Refugees: Unaccompanied Children

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I certainly endorse what the noble Lord says about the volunteers who are giving up their time to help those people in need. The noble Lord asked what has happened since 2 December. On 28 January, the Prime Minister made a Statement outlining what he had done in the interim period, and he announced four new initiatives. He said that he was going to send the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland, to look at the hotspots, as they are called, or reception centres, to see what was happening to children. We announced an additional £10 million of support, particularly for children who had arrived there. He also said that we would meet the UNHCR and Save the Children, and that is happening this Thursday. However, I thought the noble Lord might have given a passing mention to the fact that, last week, the Prime Minister announced a doubling of the aid we are giving to Syria—from £1.1 billion to £2.3 billion—by the end of the Parliament, which I am sure is welcomed by everyone in the House.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, following the statement last week by Brian Donald, the head of Europol, that 10,000 children had disappeared and an entire criminal infrastructure dedicated to exploiting migrants had been established, will the Minister tell the House what representations we have made to Europol and what discussions we are having with it about tackling this? Also, given that the 100,000 people now massing at Oncupinar, on the Turkish border with the Aleppo province, are facing an aerial bombardment campaign and the borders are closed to them—many of those refugees will be children—what action are the Government taking to ask that those borders be opened to allow the refugees safe passage across?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to focus on this. Europol estimates that some 90% of people who arrive at Calais have been trafficked by criminal gangs. That is why the Prime Minister announced that we are setting up the Organised Immigration Crime Task Force, and there have been some early successes, although we need to work much harder on that. That is also why Kevin Hyland—I know the noble Lord knows him and respects his work—is looking at those issues. On the situation in Turkey, that is why we have announced a further £275 million as part of the EU-Turkey agreement, to provide aid to that southern border.

Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am a signatory to Amendment 227, which has been so comprehensively and well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, will recall that, prior to Second Reading, I chaired a meeting in your Lordships’ House organised by the Refugee Children’s Consortium and the Children’s Society. Some of the issues raised by the noble Lord today were raised then, and I know that they have been on the mind of the Minister.

The position of children was brought home to me by a report that appeared in the Daily Telegraph on Monday last, reiterated in the Observer on Sunday, which stated:

“At least 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees have disappeared in Europe, the EU’s criminal intelligence agency has said, as it warned many could be in the hands of traffickers.

Brian Donald, Europol’s chief of staff, said the children had vanished after arriving in Europe and registering with state authorities”.

He went on to say:

“It’s not unreasonable to say that we’re looking at 10,000-plus children”.

We should take the rights of children, which are at the heart of the amendment, very seriously within our own jurisdiction, as well as recognising that children are suffering outside our jurisdiction as a result of this massive crisis of migration.

The seriousness of this question and of out-of-country appeals was also brought home to me this morning when, with my noble friend Lord Hylton and as a result of the kindness of the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and Mr James Brokenshire in organising it for us, we visited Yarl’s Wood detention centre. I was deeply impressed by a lot of what we saw there. We were able to talk at random to people at Yarl’s Wood. I spoke to a lady who is 33 years of age. She has lived in this country for 26 years. She has three children, aged 17, 14 and 12. She was born in Somalia. Because she has some minor convictions, including things such as shoplifting in the past, this lady will be deported from this country to Mogadishu in Somalia. “Needless to say”, she said, “Every night, I sleep with my heart pounding”. I do not know, but will this woman have to launch an appeal from Mogadishu? Is this the sort of thing that could arise as a consequence of this legislation?

That is why the amendment that the noble Lord moved is so important. I have three very brief reasons why I support it. First, thousands of children, including British citizens, will be at risk of being separated from their parents or being removed from the UK before any judicial scrutiny of the Home Office’s decision and without adequate consideration of the best interests of the child. Secondly, given the consequences of inappropriate certification and the cost and obstacles to challenging certification—the only means of doing so being by judicial review—surely it is wrong to extend the existing provisions. Thirdly, Clause 34 could see more cases involving unaccompanied children or young people aged over 18 who claimed asylum alone as children, or who arrived as children and have lived in the UK for most of their lives, being certified for an out-of-country appeal and being removed to their countries of origin without a sufficient assessment of their best interests being undertaken.

The Children’s Society tells me that the provisions risk children being deprived of their parents or forced to leave the country that they grew up in before any judicial scrutiny of the Home Office’s decision and without adequate consideration of the best interests of the child. It says that this provision could see more cases involving unaccompanied children or young people aged over 18 who claimed asylum alone as children and/or who have lived here for many years and have built their lives in the UK being certified for an out-of-country appeal.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, was right to remind us of the implications, following the changes made under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, of the consequences of removing legal aid. I was struck by a report, again by the Children’s Society, that estimates that 2,490 children would be out of scope in a post-LASPO context. Clearly, without legal aid these children, including those in care, are unable to resolve their immigration issues, often resulting in a crisis for the child as they turn 18.

I have only one other point, which is a question to the Minister. Given the difficulties that children and families face making immigration applications because there is no legal aid for immigration claims, how will the Home Office be sure that it has all the information it needs to make a comprehensive, best-interests assessment before allowing an appeal only from outside of the United Kingdom? Before we agree the provisions of the clause or reject the amendment, we need an answer to that question.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak in support of opposing the question that Clause 34 stand part of the Bill and in support of Amendment 227, to which I added my name. In its two reports on the last Immigration Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I was then a member, raised serious concerns on human rights grounds about out-of-country appeals. It questioned reliance on judicial review to challenge certification. I note that the Select Committee on the Constitution suggested that we may wish to bear these concerns in mind. Indeed, I see that the current chair of the JCHR has written to the Home Secretary to raise concerns about how extension could result in families with meritorious Article 8 claims being subjected to extensive separation.

A wide range of human rights and immigration organisations have raised concerns on human rights and rule of law grounds, as access to justice is likely to be impeded, as we have already heard. On the rule of law question, ILFA notes that the Government point to the decision in Kiarie, R v the Secretary of State for the Home Department as support for its view that an out-of-country appeal is adequate. However, ILFA responds that a decision that the Secretary of State is entitled to proceed on the basis that an out-of-country appeal will meet the procedural requirements of Article 8 in the generality of criminal deportation cases, where she is balancing the individual’s right against the public interest of deporting someone with a criminal conviction whose presence, it is asserted, is not conducive to the public good, does not necessarily mean that it will meet those requirements in the wider generality of cases covered by Clause 34.

Concerned organisations, including Amnesty, also point out that the consequences of being removed from the UK may be profound and long-lasting, even if removal is for a short time only. Despite the equality statement’s assurance that no adverse impact on grounds of gender are anticipated, as I said at Second Reading:

“Rights of Women is worried about the implications for women migrants who have left abusive partners but who do not qualify to remain under the normal domestic violence rules because of their status, which is a common occurrence. Rights of Women fears that:

‘A mother seeking to remain in the UK as the parent of a child who is wrongfully refused by the Home Office faces the prospect of leaving her child in the UK with an abusive father or taking her child with her forcing them to leave behind a network of friends and family, abandoning their schools and communities and being forced to live in a country where in many instances they have no ties, no understanding of the language or culture’.

It points out that this upheaval could last for months or longer”.—[Official Report, 22/12/15; col. 2491.]

Potential family separation is a concern raised by a number of organisations. Will the Minister confirm that the family test was applied to this provision and, if not, why not? If the answer is yes, would he be willing to publish the conclusions reached, as, to its credit, the Home Office did, in the equality statement Reforming Support for Failed Asylum Seekers? In particular, what impact do the Government believe the policy will have on all family members’ ability to play a role in family life—one of the questions in the family test? The fact that the DWP guidance suggests that this question is aimed mainly at work/family life balance issues should not allow the Home Office to ignore this clause’s potentially much more profound impact on the ability to play a role in family life where families are separated as a consequence of it.

This brings me to Amendment 227. In its recent note on this clause, the Home Office acknowledges its duty under Section 55 of the Border Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 to,

“have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of any child in the UK who will or may be affected by any immigration decision”.

It continues,

“where the decision maker is aware that there is a child who is affected by her decision, the decision maker will have regard to the best interests of that child as a primary consideration in deciding the human rights claim and also in deciding whether to certify the claim so that the appeal is heard after the person has left the UK”.

This is clearly meant to be reassuring but it does not reassure members of the Refugee Children’s Consortium, whose experience is that children’s best interests are not systematically and comprehensively assessed within immigration decision-making. Its briefing reminds us that the,

“UNHCR’s audit of the Home Office’s procedures highlights that, at present, there is no formal and systematic collection or recording of information that will be necessary … to a quality best interests consideration. This includes a lack of any mechanisms to obtain the views of the child”.

As the JCHR concluded in its final report of the last Parliament on the UK’s compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child:

“The Home Office seems still to prioritise the need to control immigration over the best interests of the child. This is unsatisfactory. The Government must ensure that the best interests of the child are paramount in immigration matters”.

In contrast, the Home Office note emphasises:

“While the best interests of the child are a primary consideration, they are not the only or an overriding consideration”.

