to pornography and the lack of consideration for the impact on children and young people, it is our duty to give the Bill the thorough consideration that it needs. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Online Safety

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her perseverance and success in highlighting concerns about children’s access to online pornography. Through her Private Member’s Bill and her debates, she has done great service for the children of this country. As treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, I am most grateful to her.

I want to underline to your Lordships why my noble friend’s work is so important. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Brent Centre for Young People—a mental health service for adolescents based in north London that grew out of the Anna Freud centre. In her last paper on adolescence entitled Adolescence as a Developmental Disturbance, Anna Freud laid out the many challenges facing adolescents and regretted that so many responsibilities were placed upon them. Yet we have been very slow to recognise and act upon the threat to young people’s development posed by online pornography. I am therefore grateful for the actions that the Government are now taking.

I feel particularly concerned for looked-after children—children in the care of local authorities. Often they have been let down by the people they loved and trusted the most, and it is only natural that they may be fearful of intimacy. Pornography can provide a spurious intimacy and the illusion of closeness, which, for some of them, may be an attractive alternative to the real thing.

I recall visiting a 15 year-old boy in a children’s home about 12 years ago. I am afraid that it was not a good home. The reason I went to visit was that it was good educationally and the young people did well in that regard. I should emphasise that there are many excellent children’s homes that I have visited, but this one did not cater for the mental health needs of this young man, who came from a very dysfunctional background. It did not address his emotional needs and it did not help him learn to trust others and be able to make and keep relationships. That young man was going on to further education to study computing. My concern was that this intelligent young man, who I fear was unable to make close relationships with people, would have a close relationship with his computer and the internet, and perhaps with pornography and gambling. That would be the way that he compensated for the fact that he had not received the help he needed to recover from his earlier trauma.

On the positive side, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester highlighted some of the very many benefits of the internet. One of the concerns of care leavers is that so often they may feel isolated. Having spoken with care leavers, I know that a very important support for them is their peers—being able to join together with other young people who share their experience of being in care is a great support to them. Those who thrive often have those support networks. Recently, a young person told me about the value of a Facebook group where she could join other care leavers to talk about their experiences and feel supported by one another. There are certainly many benefits to the internet revolution.

Another group about which I feel concerned is the one in five girls in this country who are growing up without a father in the home. They may well still be in touch with their father and they may, in many ways, be far better off not having their father in the home. However, as I think your Lordships may understand, children are narcissistic. Young children believe that the world revolves around them, and so when their father departs, they do not understand the reason why and see it only as a rejection of themselves. For girls to experience their father leaving home, and then to perhaps lose contact with him, means that the first and most important relationship they have with a man is one in which they have experienced rejection. I fear that that group may be particularly vulnerable to the early exposure of pornography.

In a seminar on this issue last year, we heard from a teacher who highlighted the benefits of and need for discussions in schools about pornography and violence—to go hand in hand with the very important work of my noble friend Lady Howe. He felt that this was a very important protective factor for our young people in this difficult area. I agree with so many of your Lordships that we need to have high-quality sex and relationship education in our schools. I encourage the Government to move towards a statutory basis for personal, social and health education. There are many reasons for this, but among them is that it will ensure we get high-quality training for such teachers—if it is in statute, the training will be delivered.

The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, the former chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, has been a doughty champion for this issue, and the Education Select Committee and other Select Committees in the other place have also called for the Government to introduce this measure. Given what the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, said about her concerns about adolescent and child mental health, it is important that the Government move forward as fast as possible. Will the Minister be good enough to take these concerns to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and inform him?

I am concerned that the exposure of young children to pornography may tend to make girls, particularly, feel that they can be seen as objects and encourage boys to see them as such. It may encourage a view of sex as just a sensation and young people to avoid real intimacy and commitment. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Howe for bringing this issue to us and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Listowel]

13: Clause 1, page 4, line 22, at end insert—
“(10) ach advanced quality partnership scheme must specify as a standard of service that free bus travel must be provided for homeless families placed outside of their local authority area.”

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I will also speak to my Amendments 24 and 89 in this group.

The purpose of these amendments is to seek help and advice from the Government and your Lordships on how the Bill might be used to ease the plight of homeless families placed outside their local authority. At the end of 2015, one in four homeless households in England and one in three homeless households in London lived in temporary accommodation in another local authority area. The benefit of these kinds of amendments to these families is clear. Many families moved to a neighbouring borough or somewhere else within travelling distance of their home area could use this free travel to maintain links with their crucial support networks: services such as GPs or a civic centre; employment support from their council, and employment in some circumstances; travel to school—either doing the school run for young children or, less frequently, visiting for parents’ evenings and meetings with teachers; and, importantly, visiting friends and family, who may also be a source of childcare.

Over several years I have spoken with homeless families, and I have been struck by how fragile and vulnerable they are, particularly when they are isolated. We all become vulnerable when we are isolated. Perhaps we can particularly appreciate the experience of homeless families at the present time. We all feel uncertain about the future—our future within the European Union and within this country, and the future of our Government—so this feeling is familiar to us all. In some senses we are all homeless at the moment. I am therefore concerned that we do all we can to mitigate the situation of these families.