Of course they are not the only consideration but established case law makes it clear that decision-makers must first understand what course of action would be in the best interests of the child before going on to take account of other considerations, including immigration control.

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[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

As the noble and learned Lord says, it would be invidious to build a whole argument on just one case, but I must add two points to what he has just said. First, the lady told me that she had several convictions and custodial sentences but none had been for longer than three months, which does not suggest that these were hugely serious offences. Secondly, this is about returning someone to Mogadishu in Somalia, with all the problems that country faces at present. Every day one hears reports of bombings and last week there were reports of bazookas being used on the streets. This is someone who has lived in the United Kingdom for 26 years and has had three children in this country in that time. That is why the case is relevant to this afternoon’s debate about the undesirability of breaking up family life in those circumstances.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I quite understand the noble Lord’s point. That is why the Secretary of State retains discretion over certification—this is not an absolute. In circumstances where there is a risk of serious irreversible harm because of conditions in a particular country or part of a country, there will not be certification. In circumstances where that would amount to a breach of an individual’s human rights, there will not be certification. There is that safety net. It may not be as large as some noble Lords would wish but it is there for these very cases. It is not dissimilar from the instance cited by the right reverend Prelate of a child being exposed to the very real risk of sexual violence or mutilation. Again, this is why the provisions of Clause 34 are not absolute and compel the Home Secretary to take a reasoned decision that has regard to a primary issue being the interests of the child.

A further point was raised by the noble Lord about whether and when the Secretary of State for the Home Department could be sure that she had all the information. Of course, there can be no absolutes. However, in a situation involving children, individuals—parents and carers—readily come forward to explain that there are children. Where the existence of children is identified, that matter is explored, as it is bound to be, pursuant to Section 55 of the Act I cited earlier.

My experience of being involved in the Kiarie and Byndloss cases before the Court of Appeal involved my examining the decision letters issued by the Home Office. These are not glib, one-paragraph notices, but very detailed and considered letters that were sent out, giving not only a decision but a reasoned foundation for that decision. I cannot—and would never dare to—assert that they are invariably right in every respect, or that they are exhaustive in every way. On the face of it, however, it is the practice, subject to the guidance given, to send out truly reasoned decision letters in these circumstances, with particular reference to the interests of the child or children who may be affected.

I turn to the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who also mentioned the Kiarie and Byndloss cases. She suggested that ILPA took a slightly different view of that decision from the one I have expressed. I would cleave, however, to the ratio of the unanimous decision of the Bench of the Court of Appeal: it is quite clear what it was saying with regard to this matter. It is not tied to the fact of criminality; it is tied to the facility for an out-of-country appeal and the ability for that appeal to be discharged in such a way that we can be satisfied that it is fair to the appellant. In other words, it may not be the most advantageous form of appeal but it does meet the essential requirements of effectiveness and fairness. That is not affected in one way or another by the pre-existing criminality, or alleged criminality, of the relevant appellant. To that extent, I am afraid I have to differ from her on that matter.

The noble Baroness mentioned the matter of a family test. However, a family test does not immediately arise in this context. I understand that the family test is designed to ensure that the Government’s policies overall encourage and support family life in the United Kingdom. We are dealing here with someone who is not entitled to be in the United Kingdom, and the policies that concern removing persons from the United Kingdom will therefore not always engage the family test.

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[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, for many years we have discussed the Azure card, and it is good to return to it—and also to say that we had one or two victories in our most recent discussions, whereby instead of the value of the card being scrapped altogether there is a rollover now, so people can save a little perhaps from £35 to go over to the next week.

We are dealing here with vulnerable people. People are never illegal; they are people just like every one of us in this Chamber, as I keep on repeating. We have the opportunity to either undermine the dignity of people or to restore it. We should remember that it is as we restore that dignity that we build a legacy for the future that is far more worth while than trying to diminish the rights of people. Imagine that you are in a queue at a checkout in a shop or a store and you are wondering whether, with £35—£5 a day—you have enough to pay for the goods you have in the basket or trolley. Imagine that you get to the cashier and the cashier says, “Sorry, you can’t have that”, because you have gone over the £35. By introducing cash benefits, we could at least give people a little bit of dignity in that queue, so that they are not embarrassed. They are people—and often people of great dignity and worth.

Today I read in a paper that I do not often read that there is an easyJet shop opening in north London where for at least a month most items are 25p each. I do not know whether other noble Lords have read about this. That is great—so the person with the Azure card goes there and finds out that they do not use it there. It is used only in 14 or 15 stores. And how would they get to north London, when you cannot use it to buy a bus ticket or a ticket on the underground? If they had cash, they could do that. I am reading between the lines in transitional instructions—not in what the Minister said in the other place—that the Azure card was to stay. We have another opportunity here to bring about a bit of dignity for those people. You have children with you—and children sometimes might want a piece of toffee or chocolate, but you cannot do it, because you do not have the money. And is that included in the goods that you can buy with the Azure card? Probably it is.

We have created second-class, third-class or fourth-class citizens existing on £5 a day. I spend more on that in the cafeteria and in the restaurants here, and I know that some people pay as much as that for a coffee in some places in our Parliament. But we have the opportunity, and we are moving in that direction whereby the Azure card is yesterday’s news and cash benefits in hand are today’s news. Then we have to restore the right of appeal. There is a lot more to be done, but I am sure that the Minister will give us some comforting words at the end of this debate.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, has reminded us that this clause is about forced destitution. Is it right that in a country such as this, which is one of the wealthiest in the world and upholds humane and civilised standards of decency, we should leave people without adequate resources believing that it is a way to somehow force them to leave the country? At Second Reading, I rehearsed some of the arguments. I mentioned Asylum Link Merseyside, of which I am a patron, and the work it has done that demonstrates that that simply does not work, because when parents, rightly or wrongly, think that their children’s lives will be at risk if they return home, they will generally consider that becoming destitute in the United Kingdom is the better option available to them. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is right to ask whether we wish this clause to remain part of the Bill and to argue why it should not stand part.

Asylum Link Merseyside works with asylum seekers, but as my noble friend Lord Sandwich and others have reminded the Committee, the Home Office commissioned its own report into these things—I think that the Home Office study covered a cohort of about 116 families. It found that the rate of absconding was 39% for those in the Section 9 pilot but only 21% in the comparable control group who remained supported. Only one family in the pilot was successfully removed, compared to nine successful removals in the control group, and,

“there was no significant increase in the number of voluntary returns … of unsuccessful asylum seeking families”.

That is why the Home Office concluded that Section 9 should not be used on a blanket basis. Removing Clause 37 would remove something that we know does not work, that is likely to be more costly, that is an inefficient support system and that will clearly, as others have said, put the welfare of children at risk.

The Bill will establish a highly bureaucratic system which will be burdensome to administer. Local authorities will remain the body to which destitute refused asylum seekers who have fallen through the safety net turn for support. They will have to conduct eligibility tests and assessments to see whether support is required in order to safeguard the welfare of a particular child. In these cash-strapped days, do we really believe that local authorities will be in a position to do that? The complexity of these new arrangements means that families with children are likely to fall through the gaps in the system and find themselves destitute, at least temporarily. The consequences of refused asylum seekers being left without support, even for short periods of time, is extremely serious as it causes illness and complicates existing health problems.

Some noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee, were able to attend a briefing a few weeks ago which was given by, among others, Still Human Still Here. I asked then for some illustrations of how this could work out in practice. I shall give two brief examples. Still Human Still Here mentioned a 2012 serious case review which involved an asylum seeker who developed a brain infection and could not look after her child. The boy starved to death and the mother died two days later. The family became destitute during the transition from asylum to mainstream support, leaving the family,

“dependent upon ad hoc payments by local agencies”.

The review expressed,

“concern about the adverse consequences on vulnerable children and the resulting additional pressure on local professional agencies”,

when support was cut off.

In 2011 a serious case review involving child Z noted that the circumstances of the child’s mother, a refused asylum seeker facing removal with a life-threatening illness and caring for a young child with few support networks,

“would challenge any individual's coping strategies”.

It stressed that the,

“need for high levels of support for someone with such vulnerabilities was clear”,

and the absence of this support was a major factor leading to the woman’s death and her child needing to be looked after.

Both these cases highlight the consequences of leaving vulnerable families without support, and I therefore have some questions for the Minister. The Government’s proposals leave the detail of the new support provisions, including the level of support, to regulations. First, will the Government provide an assurance that the level and type of support provided under Section 95A or new paragraphs 10A and 10B of Schedule 3 to the 2002 Act will meet the essential living needs of asylum seekers and that the housing provided will be appropriate for vulnerable children and their families?

Secondly, the Government have stated that it will not be possible to apply for Section 95A support after the prescribed grace period, which is 21 days for single adults and 90 days for families with children. Will the Government provide an assurance that the regulations which permit applications outside the grace period will include changes of circumstance, such as when asylum seekers who were previously supported by friends or family become destitute or when asylum seekers encounter a barrier to return after the grace period is over?