Over 100,000 children in England currently live in temporary accommodation—the highest level since 2006—so an increasing number of young children are living in such situations. For instance, I am in contact with a mother who was moved out of her local authority to another authority in London and shares one room with her 15 year-old daughter and one year-old granddaughter. Obviously, living with a teenage daughter is challenging. She is somewhere far away from her church, which is important to her, and from the community that she knows, having lived for many years in another authority.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Will he take away this issue and see whether the Government can do something to help in this area? I recognise that the offer would perhaps need to be made locally and left up to local decision-making, and that perhaps, given the current financial climate, there would need to be a clear cap on how much money could be spent across the country in this regard.

I would also appreciate the Minister’s looking at the issue of homeless families and the action taken by the Government. I know that the Government have done good work on preventing families becoming homeless, and of course their homeless housing strategy will produce more houses, which will help this issue to some degree. I am interested to learn what the Government are doing specifically to mitigate the harm experienced by homeless families displaced in this way. What specific preventive measures are in place to prevent harm coming to them? I know that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, periodically meets his opposite number in the Commons to discuss these issues. I would appreciate it if the noble Lord would write to me to say what recent thoughts and developing policy there have been in this area. If he could encourage this matter to be placed on the agenda for the next meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, that would be welcome, too.

I therefore seek noble Lords’ advice on how the Bill might be made to mitigate the harm experienced by these families, and I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in thanking the noble Earl for bringing this important issue to the fore. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has said, the amendments in front of us require operators of services delivered under franchising or enhanced partnerships, or advanced quality partnerships, to provide free bus travel for the homeless families placed outside of their local authority area. Like the noble Lord, I am sympathetic to the broad aims of the amendment and know that buses provide a lifeline for many in our local communities. However, having listened very carefully to the noble Earl, I think there may be more appropriate ways to address the issue, and I will of course pass on the issues he has raised to my noble friend Lord Freud.

As I have said before, this Bill will enable devolution. Reflecting on the noble Earl’s contribution, I would say that it will give local areas more control over their bus services. The issue highlighted may be another of the issues that particular authorities are looking to address. If so, they will be able to explore the options open to them through the tools provided in the Bill. I remain concerned that, as drafted, the amendment will perhaps unnecessarily tie the hands of authorities looking to implement franchising, advanced quality partnerships or enhanced partnerships. I fully accept that that is not the intention of the noble Earl’s amendment in requiring authorities to provide free travel where the benefit is not available in other parts of the country. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I believe it is an important point to raise.

I hope our discussion today and my comments have indicated to the noble Earl that we are sympathetic to the broad aims of the amendment. However, I maintain that there are more effective ways of tackling the problem that he has raised. I hope this has assured him to the extent that he feels able to withdraw the amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I am grateful to the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for their supportive comments and their recognition that this is a very serious issue for the many families involved. I am also grateful to the Minister for saying that he will raise these concerns with his noble friend Lord Freud. On that basis, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 13 withdrawn.

Immigration Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Listowel]

123A: Schedule 11, page 174, line 27, leave out “conditions A and B are” and insert “condition A is”

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 123B, 123C and 123D. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich for attaching their names to these amendments.

These amendments affect a subgroup of young people leaving care. I am very glad and grateful that at the last Conservative Party conference the Prime Minister chose to speak about his particular concern about young people in care. Edward Timpson MP’s work in improving security for care leavers and introducing “staying put” to allow young people to stay with their foster carers until the age of 21 was a huge step forward in the coalition Government. There has been much welcome work in this area and recognition of the vulnerabilities of these young people. I am therefore not at all surprised that the Minister has paid great attention to these amendments. I appreciate our correspondence, the meeting that we and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, had about this, and the Minister’s consideration and the adjustments that he has made, particularly with regard to young people who were not offered the chance to make an application for their immigration status to be regularised while they were in care under the age of 18, and to young people who have been trafficked.

These amendments ensure that young people leaving care are able to continue to access leaving-care support from their local authorities in circumstances where their departure from the UK is not envisaged. This includes young people with pending applications to remain in the UK whose long-term future may be in the UK, and young people who cannot leave the UK because there is a genuine obstacle to their removal.

This Bill creates a two-tier system of support and discriminates against care leavers on the basis of their immigration status, with damaging consequences for young people who have sometimes been living in the UK for many years as unaccompanied children, including potential victims of child trafficking and those who have no family but their foster family and their corporate parent, the local authority. It is not clear to me why a separate system is needed when the Children Act 1989 and the provision for care leavers, in particular the entitlement to a personal adviser and pathway planning, provide the most appropriate mechanism for supporting young people leaving care whatever their long-term future in the UK.

Central and local government have a unique relationship with children in care and care leavers, as they are corporate parents. That means that they have a statutory responsibility to act for young people in the way that a good parent would. The Government have indicated that very similar types of support could be provided under new paragraph 10B in the Bill, including continued foster placement, the advice and support of a personal adviser and social care support. That is most welcome. However, the Bill is drafted so that the duties to meet the welfare needs of care leavers, in line with wider care-leaving legislation, have been replaced by a power to make regulation. It is therefore anticipated that these young people will generally be prevented from staying in foster placements, continuing education, having a personal adviser and pathway plan, being supported with their health and so on.

The Bill’s provisions affecting migrant care leavers are inconsistent with government policy on care leavers generally, and fundamentally undermine the corporate parenting responsibility. Under these provisions, the Government estimate that 750 care leavers will be affected and therefore prevented from accessing the full range of leaving-care services that their peers receive. However, the Bill will also affect care leavers with pending immigration applications that are not their first application, and others whose long-term future may be in the UK. Young people caught by these provisions will include those who face genuine obstacles to removal, which may persist for lengthy periods of time, and those with non-asylum human rights claims based on having lived in the UK for significant periods of time, if this is not their first application.

I am very grateful to the Minister for the attention that he has given to the needs of these young people, and for the extent to which he has moved during the passage of the Bill. I would really appreciate it if he and the Government could go a bit further in ensuring that as many of these young people as possible have access at least to a personal adviser and a pathway plan. That is crucial for these young people at the age of 18 who have had troubled starts in life. It may also be to the benefit of the Government in their wish to create a robust immigration system. If these young people are engaging in a relationship with their personal adviser, it is easier for the authorities to have contact with them, so it should be easier for the Immigration Service to keep in touch with them and remove them when it is possible to do so.

I would appreciate it if the Minister could give a clear commitment to meeting the needs of these young people and, if he can, to move further forward than he has hitherto. If he could bring something to the House at Third Reading that would make the protections for these young people clear in the Bill, that would also be very welcome. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments, to which I have added my name, for the reasons outlined by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who has been resolute in his defence of the rights of care leavers. I want to raise some issues arising from the Government’s rationale behind creating a separate system of support for care leavers who have no leave or who are appeal rights exhausted, particularly the removal of the duty to provide these care leavers with a pathway plan and personal advisers, and the dispersal of care leavers outside their local area. I am grateful to the Refugee Children’s Consortium for its briefing.

As I understand it, the Government’s view is that a separate system is needed for these young people who are appeal rights exhausted, because they believe that these young people’s future does not lie in the UK, even though in practice many young people who are ARE remain because of the barriers to their removal. However, the Government accept that in some cases additional support, such as access to social care services and remaining in foster placements, will still be needed. In his letter following Committee, the Minister stated:

“I agree entirely that they”—

that is, care leavers—

“should receive support appropriate to their individual needs”,

and that this could,

“include remaining in foster care placement”.

That is welcome, but it is very difficult to see how it will be achieved if the young person’s needs cannot be assessed because they will no longer be entitled to a pathway plan or personal adviser under the provision in new paragraph 10B, which is precisely the mechanism through which individualised assessments currently take place. Are the Government not just going to be reinventing the wheel by creating a whole separate system for this group of young people? Would it not be better to concentrate on ensuring that the current system for planning these young people’s transition to adulthood worked better by using dual or triple planning approaches to plan for all eventual outcomes for the young person’s immigration status, as set out in the guidance? Can the Minister explain whether the Government intend for young people’s needs to be assessed by new and different professionals? If so, would this not simply break the existing links that young people have with their personal advisers?

--- Later in debate ---

I conclude where I began by paying tribute to the work of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in this important area. I have listened extremely carefully to what he, the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate have said. I am also grateful to the Alliance for Children in Care and Care Leavers for its advice on these issues, and we hope that that will continue as the guidance is formulated. It will be essential that there continues to be close engagement with such partners as these new measures are taken forward. I regret, however, that we are not able to agree to the particular change that the noble Earl is seeking in relation to Schedule 11. I ask that he consider withdrawing his amendment at this stage based on the reassurances that I provided in my letter on 11 March and the ongoing engagement that we look forward to having with the noble Earl on these very important issues for this very vulnerable group.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his encouraging reply. I should have acknowledged the meeting on 11 March with James Brokenshire. In particular, his offer for ongoing discussion with the Refugee Children’s Consortium is very reassuring. There is just one matter that I would like to clarify with the Minister. He said that this would apply only where there are no barriers preventing the return of these young people. That would include those young people who are here and who one would wish to return to their country but, for various reasons, they cannot be returned. For children who cannot be returned to their home country, for whatever reason that may be, would that be considered a barrier?