Thirdly, will the Government consider amending language which prevents local authorities providing support under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 where,

“there are reasonable grounds for believing that support will be provided”,

as it is likely to leave families destitute for considerable periods of time while responsibility is determined?

Fourthly, and penultimately, while local authorities will be able to provide accommodation and subsistence support when they are satisfied that it is needed to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child, regulations will be laid specifying factors which the local authority must or must not take into account in making this decision. What factors do the Government intend to specify must or must not be taken into account?

Lastly, will the Government provide an assurance that the best interests of the child, which were referred to by the Minister’s noble and learned friend in earlier exchanges, shall be a primary consideration in the operation of any actions concerning children in the Bill —a point that I think will be reflected on in response to what the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said earlier—and that the new mechanisms of support set up in the Bill will ensure that every child has a right to,

“a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development”?

Those words are required by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I hope the Government will consider bringing forward their own amendment at least to put that in the Bill.

I realise that the Minister may not be able to answer those five questions now, although I hope the Box will be able to provide him with some response. However, at least between now and Report, I hope that he will give reassurance to all noble Lords who have participated in today’s debate supporting the excellent points that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made in moving that this clause should not stand part of the Bill.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, as we now embark on Part 5, which deals with levels of support and the treatment of migrants, it might be helpful if I put some general points on the record. First, I readily accept that we are talking about a vulnerable group of people. Irrespective of whether their asylum claims are upheld, they have travelled from another country and find themselves in a country where they often have difficulties with the language. One does not minimise in any way that they are a vulnerable group.

Secondly, when the Immigration and Asylum Act was passed by the previous Labour Government in 1999, the provision under Section 95(5) for people in need was a recognition of our international obligations to provide a basic standard of care for people who had applied for asylum in our country and for our protection while their case was being considered. I do not think that it was ever the intention of the Government at that time, as evidenced by their attempt to reform Schedule 3 to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, that this would be an open-ended commitment, irrespective of whether the person was within the asylum process or had gone through that process and found that their claim was not upheld. It was not intended for that support to continue ad infinitum.

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[Lord Bates]

That is one of the reasons why, in the preceding group, we talked about the policy of deport first, appeal later. If people are appealing from outside the country, there is less of a risk that they will abscond. We should also note, when comparing this with the 2002 Act, the different way in which we now engage families in this situation—through caseworkers, through Migrant Help and by working with them to manage their return to the United Kingdom. There is also a very generous grant available to them—up to £2,000 per person in addition to travel costs—when they agree to do so. So judged in the round, within the wider package of things that we are trying to do in the Immigration Bill, we can actually see that that figure will improve. But I am sure that the noble Lord will hold us to account when those figures are published each year to see how we are doing.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, the Minister will recall that I put five questions to him. Although he has in his ministerial reply touched tangentially on some of those points, I wonder whether he would be good enough to confirm that he will write to me with a response to the particular points I made.

[Lord Bates]

I apologise if I did not address those questions specifically head-on. Of course, I am blessed with having a team of officials behind me who capture the gaps in my response. We have a track record, I think, of following up in some detail to plug those gaps so that Members have the information that they need to scrutinise the legislation before the House.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 228 and I am grateful to those noble Lords who have added their name to it. This concerns what is commonly called the “moving on” or “grace” period, during which an asylum seeker granted status continues to receive asylum support but after which it is expected that they will have sorted out mainstream financial support, employment and accommodation. The current period is only 28 days. The amendment would increase this to 40 days.

As I said when we discussed the previous group, I applaud the Home Office for listening to the concerns expressed about the grace period proposed in the consultation on asylum support for failed asylum seekers, but I was disappointed that the same document stated:

“There are no plans to change the grace period arrangements for those granted asylum or other status here”.

I hope that we might be able to persuade the Minister to look again at this also, particularly given that the grace period for failed asylum seekers will now be 90 days.

I was prompted to table the amendment as a result of reading the recent Work and Pensions Committee report Benefit Delivery. The report referred to the research evidence suggesting that,

“28 days is insufficient time for refugees to make the transition from Home Office support in many cases”.

This includes the DWP’s own research which,

“showed it takes on average 32 days from receipt of claim to first payment for a claimant with a National Insurance number and 35 days for a claimant without”.

The Committee asked why only 28 days is allowed, when it is clear from the research that,

“it is in many cases insufficient”.

It recommended that,

“the DWP conduct an immediate investigation into the ‘move-on’ period and work with the Home Office to amend the length of time if necessary”.

I realise that this amendment goes further, but I do not believe further investigation is necessary, given the evidence that already exists, including from the British Red Cross, as cited by the Work and Pensions Committee—and I am grateful to the BRC for its help with the amendment—and also an earlier report by Freedom from Torture.

It was in fact that report, on the poverty barrier faced by survivors of torture, that first alerted me to this issue. I tried in vain to find out who had responsibility for this matter in DWP and, to my shame, when I did not find out I let it go. But the publication of the Work and Pensions Committee report, following the recent research report from the British Red Cross, convinced me that we must use the opportunity provided by this Bill to address what is a very real and unnecessary injustice.

The Red Cross research identified 23 factors at play affecting the speed with which refugees are able to move on to mainstream support. For some people, five to 10 of these factors could be holding up progress. The research documents the complexities of the transition period, involving multiple stakeholders and the issuing and management of multiple documents. During a one-month data collection process, the study found that 14 out of 101 people helped by the BRC refugee support service in Birmingham were in the moving-on period, and two out of 55 people in Plymouth. All 14 participants in Birmingham were destitute, with neither financial support nor adequate accommodation. All 11 for whom it had sufficient information had been without support for more than 15 days, five for 15 to 35 days, and three for more than 75 days. In Plymouth, both had been without support for between 15 and 35 days.

BRC has provided me with a case study that was not part of the research. Hagos is a 19 year-old from Eritrea living in Stoke on Trent. He was granted status on 16 October and claimed jobseeker’s allowance on 29 October. In case anyone is wondering why there was a delay in claiming, let me remind noble Lords that claiming benefits can sometimes be difficult for people at the best of times. In his oral evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee, Fabio Apollonio of the BRC explained:

“It is clear to us that at a particular stage when a person is just coming out of a trauma, perhaps, they are thinking of what to do next and they are bombarded with a lot of things to do and very often they do not even start the process until very late. It is very difficult to engage with a benefit agency at that stage unless you are prepared and you have been receiving advice from someone who can explain to you clearly what you should do without delay”.

Anyway, back to Hagos. His asylum support was terminated on 19 November. His first JSA payment was not made until 7 January—held up in part because of incorrect advice given by Jobcentre Plus staff—so this young man, still in his teens, experienced destitution for a period of 50 days.

Another example provided in the West Yorkshire Destitute Asylum Network’s submission to the Work and Pensions Committee was of a woman with severe mental health problems, with two children, who was told that her claim for benefits could not be processed until two days before her asylum support was due to end. It then took over a month for the first payment to be made. The family were left in temporary accommodation without any subsistence support for a number of weeks and had to rely on food parcels and hardship payments from a member organisation of the network. As the network points out, many new refugees lack the safety net of savings or social networks able to support them through this difficult period.

The researchers concluded that:

“Our findings show that moving from asylum support to mainstream benefits and employment is a real ordeal for new refugees—and usually takes much longer than the … ‘grace period’ given by the government”.

I do not believe this is hyperbole, and even though it is a small study, it is consistent with the other available evidence.

In particular, the psychological impact of the ordeal that new refugees face is documented by the Freedom from Torture report that I mentioned. It observes that:

“The relief of gaining security of legal status can dissipate fairly quickly as the reality becomes apparent, while at the same time the survivor may be particularly vulnerable psychologically, as the full impact of torture and the loss of their former life may begin to be fully felt at this time of transition”.

Clinicians interviewed for the research said that it was at this time of transition and great psychological vulnerability that clients were most likely to experience destitution. They commentated on the devastating impact that this could have as, in their experience, when survivors of torture are effectively made destitute, it can lead to a deterioration in their mental health and/or to an increased risk of suicide. It can also have a long-term impact on their ability to recover from their past trauma, even after they are no longer in destitute circumstances. As one clinician put it:

“There’s nothing worse for our clients than thinking all your problems have ended because you get ‘status’ and then becoming homeless”.

If we stop and think how we would feel in that situation, it is all too understandable.

I do not believe that this is what anyone in the Government wants. It is a policy of neglect and bureaucratic inertia rather than of deliberate intent, but it is no less cruel for that. A number of practical reforms that could help are detailed both in the BRC report and in evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee—for instance, to start the clock of the grace period ticking only once a refugee has received key documents such as an NI number. But this problem has been going on for years. Indeed, the Home Affairs Committee recommended in 2013 that,

“asylum support should not be discontinued until the Department for Work and Pensions has confirmed that the recipient is receiving mainstream benefits”.