[Lord Bates]

I am happy to come back on that. Where it is not safe for the person to be returned because there is a real fear of danger, persecution or irreversible harm—I think “real” is a legal term in this context—we would not be able to return them in those circumstances. Basically, these are circumstances where there is no barrier; where the courts have looked at the case, and at the country to which the person would be returned, and adjudicated that they do not believe the person would be at risk and there is no reason for them to continue to stay in the UK. That is the definition that applies there.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Casting back to past Immigration Bills, it is not necessarily about the issue of safety but the right kind of paperwork. Often, if there seems to be some obstacle to returning a person to their home country, it is bureaucratic in nature. However, it does mean that they have to remain for some time here. I need to check my facts, but I look forward to the ongoing discussion with the Minister on these issues. I am very grateful to him for the pains that he has taken over this matter. I am very reassured by his response and look forward to clarification of this definition at Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 123A withdrawn.

Immigration Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the good fortune to know my noble friend Lord Dubs personally as a great friend, and we have worked together on many issues. The thing about Alf—if I may refer to him colloquially, because I cannot think of him in any other way—is that he has never forgotten what happened to him and, throughout his life and his whole career, he has been guided by what action that demands of him as a member of society. This is not a one-off by my noble friend Lord Dubs; this is another indication of the man who has put this forward.

I have listened to the legal arguments and complexities that are again being raised. However, I believe unashamedly that from time to time in life, and in politics, there comes a moral imperative, and when there is a moral imperative it is not just to speak; it is to act. My noble friend Lord Dubs has given us an opportunity to act and give substance to our words.

However, this must be seen against the frightening background. In the world at the moment, there are 19.5 million refugees, which is around 2.9 million more than in 2013. Of those, 5.1 million are Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA. Who is looking after these refugees? Who is hosting them? The overwhelming majority—86% of the world’s refugees—are cared for by developing countries that are desperately impoverished themselves, with many of their citizens not knowing what it is to live life as we live it. Think of that, and then think of this small action that we are being challenged to take today by my noble friend Lord Dubs. Beyond the refugees, there are of course all the internally displaced people—millions again.

This action gives hope, as the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, put it so eloquently. It is an indication of what, if we have any morality at all, that morality demands. It also means that we have to face up to the reality of the world. With climate change and all the conflict in the world, this problem will continue to grow. If we take this action, as I hope we do today, it must spur us on to consistent action as a nation in leading an international response to the global challenge that is increasing in size and complexity all the time.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

I wonder whether it is too far-fetched to think that there might be an element of self-interest in this. My mother has often talked to me about what it was like for her as a five year-old girl being evacuated from Croydon in south London to the Midlands during the Second World War. It was a very difficult experience for her and, of course, many of our children were sent off to the United States at that time for their own safety. We face an uncertain Europe. Perhaps one day we might need to turn to the United States or Canada to look for help for our children, and they might turn to us and ask, “Well, what did you do for the children arriving in Europe when they needed your help?”. If we do not stand up now and show ourselves to be willing to accommodate these young people, it will make it harder for us when we are in desperate need and want the support of other nations to say, “We need your help for our children. I know that it is a bit far-fetched, but it is not impossible and it has happened in the past.

[Baroness Neuberger (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, on moving it. My uncle came here at the age of 13—he would have failed the 12 year-old cut-off point—as a semi-unaccompanied refugee from Nazi Germany; my mother was an adult when she came. I want to say something about the courage of the British Government at that time. When we talk about not wishing to accept the amendment, we should think about just how brave were the British Government against other Governments who did not wish to show such generosity and kindness in the late 1930s and in 1939 itself. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, paid tribute to Sir Nicky Winton, but, wonderful as he was, he was not alone—there was Trevor Chadwick, who worked with him. There were also British diplomats around Europe, particularly in Germany and in Austria, who played a major role in helping Jews and left-wingers get out of Germany and Austria. I pay particular tribute to Robert Smallbones, Arthur Dowden and the MI6 spy, Frank Foley, who does not receive enough tribute.

The reason for supporting this amendment is not only the moral one—it is the least that we can do—but something about what Britain is and what Britain should be and setting some kind of example. We could do it in the 1930s. Why cannot we do it now?

Immigration Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

Assurances were given to Parliament that any decision on further rollout would take place only after a transparent public evaluation. The evaluation was anything but satisfactory. The Home Office’s own statement acknowledges that sample sizes were small; that only a limited number of voluntary sector and housing associations were interviewed; and that the majority of tenants had not moved properties since the start of the pilot and would not therefore have had any experience of the scheme. Nor does the pilot definitively conclude that it has met the aims set out by the Government. In fact, the Government’s analysis of the effectiveness of the right-to-rent scheme in identifying illegal immigrants was flawed by the lack of “before” and “after” data. They have no baseline against which to declare that the draconian measures were in any way justified. So I ask the Minister whether between now and Third Reading he will provide satisfactory evidence that shows that the pilot evaluated the effectiveness of the scheme in identifying and apprehending illegal immigrants.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, as the vice-chair of the parliamentary group for children and young people in care and leaving care, and in declaring my interest as a residential landlord, I want briefly to follow up on the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister—in the absence of Lord Avebury—regarding those people who may have difficulty returning to their home country but who have perhaps exhausted appeals so far in the immigration arrangements. The Minister is well aware that this Bill changes the circumstances for about 750 young people who have been in foster care or in children’s homes and who have turned the age of 18, and takes them out of the normal care-leaving protections that are offered generally.

The Minister has been very helpful and recognises the vulnerability of this group—we have met to discuss them. I have amendments relating to them which we will deal with on our next day on Report. In that discussion, I would be grateful if the Minister could reassure me that no young people leaving care who may be exempted from the normal care-leaver protections and have difficulty returning home will have difficulty in finding a place to rent because they cannot prove that it is safe for a landlord to rent to them.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

Before the Minister replies, can he link the request from my noble friend with Amendment 113 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno?

--- Later in debate ---

If there are any issues that I have failed to cover, of course I will write. However, I think I have covered most of the issues raised. On that basis, I hope the noble Baroness might consider withdrawing her amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I welcome what the Minister said about the guidance with regard to families and landlords. I am sure he is aware of the increasing evidence that the early bond between mother and child is vital in the later development of children. Perhaps next time he looks at the guidance in this area, he could look at any particular stipulations around pregnant women and women with children under two, just to be absolutely sure that we are doing the very best to keep them under the minimum stress at this particularly important time of family life.

Migration

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Yes, they are. That is what we set out in our manifesto. We believe that we can get the numbers down but some extraordinary circumstances are occurring at the moment. The principal driving force is the imbalance in growth across the European economy in terms of employment. This has been picked up and identified as a principal factor by the Migration Advisory Committee, the independent group of labour economists. We would like to see greater growth and reform within the eurozone economy so that jobs would be created in those communities and people would not have to travel, but these things are not totally within our control.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that among the most important forces are the push factors caused by the dreadful situations such as those we have just debated and those in Darfur, the Horn of Africa and Syria? Is it not much to the Government’s credit that they are leading the world in investing in international development as a proportion of gross domestic product, and therefore setting an example of intervening to stabilise fragile states and prevent these things happening?

[Lord Bates]

That is absolutely right; the noble Earl is correct about the amount of money that is being given. It is one thing to address issues when people arrive in Calais or at a port in the UK, but it is far better for the individuals concerned if we address matters in the relevant countries. It may interest the noble Earl to know that the three top countries for UK asylum applications are Sudan, Eritrea and Iraq.

Immigration Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, as the Minister said in his reply to the previous group of amendments, we will now have our attention focused on a whole group on the plight of children primarily, and how this legislation will affect them. It is slightly mind-boggling to find your amendment grouped with 26 government amendments, let alone 10 other amendments, and I will leave others to deal with those.

Earlier, I referred to a report that appeared in the Daily Telegraph on Monday and had its origins in a story in the Observer newspaper on Sunday. I should like to return to that for a moment. The report states:

“Brian Donald, Europol’s chief of staff, said …‘It’s not unreasonable to say that we’re looking at 10,000-plus children’” ,

who are unaccompanied and who had disappeared in Europe. He continued:

“‘Not all of them will be criminally exploited; some might have been passed on to family members. We just don’t know where they are, what they’re doing or whom they are with’”.

The report continued:

“Of more than a million migrants and refugees who arrived in Europe last year, Europol estimates that 27 per cent of them are children … ‘Not all those are unaccompanied, but we also have evidence that a large proportion might be, Mr Donald told The Observer, adding that the 10,000 is likely to be a conservative estimate’”.

If thousands of child migrants have vanished in Europe, it is clearly not an issue about which we can be complacent. As we did with the human trafficking and modern-day slavery legislation, we must provide flagship legislation which other nations can emulate. Our practice here must be beyond reproach and we certainly must do all we can to safeguard children from falling into the hands of people who would exploit them.

One issue to which we have given relatively little attention in the course of our proceedings is that regarding children born in the UK or living in the UK from an early age without citizenship or leave to remain. Amendment 230D has a particular effect in relation to children in the care of a local authority. However there are many other children in similar circumstances in the UK, albeit not in care. The amendment would prevent in defined circumstances the application of Schedule 9 which, in various respects, removes obligations on local authorities to provide leaving care support to children without either British citizenship or leave to remain in the UK, including in relation to accessing higher education and other education and training. The circumstances in which it would prevent the effect of Schedule 9 is where the local authority has failed to support the child in its care to register as a British citizen, or obtain the leave to remain to which the child is or was entitled. Why should a local authority benefit effectively from reduced obligations in circumstances which have come about only because of the authority’s failure to adequately assist the child?

The project for the registration of children as British citizens—PRCBC, which I shall simply refer to, if I may, as the project—is supported by Amnesty International UK which drew this issue to my attention, for which I am grateful. It says that among the young people who stand to lose leaving care support under Clause 38 are young people who come to the UK at a very young age, and indeed some who were even born in this country.

I asked for examples so that I could illustrate the problem. They include people like Henry who was three years old when he was brought to the UK. He is now 15 and has been under the care of his local authority and in foster care since his grandmother’s death when he was seven. Henry is one of the luckier of these children. He has no leave to remain. However, he was referred to the project and it has been able to assist him in connection with his entitlement to register as a British citizen.