I am afraid that I do not have confidence in the statutory agencies to ensure that measures are implemented effectively without legislative change. Of course, the sooner a refugee can move from asylum support to mainstream support, the better, but in order to ensure that they do not drop into a horrible limbo in between, the time has come to extend the period to 40 days as a basic safeguard against destitution.

I am sure that the Minister is not comfortable with this situation. Therefore, would it be possible to arrange a meeting involving representatives of the Home Office and the DWP together with interested Peers and representatives of key organisations supporting refugees through the moving-on period to look at what might be possible before Report? I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, put the case eloquently and persuasively. She and I attended a briefing with the British Red Cross and she then tabled the amendment. I added my name as a signatory because it puts, as she said, a real and unnecessary injustice right. It is a basic safeguard against enforced destitution.

The Minister needs no convincing about the merits of the British Red Cross. He has not only raised significant sums for the organisation in a voluntary capacity but I know that he has huge admiration for the work that it does. Representatives told us in the briefing that we had with them that they had helped to reunite 300 refugee families last year in the UK. They also illustrated from their own experience that destitution in the asylum system is a worsening and deepening problem. They supported 9,000 refugees and asylum seekers who were destitute in 2015, compared with 7,700 in 2014, which is an increase of some 15%. That included people granted refugee status but not given enough time to transition to mainstream benefits in the way that the noble Baroness just described.

Nearly 44% of destitute refugees and asylum seekers supported by the Red Cross last year were from Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Syria, all of which are among the world’s top refugee-producing countries. Although I agree with what the Minister said earlier about people seeking better lives from countries such as Albania—a point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in his intervention—we must never lose sight of some of the hell-holes from which people are coming.

When the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and I were at Yarl’s Wood today, two men had just arrived off the back of lorries from Iran. Another had arrived from Mosul in Iraq. The situations they had come from were such that any noble Lord in the Chamber tonight would have attempted to escape from too. We have to be clear that these are not economic migrants or people who are just coming for a better life. Some of them have come from the most perilous and appalling situations.

If the Bill is left unaltered, it could plunge thousands more people in those kinds of situations into poverty, including families who are unable to leave the UK through no fault of their own, for example due to a lack of identification documents to provide their nationality or because they have no viable or secure place to return to.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

230D: Clause 38, page 40, line 18, at end insert “subject to subsection (2).
(2) This section and Schedule 9 shall not have effect in respect of any former relevant child if a local authority by whom he or she was looked after failed to ensure that he or she was advised and assisted in connection with—
(a) an application for him or her to be registered as a British citizen in circumstances where he or she was either entitled to be registered as a British citizen or otherwise entitled to apply to be registered;(b) an application for him or her to be granted indefinite leave to remain in circumstances where he or she satisfied requirements under the immigration rules for a grant of indefinite leave to remain; or(c) an application for him or her to be granted limited leave to remain in circumstances where he or she satisfied requirements under the immigration rules for a grant of limited leave to remain.(3) In this section—
“former relevant child” has the meaning described in section 23C of the Children Act 1989 (continuing functions in respect of former relevant children), and“immigration rules” means the rules as laid before Parliament by the Secretary of State under section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 (general provisions for regulation and control).”

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

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[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, the Minister told us he received stern looks at the beginning of this group of amendments because of the time that they would take to consider. He has been his usual patient and courteous self in the way that he has addressed the points that have been raised, and 56 minutes on a total of 37 amendments, 26 of which were tabled by the Government, does not seem to be a wholly unreasonable time to take. Indeed, surely it is an example of this House doing its duty to scrutinise, line by line, clause by clause and schedule by schedule, a huge Bill that raises important issues which have been touched on by all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate this evening, which has been passionate and well informed. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, my noble friend Lord Hylton, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble friend Lord Listowel.

It was the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who reminded us of the questions put by the Children’s Commissioner. The commissioner is, after all, not a non-governmental organisation or a charity: his remit is to promote and protect children’s rights. The four questions to which the noble Baroness referred still need to be answered. She talked about the difference between “may” and “must”. This is a case of “must”: those questions must be answered.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, reminded us that turning 18 does not absolve us of our responsibilities. I was thinking of a friend of mine who asked me which were the most challenging years in bringing up my children. I said that a friend had told me that the first 30 years had been the worst, and I suspect that that is true of the experience of many of your Lordships. The children and young adults we are talking about here have no one to fend for them. They are often unaccompanied. They do not have all the resources of the state. They cannot just be left to their own devices. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, was right to remind us of the consequences of people without resources sleeping rough and being pushed into destitution, and how that can lead to mental illness or become a recruiting ground for people who draw them into all sorts of bad pursuits.

As many have said, my noble friend Lord Listowel has been a tireless advocate on behalf of young people. He has huge first-hand experience, and I know that the Minister will take seriously all the points that he made this evening. I welcome what the Minister said about the continuing discussions that will take place outside your Lordships’ House after this evening. There has been some movement in the government amendments tonight—it would be churlish not to thank the Minister for that—but that young person who perhaps personifies the desire of all of us always to receive more, Oliver, may be an inspiration in those discussions. Many more things need to be done, and I hope that the Minister will ensure that, as he put it earlier, the sentiment will be followed by the detail. That is clearly what we need between now and Report. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 230D withdrawn.

Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

234A: After Clause 38, insert the following new Clause—
“Conditions for grant of asylum: cases of genocide
(1) A person seeking asylum in the United Kingdom who belongs to a national, ethnical, racial or religious group which is, in the place from which that person originates, subject to the conditions detailed in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, shall be presumed to meet the conditions for asylum in the United Kingdom.
(2) The adjudication of whether the group to which the person seeking asylum belongs meets the description specified in subsection (1) shall be determined by a Justice of the Supreme Court after consideration of the available facts.
(3) Applicants for asylum in the United Kingdom from groups designated under this section may submit their applications and have them assessed at British missions overseas.”

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in moving the amendment, I thank those noble Lords, from all sides of your Lordships’ House, who encouraged me to table it, and especially the co-signatories, my noble friend Lady Cox, the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne, and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. The amendment provides a presumption that a person will be granted asylum when a judge of the Supreme Court has determined that a group to which that person belongs is, in the place from which that person originates, subject to genocide. The presumption will operate in the UK but, in addition, applicants would be able to apply at British consular posts overseas. Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as follows:

“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”.

Just one week ago, in Strasbourg, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution condemning the actions of Daesh/ISIS in the Middle East as genocide. The resolution, “Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq”, states that ISIS,

“has perpetrated acts of genocide and other serious crimes punishable under international law”.

The resolution unequivocally states that the actions that ISIS has committed are genocide, and was passed by 117 votes for and just one against. While we have been considering Day 4 of the Committee stage of this Bill, the European Parliament has been debating and will, tomorrow, vote on a similar resolution to that of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, identifying the plight of minorities such as Yazidis and Christians as genocide. This is a view also shared by 75 Members of your Lordships’ House and another place, who wrote to the Prime Minister just before Christmas urging Her Majesty’s Government to declare events in Syria and Iraq as a genocide. In that December letter to the Prime Minister, the signatories said:

“There is no doubt in our minds that the targeting of Christians and other religious minorities by Daesh falls within that definition”.

Signatories include the former chief of staff, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, and the former head of MI5, the noble Lord, Lord Evans. The letter urges the British Government to seek agreement at the United Nations that we should name things for what they are. The letter insisted:

“This is not simply a matter of semantics. There would be two main benefits from the acceptance by the UN that genocide is being perpetrated”.

The first is that those responsible would one day face a day of judicial reckoning, and the second is that it would require the 147 states who have signed the convention to step up to the plate and,

“face up to their duty to take the necessary action to ‘prevent and punish’ the perpetrators”.

There is now clear evidence that this genocide includes assassinations of church leaders, mass murders, torture, kidnapping for ransom, the sexual enslavement and systematic rape of Christian girls and women, forcible conversions, the destruction of churches, monasteries, cemeteries and Christian artefacts and theft of lands and wealth from Christian clergy and laity alike. The caliphate has made public statements taking credit for the mass murder of Christians and expressing its intent to eliminate these minority communities and other groups, such as homosexuals, from its territory.

The Government response thus far seeks to avoid the duty set out in the convention stating:

“It is a long-standing Government policy that any judgements on whether genocide has occurred are a matter for the international judicial system rather than governments or other non-judicial bodies”.

This is a frustrating and circular argument. Which international courts and judges should decide, on the basis of what process and in considering what evidence? What steps are the Government actually taking to ensure that those courts do indeed urgently consider the matter and reach a conclusion? On 16 December in Parliamentary Answer HL4327, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, said:

“We are not submitting any evidence of possible genocide against Yazidis and Christians to international courts, nor have we been asked to”.

As for referring this matter to the International Criminal court she told me:

“I understand that, as the matter stands, Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor, has determined not to take these matters forward”.—[Official Report, 16/12/15; col. 2146.]

If no one is willing to name this for what it is or to take this forward then the genocide convention becomes nothing more than window dressing and is an insult to the intention of the original drafters and ratifiers as “never again” inevitably repeats itself over and over again.