There are an estimated 120,000 children in the UK subject to immigration control and without leave to remain, more than half of whom were born in this country. Many of them are entitled to British citizenship under various provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981. However, many of them do not know and there is nobody to tell them of their entitlement. Indeed, in many cases, nobody makes the effort to find out that the child does not have citizenship or leave to remain in the UK until he or she turns 18 and seeks access to university or employment.

Another example is a young man called James whom the project has been able to assist. He was born in the United Kingdom. He has been in care since the age of one. His social worker attended one of the project’s free training sessions and referred his case. He, too, has no lawful status in the UK but is entitled to register as a British citizen.

Arising from these cases in the illustrations I have given, I have some questions for the Minister. Has he any assessment of the number of children—children without status but who are either entitled to register as a British citizen or who may be able to apply for registration at the discretion of the Secretary of State—who will be affected by Clause 38? Can he confirm, as both the project and Amnesty point out, that these children will also be adversely affected by the rest of a generally hostile environment, including the provisions we have discussed today concerning the right to rent and unlawful working, and issues we have discussed on previous sitting days? How many children in local authority care will fall into these categories? What steps do local authorities take to establish the immigration status of children in their care and then keep that under review? Do they just disappear into the ether? What assistance does the Home Office provide them to ensure they understand the entitlements of these children?

Many of the children face difficulties accessing legal advice or paying the fee required for them to register their citizenship. I should be grateful if the Minister, when he replies, can confirm that there is no legal aid for this and that the fee is currently some £749, of which £526 is simply profit to the Home Office. I understand that it is intended for the fee to go up to £936—a rise of 25%. Is that correct?

Although the focus of the project is assisting children to access their entitlement to British citizenship, it also sees cases where a child may alternatively be eligible for leave to remain. These children are young people; they are not culpable for their lack of status. Indeed, in some instances that arises due to historical wrongs in our citizenship laws, which Governments have taken some important steps to address, for instance, concerning illegitimate children. I commend that, but given that local authorities are in many cases failing to identify a child’s lack of status in the UK, or failing to take effective action to address it, it is particularly galling that Clause 38 would effectively reward the local authority for its failure. A child who would have remained entitled to ongoing support from the local authority on leaving care, had the authority taken effective action to attain status for the child, will lose that entitlement because of the failure to act.

As Amnesty made clear in oral evidence to the Public Bill Committee in the other place, these children are among those who will suffer from the hostile environment being established, particularly as they approach and reach their majority. Surely that cannot be right. I hope that the Minister will tell us what steps the Government will take to ensure that that is not the result. Perhaps it is an example of the law of unintended consequences, but I hope that it is something that the noble Lord will take seriously and see whether it is something that we can rectify, if not today then between now and Report. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend’s Amendment 230D and to speak to my Amendments 234B, 234M, 234N and 235A in this group. I strongly support my noble friend in what he asks. I am well aware that local authorities too often do not give timely advice and support regarding making applications for leave to remain for young people in their care. I have frequently heard that this is the case. What my noble friend asks for is very helpful and I hope that the Minister will give a sympathetic response. Indeed, I am grateful that the Minister has pre-empted this grouping by saying that we will meet to discuss these very important and sensitive issues. I am grateful to him for that.

I will endeavour to be as brief as possible. My amendments would undo those elements of Schedule 9 that would mean that children in the immigration system would be treated differently from other children in the care system. These children would not get the support in leaving care that children outside of the immigration system receive. It would also mean that the Government would fund the care-leaving support for young people in the immigration system.

The key message I make to your Lordships is that these are vulnerable 18 year-olds. We need to treat these young people with humanity. They are somebody’s child, somebody’s grandchild. They are not so different from your Lordships’ grandchildren. They are recognised to be extremely vulnerable because of their histories. Care leavers get support from the state. The care leaving Act allows young people to have a personal adviser to the age of 21 or to the age of 25 if they are in education or training. The personal adviser can help them with things such as securing housing, and advise them on getting into education and training. These are important measures that support these vulnerable young people.

Recently, the Government introduced the staying put arrangements for young people leaving care. This has been most welcome and very popular. Half of children or young people leaving care take up this offer. It allows them to remain with their foster carers to the age of 21, where they and their foster carers agree. It gives these young people the continuity of care that they so much need. It was accepted in the context of the fact that most young people nowadays leave home on average at the age of 24. These vulnerable young people need that support at least until the age of 21.

Why should we be giving all these young people this kind of support? The risk is that they may enter criminality if they are not properly supported. Their mental health may seriously deteriorate. They may be exploited, perhaps sexually. For the young people we are talking about, I think for instance of a Kosovan Albanian young man, the son of a teacher, whom I worked with many years ago when there were real issues of concern in the Balkans. He was a charming young man, well dressed and courteous to the young women he shared his hostel with. He had every good potential in the world, but I could also see him getting hooked up with some Albanian mafia group and dropping off into that environment if he was not given that proper support when he turned 18.

--- Later in debate ---

Other specific points were raised by, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I have a pile of responses to those questions. If the noble Lord and other noble Lords will bear with me, I will put those in writing. They will be circulated to all Members of the Committee and placed on the public record in the Library of the House.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the Minister for the care with which he has responded and his full recognition of the vulnerability of these young people. I am grateful to him.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

I, too, thank the Minister for giving consideration to the position of people who are facing this fee problem. I am grateful he has given some thought to that.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, back in July, on Report, this House voted by 221 votes to 154—a majority of 67—that 16 and 17 year-olds should have the right to vote in local elections. When the Bill went to the House of Commons, this decision was reversed and, as a consequence, the matter has returned to this House to be considered once again.

I find it strange that so much emphasis is put on citizenship in young people’s education but that the natural extension of this to enable them to vote is a step this Government seem reluctant to take. Ten years ago, the Power commission, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, concluded in its report on how to increase political participation that the voting age should be lowered to 16. It was one of its key recommendations, but it has never been acted on.

We cannot complain that younger generations are not engaging with politics when they cannot participate fully. Young people surely have a right to a say in how the communities they live in are run. They use public services locally; they are very politically conscious and we ought to build on that. Crucially, we need to get young people into the way of voting and starting at 18 can be too late, as turnout levels of people under 25 show. Our democracy depends on high levels of participation, and voting at 16 would instil in more young people the habit of voting. We now have the precedent of the Scottish referendum, 16 months ago, when 16 and 17 year-olds were entitled to vote. Although Scotland is outside the scope of the Bill, this precedent has served, in practice, as a pilot and has changed mindsets because it was a clear success.

Noble Lords are all aware that votes at 16 has been the subject of ongoing debate in this House since the general election. In recent months, we have had significant debates on the right to vote at 16 in the EU referendum Bill. We asked the Government to rethink their position, but this was reversed in the other place and, by a narrow margin, not pressed further in this House. In the context of that decision on the EU referendum Bill, I have carefully considered whether there is a justification for asking the House of Commons to think again about lowering the voting age in the context of this Bill. For this is a different Bill: it relates to local government, not to a referendum, and I have concluded that there is a case and a justification for doing so. The issue is important: it relates to the nature of our democracy and young people’s engagement with the democratic process. In the House of Commons, on 17 November, the Minister said that:

“It is undeniable that there is a debate to be had on the issue”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/11/15; col. 556.]

I agree with him, and I think this House would do so, too. However, it is not clear to me when the Government plan to have that debate. I will listen very carefully to anything further the Minister has to say in response to this debate but, for the moment, I beg to move.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, adolescence is a difficult time for all young people, whether they grow up in loving families or not. I remain concerned that the amendment would put an additional burden on adolescents. I am also worried that it would put a target on the back of young people for unscrupulous politicians, which might be unhelpful. Finally, I agree with Barry Sheerman, a very well-respected Labour MP who was, for many years, head of the Education Select Committee in the other place. In recent discussions on the franchise in that place, he talked of his concern about the shrinking of childhood.

Many noble Lords support this proposal: I ask them to consult on it with experts in child development. So far, only the Government have referred to the evidence about adolescence. They have referred to neurobiological research into adolescence terminating in the early 20s but, so far, I am not aware of that evidence being referred to by those proposing the amendment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

The noble Earl mentioned child development experts. Could he name the experts who are saying that it would put a target on the back of 16 year-olds if they were allowed to vote?

[The Earl of Listowel]

Certainly. In her final paper on adolescence as a development disturbance, Anna Freud, a pioneer of child development, highlighted the challenges which children face as they go through adolescence. In particular, she highlights the burdens which society puts on them in terms of exams and decisions about careers, which may affect their whole life course, at a time when they are trying to move from childhood into adulthood. I refer the noble Lord to that paper. There are child development experts—I know of at least one—who are very much in favour of this and others who are very much opposed to it. I ask those proposing this amendment to find some consensus among these individuals.

There would be one further benefit. If those proposing this would consult child development experts on this matter, when people such as myself and others wish to raise the age of criminal responsibility it would make the case for us to say, “We have talked to the child development experts and they all say that 10 is far too low for the age of criminal responsibility. We should raise it”. Noble Lords can set a good example in this matter so I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, might consider withdrawing his amendment.

Immigration Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a landlord, as set out in the register of interests. I follow the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, in deeply regretting the failure of successive Governments to invest in housing, which has had so many adverse outcomes. However, I am grateful to this Government for making a commitment to build many more houses. I thank the Minister for introducing the Bill, for his correspondence, and for listening to the concerns of colleagues and putting back the first Committee day in January. That is helpful.

The noble Lord, Lord Horam, and others have said that the Department for International Development is funded to the tune of 0.7% of gross national income. That measure was put into statute by the last Government and is very welcome, particularly in the context of the situation that my noble friend described. With so much global migration, we need to tackle the problem partly at source.