Meanwhile, people are being ruthlessly targeted, and so is their culture and history. Last week, we learned that ISIS has obliterated Mosul’s ancient, stone-walled monastery of St Elijah, dating from the sixth century, where monks had etched “chi rho”, the first Greek letters of the word “Kristos”. This attempt to eradicate memory has been accompanied by the obliteration of those whose beliefs do not comply with theirs. Last year, 200 Assyrian Christians in the Khabour river valley were kidnapped and jihadi websites showed graphic executions of some of the group, warning that others would be executed if the ransoms remained unpaid. Last August, the ancient Saint Eliane monastery in central Syria, which was founded more than 1,500 years ago, was destroyed by ISIS and dozens of Syriac Christians were abducted. Last year, a UN report said that ISIS continues,

“to deliberately and wantonly loot and destroy places of religious and cultural significance … which ISIS considers as un-Islamic. Generally, these sites are looted before being destroyed”.

Along with the Yazidi community, Christians have been told to convert or die. Children have been seized, propagandised and indoctrinated with jihadist ideology. That UN report warns that the situation continues to deteriorate, saying:

“UNAMI/OHCHR continues to have grave concerns for the welfare and safety of those held in ISIL captivity”.

The United Nations report states that that ISIS is holding 3,500 slaves hostage, mainly women and children. It said that ISIS has committed acts that,

“amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide”,

against minority groups, and that ISIS’s “systematic and widespread violence”, including beheadings, shootings and burnings, was “staggering”. Mass graves honeycomb part of the region. In a recent Parliamentary Answer HL4065, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, told me:

“We are aware of reports that mass graves have been discovered … at least one of which was allegedly booby trapped by Daesh”.

Murder is accompanied by other horrors. An estimated 5,000 young Yazidi women and girls have been abducted by ISIS, suffering horrific and prolonged sexual abuse. They were imprisoned for months on end, beaten, burnt and exposed to daily rape and torture. Horrifyingly, some of those victims were as young as nine. Sadly, some girls have taken their own lives in desperate attempts to escape the horrors of captivity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

Certainly, the situation is that we would take families from within the camps and from the surrounding areas. It is not exclusively from the camps; it is those who are identified as being in greatest need. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, raises an interesting point on the camps. I shall certainly feed that back to the department and seek some reassurance, and perhaps write to him and other noble Lords on what protections are arranged in the camps where DfID and others are involved to be sensitive to the needs of Christians.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

I thank my noble friend Lady Cox, the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth, Lord Dubs, Lord Marlesford and Lord Judd, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for their contributions to the debate and for supporting the amendment. I thank the Minister as well for the characteristic way in which he has tried to deal with the arguments that have been raised during our debate.

He mentioned the conference that will be taking place tomorrow. Last week I attended a briefing that was hosted by Justine Greening, the Secretary of State at the Department for International Development. Throughout the presentation, not once was the position of minorities mentioned. I specifically raised that at the end of the presentation and the Secretary of State was helpful in her response, but it was not a presentation about events on the ground; it was about money being provided in humanitarian relief and aid. Important though that is, it is not the subject of the amendment and it is not the subject of my concern. I pay tribute to the Government for what they have done by way of humanitarian aid and I agree with them that countries such as Germany, which is co-hosting the conference, need to do more on that front and that we need to tackle these problems at source. Until we rectify some of the reasons why people are being driven out of their homeland, we will continue to see this exodus of biblical proportions.

The Minister and I are on the same page on that. I agree with what the Government are doing in that respect, but money and aid are not the same as recognising what is happening on the ground as a genocide. That is why I cited the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe last week. We will see what the European Parliament decides today, but other national Parliaments, the 75 Members of both Houses, and the Motion referred to by my noble friend in the House of Commons last week say something altogether different, which is why the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, said he was ashamed that this debate was necessary at all. So am I in many respects; we should not need to be debating this.

The Supreme Court is different from the Government. It is one step aside. If there is no evidence to demonstrate that there is genocide then the Supreme Court would say that. The Justices of the Supreme Court would make that determination and nothing further would have to happen. But if it decided that there was a prima facie case of genocide, then it would kick-start all the other things that need to happen, especially the special status that would then be given to those groups who had been targeted. Yes, they include Christians, but not Christians alone. They would be prioritised because they are victims of genocide. That would be the reason.

I am grateful for what the noble Lord said about meeting those of us who proposed the amendment tonight. I welcome that and certainly I would be happy to take part in discussions between now and Report, but it is important that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Justice and DfID, which the Minister referred to, are also part and parcel of that discussion. I know that some of the pressures against doing something on this issue have come from other departments.

We were told during this brief debate that we should recognise the magnitude of this catastrophe, but people had no idea of the scale of what is happening. There cannot be decent societies in the Middle East without plurality, diversity, tolerance and respect. Surely those have to be the reasons why we put this at the very top of the agenda. I have said before that Einstein’s definition of insanity is simply doing the same thing over and over again. Whatever military campaigns we have, however necessary it may be to engage in military action, will not fundamentally change things on the ground. What marks us out as different from organisations such as ISIS is our belief in the rule of law. Surely this goes to the very heart of what it means to believe in the rule of law and to uphold conventions that we are signatories to and which impose on us a duty to protect and to prosecute.

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I also give notice that I intend to bring this back on Report if we are unable to make appropriate progress.

Amendment 234A withdrawn.

Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to lend support to the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, and to my noble friend Lord Paddick, in opposing the Questions that Clauses 17 and 18 stand part of the Bill. The two clauses extend stop, search and seizure powers—powers that have a long history of being acknowledged as contributing to racial disharmony and breakdown in community cohesion. In 1981, Lord Scarman, in his reports on the Brixton riots, concluded that mass use of stop and searches were a direct cause of the riots.

As recently as 2014, announcing reforms to stop and search under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, said that,

“when innocent people are stopped and searched for no good reason, it is hugely damaging to the relationship between the police and the public. In those circumstances it is an unacceptable affront to justice”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/4/14; col. 831]

BME people in Britain today suffer such affronts to justice usually with a certain amount of stoicism. However, this Bill seeks to expand powers of stop, search and seizure. It is inevitable—and I would go as far as to say it is the Government’s intent—that the number of stop and searches of those from visible ethnic minorities would increase under the powers contained in this Bill.

There is a great deal of documented evidence that current car stops are disproportionately targeted at those from BME backgrounds. I refer to the survey carried out by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, already cited by my noble friend Lord Paddick and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence. Rather than going over the figures again, I draw attention to the sample size of the survey—more than 10,000—and contrast that with the evaluation of the pilot carried out in the West Midlands, on which the Government are basing their evidence for rolling it out nationally which has happened today.

The Race Equality Foundation expresses concern that the Government have produced no policy equality statement on these stop, search and seizure provisions, and I share that concern. I hope that the Minister will address that. Such respected bodies as Liberty and the National Black Police Association have expressed deep concerns about the potential of Clauses 17 and 18 to foster distrust and disharmony between the police and the public. Both organisations express regret that the good work of the Home Secretary to date to undo some of the harm associated with previous inappropriate use of stop and search will be undermined by the proposals under Clauses 17 and 18.

It seems that a great deal of power already resides with the Home Office to revoke the licences of illegal immigrants, without resort to a measure that would exacerbate the situation and damage the public’s relationship with the police, who, as the NBPA rightly says, would become the “whipping boy” for immigration officers.

If the Government wish to tighten these measures further, perhaps they would be better to consider tightening the issuance and monitoring of licences by the DVLA, and extending the same responsibilities and duties to that body as they are seeking to deliver to private landlords.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I hope the Minister will listen, as I know he usually would, to the contributions that have been made on all sides of your Lordships’ House, but especially to those of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence.

As those contributions were being made, my mind went back to those riots in 1981, of course not just in Brixton but in Toxteth in Liverpool. I had been a young Member of Parliament for about 18 months. In the weeks before the riots occurred, I had raised on the Floor of the House in another place the dangerous relationship that had been deteriorating between police and public in that part of Liverpool. Sir Kenneth Oxford was then the chief constable on Merseyside and he took a very provocative view towards the black community in that neighbourhood. I was not entirely surprised when, on a hot summer’s night in 1981, I was asked to come urgently to Upper Parliament Street, where two and a half days of rioting began, in which 1,000 policemen ended up in the local hospital. I dread to think what would have happened if guns had been so readily and easily available on the streets then as they often are now.

As a result of those riots, I visited the home of the young man who had been involved at the very outset, Leroy Cooper, who was a constituent of mine. I sat with him and his father as they described to me how the trigger had taken place on the street in Lodge Lane in Liverpool as an overzealous policeman confronted this young man. It was a traffic incident, which plays exactly into the amendments before your Lordships’ House today—not a car but a motorcycle—and, as a consequence of the anger that had been building up for some time, it erupted and riots occurred which had a devastating effect.