I am grateful to the 30 British soldiers who have recently returned to Helmand in Afghanistan to help maintain stability there and to stem the flow of migration. The International Organization for Migration announced today that on Monday, we passed the 1 million figure of people entering Europe over the last year. That is a fourfold increase on the previous year, so there is a huge challenge for us in many different ways, but particularly for our humanity. The Minister may have referred to this, but there, but for the grace of God, go us. I often speak to my mother about her experience of the war. She had a factory at the end of our garden in Croydon, which was bombed. My father was on the list that Hitler ran up of people he would knock off when he arrived in this country. We had the experience of being bombed in this country not so long ago and have experienced the threat of invasion. It is helpful to keep that in mind.

The noble Lord, Lord Horam, and others also referred to concern about young unskilled workers in this country and the lack of incentive in the past for business to train them because it was so easy just to take migrants from the continent. I welcome what the Bill does to increase incentives for business to train young people in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred to centres established in the past to enable the dissemination of immigrants across the country. Many years ago, I lived and worked in Bermondsey in east London and used to reflect that the poorest, least educated, most poorly housed groups of people tended to become the neighbours of immigrants. They do not go to Hampstead, so it is important to think how we can make it as easy as possible for those people to accommodate incomers. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, also said that, rather than making families destitute, we should engage with them and build a relationship of trust, as that is the most effective way of helping them to move on. I recall looking at research in the past, and will do so again during the passage of this legislation. I much prefer what the noble Lord proposes to what is proposed in the Bill.

I should like to concentrate my comments on care leavers. I have been the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for young people in care and care leavers for the last 10 years. I have worked with young migrants in hostels. Last year, I met six young care leavers, two or three of whom were from Afghanistan, and heard about the issues they had faced. I would like to talk about support for care leavers. The Government’s changes to the Immigration Bill aim to limit support to care leavers subject to immigration control. These provisions effectively override children and leaving care legislation and policy to prioritise immigration control over young people’s welfare considerations. It creates a two-tier system of support for care leavers based on their immigration status. The corporate parent duties of local authorities would be severely limited despite the ongoing needs of these young people. This is effectively a reversal of the Court of Appeal’s judgment in SO v Barking and Dagenham, which held that local authorities could not look to the availability of asylum support to determine whether a continued leaving care duty applies.

This provision will affect care leavers who came here as unaccompanied children and have not been granted refugee status or humanitarian protection but have been granted temporary leave on the basis of there being no adequate reception facilities in their country of origin. This leave is normally granted for 30 months or until the child turns 17 and a half years old, so it will include children who have been trafficked into the country for the purpose of exploitation and those who arrived as young children but are estranged from their families and have lived in the UK for most of their lives but were never helped to regularise their status. Upon turning 18 years old, these young people are likely to be left without status and most at risk of being caught by these provisions, despite continuing to need the additional support provided through leaving care provisions in recognition of their continuing vulnerabilities. I encourage noble Lords to imagine that the circumstances of our children were very different and they had to be sent off to another country, as some children were sent to America in the past, and how concerned we would be about their future. When I spoke to those young men last year—this is backed up by the research—I became aware that most of them would disappear. They will not return to their own countries and will disappear into the black economy. I think that one became a taxi driver and another spent a lot of time in a mental institution.

I ask your Lordships to keep this in mind. If the Bill is passed, these care leavers would no longer be able to stay in their foster placements, counteracting the staying put provision, recently introduced by the Government, whereby care leavers can stay in placements until the age of 21. They would no longer have access to a personal adviser; therapeutic support; a pathway plan; maintaining contact; support with legal aid, training and education; or any of the other services that care leavers are entitled to in light of the fact that they have no family responsible for them.

Young migrants in care often face additional difficulties that British children do not. They are particularly likely to have faced trauma, may experience language and cultural barriers, and are less likely to have contact with biological family members. Care leavers often need their personal adviser or advocate to help identify, and even instruct, their immigration lawyer and a local authority to pay for their representation or evidence, including subject access requests and doctors’ letters. The Government argue that these young people are simply adult migrants, will not remain in the UK in the long run and should not, therefore, receive additional help as care leavers. Not only is this not the case for many of the young people affected by the Bill, but that argument ignores long-established law and policy, which makes it clear that those who have been in care need additional support on turning 18, in light of their vulnerabilities.

Care-leaving services are already limited to eligible and relevant children. By that, I mean children aged 16 and 17 who have been looked after for at least 13 weeks since the age of 14. Central and local government have a unique relationship with children in care and care leavers, as they are their corporate parents. As such, care leavers should expect the same level of care and support that other young people get from their parents. Will the Minister outline what would happen if a care leaver whose appeal rights were exhausted needed additional support, for example to remain in a foster placement because of concerns they may self-harm? Would the local authority have the power to support this vulnerable young person in those circumstances? I look forward to the Minister’s response. He may prefer to write to me.