The overuse of stop and search powers at that time, which had been part of the incident, was set aside in the months and years that followed and a much different form of policing emerged. Bernard Hogan-Howe, who became the assistant chief constable on Merseyside, played a leading part in the introduction of strong community policing, having learned the lessons of what had gone before. It would be a tragedy if we were now to turn the clock back. I hope therefore that the Minister will think very carefully about and look at the terms of this very good amendment, Amendment 160, which says that,

“the authorised officer has reasonable grounds to believe the power should be exercised urgently”.

It does not take away the powers. As the right reverend Prelate said, those powers already exist in plenty of statute if there is a need to intervene. But something that could be used and seen as a deliberate attack on one part of our community will do nothing to enhance community relations. It will not foster good policing in our cities and could actually have a deleterious effect.

For all those reasons, I hope that the Minister will think very carefully about the arguments that have been deployed today. If he cannot agree today, I hope he will at least hold meetings with Members of your Lordships’ House between now and Report to see whether this could be modified.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My noble friend Lady Lawrence of Clarendon has eloquently set out the reasons for her concerns about Clauses 17 and 18, which create an offence of driving when unlawfully in the UK and give powers to carry out searches relating to driving offences. The Bill provides a power for an authorised officer—police or immigration officers or third parties designated by the Secretary of State—to search premises, including a vehicle or residence, where the officer has reasonable grounds for believing that an individual is in possession of a driving licence, is not lawfully resident and the licence is on the premises.

As has already been said, the National Black Police Association has expressed concern at the potential of these provisions to undermine vital work promoting good relations between police and the communities they serve, saying that they could result in a return to the days of sus laws and the police being seen as part of the Immigration Service. Evidence indicates that black and minority ethnic drivers are around twice as likely to be stopped as white drivers.

The situation will not have been made any easier by evidence given by the police to the Commons Public Bill Committee when, as my noble friend Lady Lawrence of Clarendon said, a Metropolitan Police chief superintendent explained that they already had a power to stop any vehicle to ascertain ownership and driver details and, having done that, they would then inquire into whether the driver had the authority to drive that vehicle. He went on to say that, to fall within the new provisions in the Bill that we are debating, the police would then most likely need to do a further check with the immigration authorities, which at that stage would give them reasonable grounds—but not necessarily proof—based on a search of the immigration database to believe that the person driving was an illegal immigrant. In other words, these clauses relating to driving could effectively result in adding a routine immigration check into a traffic-stop regime which many in black and minority ethnic groups already regard as operating in a discriminatory fashion.

The points that have been made by my noble friend Lady Lawrence, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and others about the impact of these two clauses on fostering distrust and disharmony between the police and the public require a full and considered response from the Government, including the Government’s assessment of the impact on community cohesion if they disagree with what has been said on these proposed measures. This is yet another potential example in the Bill of measures that are intended by the Government to encourage illegal migrants to depart, by making it harder for them to live and work here, having highly likely unintended adverse consequences—this time for the role of the police, community relations and racial harmony.

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A number of noble Lords referred to the comments by Chief Superintendent David Snelling in another place. In his evidence to the Public Bill Committee last year, he indicated that the police would use this power in the context of intelligence-led policing. If police have cause to stop a vehicle, they may then check the circumstances of the driver. If the driver is found to be an illegal migrant, their vehicle may be detained under these powers. In applying these new powers, the police will first have to have cause to stop a vehicle; for example, for a suspected motoring offence. They may then check the circumstances of the driver. There are, therefore, a series of objective steps that will be followed. This clause will not result in the police randomly stopping cars in order to check the immigration status of the driver. In the light of these points, I hope the noble Lord will agree to withdraw this amendment at this stage.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

Will the noble Lord tell your Lordships what will be done then to monitor whether we return to the stop-and-search regime that he described, where only one in 10 stops had any real legitimacy? Will there be accountability? Will statistics be published every year so we know how often the power has been used and how often it has been successful?

[Lord Bates]

Under one of the proposals introduced for stop-and-search powers, we are now collecting those data. The ability to make the statements that I have, about how stop and search has actually been reduced, is a very good thing. This is such a sensitive area but also one where I believe a significant amount of good work has been done in policing. We would not want anything in this to in any way undermine that wider effort to improve community cohesion and trust between the police and the communities which they serve. I would be very happy to organise a meeting with interested Peers between Committee and Report to explore this area further, to try to offer further reassurances and to hear more about any specific concerns.

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[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 176 and 177 seek to address two key issues affecting migrants not covered in the Bill. Amendment 176 deals with the immigration health surcharge, which came into effect last April. This requires migrants from non-European economic areas to pay an upfront health charge of £200 a year for each member of the family, including children, when they apply to have a visa renewed or submit an application for leave to remain in the UK. The charge is designed basically to cover any NHS care that the migrant or their family might need while their application is being processed, but it does not take account of how long each migrant has lived in the UK, their financial situation or whether they have dependent children. The people involved are largely industrious non-EEA citizens who have lived and worked in the UK for many years, but they face unsurmountable bills when they come to renew their visa. This causes major problems because almost half of them are in low-paid employment.

Irrespective of their financial situation, if they apply for leave to remain in the UK—which, if granted, is normally for a period of two and a half years—they must pay the health surcharge of £200 per person, per year, plus an administration charge of £649 per person. So a mother with three children would need to raise £2,000 to pay the health charge and a further £2,500 to pay the administration charge. That is a total of more than £4,500. Families unable to pay cannot renew their visa even in circumstances where an extension would be likely to be granted. So they are faced with a stark choice: they either find the money or they face destitution or deportation.

A simple, practical solution to this problem would be to allow these migrants to pay the health charge in instalments, rather than upfront. This would make a very significant difference. I urge the Government to consider this, not least because it would cost practically nothing to do it.

Amendment 177 seeks to extend the categories of migrant exempted from the health charge to cover people who have fled domestic violence, and dependent children. I recently visited the Cardinal Hume Centre in Westminster, which does outstanding work in this area. I met one of the many people there helping, whom I will refer to as Ruth. Ruth was originally from Kenya and came to the UK with her husband on a two-year spouse visa. But after they had had their two children, her husband became both physically and sexually violent. Like most people in this situation, Ruth was terrified to do anything about it. But she eventually plucked up the courage to flee, and is now living in a domestic violence refuge. Her husband, of course, kept control of all the papers, so she had no idea that her documents had expired. So here we have a woman who has been abused; she has had to flee her home; she has two children to care for; she has got no job; and she has got no money. How on earth can she possibly raise the money in order to pay the health charge and application fee that her family need in order to renew her visa?

Women in these situations are extremely susceptible to exploitation. Their reliance on the charity of others can leave them vulnerable, with nowhere to turn when things go wrong. Enforcing this charge just strengthens the hand of the abusers, because people—women in particular—feel unable to escape their partner or their situation because of fears of deportation or destitution. At the moment, asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking and those under humanitarian protection are already, rightly, exempted from the health surcharge. The amendment would extend that exemption to abused parents and their children.

In theory, a fee waiver system is available for migrants unable to pay the visa application fee. However, in practice, it is simply not working. Many migrants are being denied this waiver despite significant evidence to show that they meet all the criteria; I have many examples that I would be happy to share with the Minister. So I hope that the Government will consider extending these exemptions to victims of domestic violence and their dependents. I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I am a signatory to Amendments 176 and 177 so ably moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. Amendment 176 provides for the ability to pay the immigration health surcharge incrementally, as the noble Baroness explained, and Amendment 177 deals with exemptions from the immigration health surcharge.

As the noble Baroness said, the fee waiver system, which is supposed to protect migrants unable to afford visa application fees, is simply not working in practice. All the evidence suggests that the fee waiver system is currently failing the very families who need it most. By way of illustration I will refer to another case from the Cardinal Hume Centre which is within Division Bell distance of the Palace of Westminster, where we are meeting today. Among its other clients, the centre is working with a lone parent who has four children, all aged under 18. In that context, I would be grateful if the Minister, when he comes to reply, will consider the implications therefore of Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that parties who are signatories to that convention, as we are,

“shall strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her rights of access to such health care services”.

Also, perhaps he will comment on the applicability of this to all children, regardless of their immigration status, which is further emphasised in the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 6, paragraph 12, which states that,

“the enjoyment of rights stipulated in the Convention are not limited to children who are citizens of a State party and must … be available to all children—including asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children—irrespective of their nationality, immigration status or statelessness”.

In the case of this lone parent with her four children, the fees to extend her family’s leave to remain, including the health surcharge, will be in excess of £6,000. Due to the threat of destitution, that family is currently supported by a London local authority, but they are still struggling to meet essential living costs, yet the Home Office has refused the fee waiver application, despite significant evidence being provided by the centre and the client. Perhaps the Minister, like the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, would like to visit the centre to see that family for himself and talk to them so that the illustrations that the noble Baroness and I have given can be taken into account as he comes to consider these arguments between now and Report.

Sadly, these are just illustrative examples of many cases that could be raised today. If accepted, the admirable amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, would simplify the existing rules and give proper protection to all survivors of domestic violence, not just those who have been granted the destitute domestic violence concession.

The current protections and exemptions are far too narrow in definition. One unacceptable consequence is that professionals in the field report that many women remain deterred from leaving abusive relationships. As the Office for National Statistics points out in its Focus On: Violent Crime and Sexual Offences 2011-12 for England and Wales, published on 7 February 2013, women are “more likely” to be the victims of domestic violence than men and can be left in a precarious and dangerous situation as a consequence of abuse. It is therefore imperative to simplify the rules and exemptions in this regard as much as possible to ensure that all victims of domestic abuse, in particular women, are properly supported and protected.

The burden of sourcing the necessary money to pay the health surcharge causes many families and individuals great distress. Granting applicants the option of paying the fee incrementally, as the noble Baroness described, would be a significant step in easing the strain and worry on those affected by the charge. Incremental payments would be a particular benefit to domestic workers, who tend to be on low pay, typically no more than the minimum wage, and who have to save not only for the application fees but also for the health surcharge and other essential living costs. This leaves them in a very precarious and vulnerable financial position and inevitably can make them susceptible to exploitation as they may have little option but to borrow money from people with few scruples to pay the necessary fees upfront.

We should also consider the impact that the burden of sourcing this money has on the cohesion and durability of families. As research from the Tavistock Institute shows, financial stress and being in poverty add to the risk of family breakdown. The introduction of incremental payments would make the charge more manageable as applicants would not face the intense pressure of sourcing large sums upfront. Overall, these amendments represent a sensible, modest solution and a way of mitigating many of the unreasonable challenges that migrants encounter when seeking to extend their leave to remain. I am therefore very happy to support them.

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[Lord Bates]

If you offered interest free credit in the commercial world, I guess that probably most people would take advantage of it. Therefore, the cost might be quite significant, unless the noble Baroness is proposing an additional charge for accessing the system through an instalment process, which I do not think she is. The points I made earlier related to the current system. I have not just arrived at this point, as it were. When the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, raised this issue with me—the week before last, I think—I checked with officials and looked at the system. I was told that it is very difficult because at the moment everything is up front—the costs and everything—and the boxes have to be ticked in order to move on to the frame. As I say, we are not making a spurious objection to the measure. I have more to say on that, but I will now address Amendment 177.

Amendment 177 seeks to exempt children and victims of domestic violence from the charge. Following extensive debates in Parliament during the passage of the Immigration Act 2014, the Government put safeguards in place to protect vulnerable groups. The Immigration Act 2014 provides the Secretary of State with the power to exempt certain categories of applicant from the requirement to pay the immigration health charge. These categories are listed in Schedule 2 to the Immigration (Health Charge) Order. Current exemptions include children who make an immigration application or who are looked after by a local authority and a person who applies for limited leave under the Home Office concession known as the destitute domestic violence concession. In the case of the latter, these are individuals who are here as partners of British citizens who are settled here, and can consequently apply for settlement. Individuals who are in the UK for less than six months or who have not paid the charge can still access NHS services, although some of these might be chargeable. However, a key principle of the NHS is that medical treatment which is urgent or immediately necessary in the judgment of a clinician is never withheld from anyone, irrespective of their chargeable status.

Furthermore, since April 2015, treatment that is needed as a consequence of domestic violence is exempt from charge to all overseas visitors, regardless of whether or not they have paid the immigration health charge. This includes both physical and mental health needs. The only stipulation is that the visitor has not come to the UK for the purpose of seeking that treatment.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Before he moves on, he will recall that I raised the issue of our obligations under Article 18 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Has he taken advice from officials and Law Officers as to whether we are compliant in doing the very minimum, as he has described to the House today?

Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 134B, which is in my name. Last year, on what became the Modern Slavery Act, we made progress even on the long-vexed question of foreign—that is, non-EU—domestic workers coming to this country on the tied, short-term visa or working for diplomats here in London.

The Government appointed Mr James Ewins QC to do an independent review of the effects, in practice, of the restrictive visa. He took evidence and considered whether there was sufficient protection from abuse of those workers’ fundamental rights, such as would amount to modern slavery and human trafficking. In November last year, as has been mentioned, on the balance of the evidence, he found that the tie to a specific employer without the right to change or to apply for a visa extension was incompatible—I repeat, incompatible—with reasonable protection, as was mentioned previously by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Today, his Amendment 133 goes a long way to meeting the Ewins recommendations. I believe that it repeats the wording of my previous amendment from last year, which was approved by your Lordships on a Division during the progress of the Modern Slavery Bill.

However, I wish to go just a little further and be a little clearer on the instructions to the Secretary of State. My amendment would implement the improvements by changes to the Immigration Rules, making them variable but without recourse to new primary legislation. Proposed new paragraphs (a), (c) and (f) in my amendment are the same as those in Amendment 133. My paragraph (b) provides for an,

“information session within one month of the commencement of their visa”.

This would allow the workers to be fully informed of their rights. Checks could be made at that time that they had contracts of employment and understood them, that they had access to their passports—a point which has been mentioned very often in previous debates —and that they knew how to raise complaints.

My proposed new paragraph (d) would probably not apply to workers on a six-month visa unless the employers themselves obtained extensions of stay, as does in fact quite often happen. It would also be helpful for diplomatic employees and in some irregular situations where time had passed by but there were strong grounds for allowing settlement. It would, furthermore, make possible applications in this country without the applicant having to return to another country and therefore apply from outside the United Kingdom.

My proposed new paragraph (e) would not apply automatically but would helpfully assist family reunion and parental ties—for example, in cases where small children had been left behind in the country of origin. This is obviously a very hard choice but one into which mothers may be forced by extreme poverty. With these explanations, I trust Amendment 134B will commend itself to your Lordships and provide the Government with satisfactory guidance on how to implement the Ewins recommendations. This protection for highly vulnerable people is urgently needed, and further delays would be quite unacceptable.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to support Amendment 133, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and to say a word in support of my noble friend Lord Hylton’s Amendment 134B. In March last year, at the last gasp of the then Modern Slavery Bill, your Lordships voted down the amendment that my noble friend has referred to, which would of course have provided greater protection for domestic migrant labour in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, described. My noble friend Lord Hylton has of course persistently championed this cause, and this new legislation gives us an opportunity to rectify what is a long-standing injustice.

In March, those of us who divided the House pressed for the most basic of protections: first, the right to change employer but remain restricted to domestic work in one household; secondly, if in full-time work as a migrant domestic worker in a private household, the option to apply to renew the visa; and thirdly, in instances of slavery, a three-month visa to allow the workers to look for decent work. We argued that without these sorts of provisions, we would leave in place a system found repeatedly over the previous three years to facilitate exploitation, including trafficking of migrant domestic workers.

One of the foremost charities working with these groups, Kalayaan, described how such workers have literally sacrificed themselves to the well-being of their wider families. They do not self-protect in the way that someone with more choices would expect. Many explain that they are prepared to put up with any amount of mistreatment if they can provide for their children and ensure that the same will not happen to them. Kalayaan reports that 65% of the 120 domestic workers on the new visa who they saw between 6 April 2012 and 6 April 2014 did not even have their own rooms but shared children’s rooms or slept on the floor of communal areas, while 53% worked more than 16 hours a day and 60% were paid less than £50 a week.

In 2009, the Home Affairs Select Committee, quoting Kalayaan, said in its inquiry into trafficking that the visa issue was,

“‘the single most important issue’ in preventing the forced labour and trafficking of such workers”.

I recognise that the wholly unacceptable exploitation of domestic workers will not be entirely abolished by the acceptance of these amendments, but it would certainly be an improvement on the current situation.

In reply to the debate last March, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Bates—urged Members of your Lordships’ House to resist our amendment and to await the outcome of the review of James Ewins, which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has mentioned. The Minister said:

“Most crucially, the amendment is defective because a serious and considered piece of work is currently going through its process under the widely respected James Ewins. Our argument is that that should be allowed to take its course”.—[Official Report, 25/3/15; col. 1448.]

In the review, which followed the debate, Mr Ewins takes as his fundamental question,

“whether the current arrangements for the overseas domestic workers visa are sufficient to protect overseas domestic workers from abuse of their fundamental rights while they are working in the UK, which includes protecting them from abuse that amounts to modern slavery and human trafficking”.

We now have the result of that review, and Mr Ewins has recommended removing the visa tie:

“On the balance of the evidence currently available, this review finds that the existence of a tie to a specific employer and the absence of a universal right to change employer and apply for extensions of the visa are incompatible with the reasonable protection of overseas domestic workers while in the UK”.

He goes on to say:

“The review recommends that all overseas domestic workers be granted the right to change employer … and apply for annual extensions, provided they are in work as domestic workers in a private home”.

Who are the kind of people we are talking about? The Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit provides a number of examples, of which I will give only one, relating to the plight of an African national caught up in the cat’s-cradle of domestic labour exploitation. She entered the UK as a domestic worker under the rules in place before April 2012. Her visa has been extended a number of times and she has continued domestic work. She worked for an employer for over three years and was mistreated: she was paid less than promised, shouted at and rarely allowed to leave the house, and her passport was taken by her employers on arrival—the key point. She of course felt very scared. She managed to gain their agreement to a short holiday after the three years, and when she got her passport back, she changed employers. She was advised about the protection available under the national referral mechanism but has been reluctant to pursue this as she fears she will be sent home to her country of origin by the Home Office. The study shows that a common form of control is retention of documents, psychological abuse and restriction of movement.

However, domestic workers who are allowed to change employer can solve problems that arise with one employer by changing employment and moving away from the problem. The case also shows that the NRM will not be the right fit for everyone, even with advice. Individuals can be frightened of being perceived to cause trouble for others and of repercussions from that.

Although Amendment 133 has provided this welcome opportunity to debate what provision should be made for overseas domestic workers, this can all be achieved simply by amendments to the Immigration Rules, so the full range of options is open to the Government. Either way, Mr Ewins’s recommendations, which he identifies as the minimum necessary to protect overseas workers, should be implemented without delay as an essential first step towards comprehensive protection.

As my noble friend Lord Hylton said, he would go slightly further in Amendment 134B. Maybe these two ideas, which are not in conflict, could be taken together before Report. What is abundantly clear is that the Government must get on with resolving this issue and providing reasonable and basic protection to those caught up in a tangle of exploitation and coercion.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have my name to the first of this pair of amendments, but I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on picking up some specifics from the report and spelling them out in his Amendment 134B. We must all thank James Ewins, who was promoted in my speech at Second Reading, according to the Official Report, to coming from the UN rather than Ewins—not an inappropriate promotion. We must also thank the organisations which gave evidence, which have worked so hard for so long and provided so much support to this group of workers.

I was not entirely clear from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, whether he and his party are behind the Ewins recommendations. His tone was certainly warm and supportive, but it may be that when I read his speech I will detect whether they would like them implemented in whole or in part. The Liberal Democrats regard the report and its recommendations as clear, considered, compassionate and to be implemented.

I will not repeat the arguments that have been made, with which I agree very much, but it is telling that Mr Ewins says that,

“this review has not taken such previous proposals as a starting point”,

but,

“has deliberately gone back to first principles and applied those principles to the evidence currently available. The fact that the conclusions accord to a considerable extent”—

not completely—

“with previous recommendations adds further weight to the argument in favour of the changes proposed”.

I, too, look forward to hearing how the changes he proposes are to be implemented.

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Mr Ewins also goes on, rightly, to acknowledge that there will shortly be data from exit controls, which will cast light on whether there is a serious problem here. It will cast light on whether there is a problem of overstaying; of course, it will not cast light on how individuals are treated. So I put it to noble Lords that surely the obvious solution is to wait until we have such evidence before taking a view on whether there is a valid case for changing the visa regime.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

First, I shall clarify the figure that the noble Lord asked about. It is the figure quoted in the Kalayaan report of people that it had interviewed over the course of two years—120 people. The case that I have advanced today is based not entirely on what I regard as the excellent report of James Ewins. I wonder whether the noble Lord has had a chance to read the recommendation of the Joint Committee on the draft Modern Slavery Bill, which looked at this issue and concluded:

“In the case of the domestic worker’s visa, policy changes have unintentionally strengthened the hand of the slave master against the victim of slavery. The moral case for revisiting this issue is urgent and overwhelming”.

It recommended that the Home Office reverse the changes to the overseas domestic workers visa. That was also a view that the Joint Committee on Human Rights took; in 2014, it said:

“We regard the removal of the right of an Overseas Domestic Worker to change employer as a backward step”,

and urged its reversal. So this is not just Mr Ewins—there is a substantial amount of evidence from highly regarded committees of this House and Joint Committees, which have looked at this matter in detail and come to the same conclusions as Mr Ewins.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Yes, I quite see that. I would expect the people whom the noble Lord quoted to say what they said. There is clearly some force in that, and there clearly is a problem. We are not in doubt that there is a problem over the treatment of domestic servants who are brought to the UK; that is entirely understood and not in question. What is in question is the balance between trying to ensure that that problem is alleviated—it will never be removed; we will always have rogue employers—and the needs of the immigration system, which would be considerable because these numbers would go up very fast indeed. If people knew that they had only to get here with one employer and they were here for ever, of course they would come in their thousands. So there must be a balance. That is really my point.

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In the light of those remarks and the pledge that we would appreciate the opportunity to discuss these matters further with officials and get views and data before coming forward with proposals for consideration on Report by noble Lords in response to the Ewins report, which we welcome and appreciate, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

Before the Minister sits down, I would be grateful if he would clarify the nature of the process that he has just referred to. It would be very useful to Members of your Lordships’ House if, for instance, Mr Ewins could also be invited to whatever discussions take place. When we looked at the previous legislation on modern slavery, the Minister was good enough to invite organisations such as Kalayaan to come and give first-hand evidence. Although that may not be appropriate at a joint meeting with Members of the House, nevertheless there ought to be some input from that organisation as well. I hope the Minister might give an undertaking.

[Lord Bates]

I will certainly give an undertaking to go away and reflect on the point that the noble Lord makes. I understand what he is saying. I am conscious that we met with Kalayaan on many occasions in the course of the Modern Slavery Act. It does very valuable work on this and its position is very clear regarding what it wishes to do. More particularly, I was hoping we could outline in a bit more detail than perhaps is possible at this stage where the Government’s mind is on this, and genuinely enter into a discussion about the best way forward.

As to whether it would be appropriate that the authors of the report should be there, I hear very much what the noble Lord says. That may be useful, but he will understand that in the nature of the way that government works, I have, as it were, secured a certain amount of leeway from my colleagues in the course of responding to your Lordships’ concerns, and it would be courteous of me to go back to them and seek their approval for that suggestion. I shall give an undertaking to do just that.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, my name is to this amendment. I am particularly delighted that it has been moved from the Labour Front Bench since this was not something on which they felt able to support us during the last Parliament. This is something that we sought to achieve then even though we were part of the coalition Government. We have tabled this amendment to the Bill in these terms in the Commons. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno will have a good deal to say on it, as he has had a Private Member’s Bill on the subject and argued for this proposition many times.

I will not take long, but I do not apologise for the fact that the arguments are not novel. According to the latest immigration statistics, I am told by the Refugee Council, over 3,600 applications for asylum have been without an initial decision for longer than six months. As the Refugee Council comments, when you take into account their dependants, that is nearly 5,000 people living on little over £5 a day in asylum support who are unable to work. It seems to us that applications should not drag on and, as the noble Lord said, six months, which is the Home Office target, is not overly ambitious. In any event, what is to be gained by a restriction that continues up to the 12-month point?

It seems that a lot is to be lost: contribution to the economy through work and taxation; savings for the state on asylum support; and, as for the individuals, the impact on their self-esteem, mental health, possible—probably likely—loss of skills, and the ability to find employment when the period comes to an end. It also seems that this restriction reinforces exclusion. For those who stay, their community integration is important and we should not delay it, because more than half of the asylum seekers who come here stay.

This is a very topical point, as a colleague, Suzanne Fletcher, who was a councillor in the north-east and who is still a very active Liberal Democrat, has been all over the media today on the issue of the red doors, on which the Times has reported—doors that were painted red so that the occupants could easily be identified as immigrants. Of course the Minister, James Brokenshire, immediately criticised that, and I believe that the Government are taking steps there. However, from the emails I have seen on this subject today, it has taken years of campaigning to bring this to attention. That shows what power the media have, because Suzanne had taken that matter to the National Audit Office and to one of the Select Committees in the other place.

Would relaxing the current restrictions be a pull factor? Is there evidence of that? I suspect not. If your reasons for coming here are economic rather than to seek asylum, I would have thought that six months would be quite a deterrent in itself.

Our Amendment 134A deals, as the noble Lord has said, with the 12-month period. Currently, if you are here for more than 12 months, although you may be able to work, your work is confined to the “shortage occupations” as designated by the Home Office—for the same reasons, of course, that could be applied to the six months. In addition, however, the list of shortage occupations, which I had a look at over the weekend, seems to be made up almost entirely of technical or professional occupations and often requires references from previous employers, which I suspect are by definition unavailable, or requires UK qualifications. Therefore, asylum seekers would not be likely to get such jobs, because the period of their stay is uncertain, even if they were qualified to do them. They are more likely to get low-skilled jobs that British citizens, frankly, are often unwilling to undertake.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, in supporting the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, may I first put in a request to the Minister, almost in parenthesis, for when he comes to reply? This relates to an issue that was raised on day one, which is the role of people who are involved in voluntary work and what the legal position is, because contradictory positions were expressed on day one. I was looking at some of the briefing material for today’s debate, particularly about a project called the Brushstrokes Community project in Smethwick in Birmingham, which has been providing services for refugees and asylum seekers for over 15 years. Brushstrokes described one asylum seeker who volunteered with the project for over a year before she received refugee status, and who continues to volunteer to this day. Last year she won an award as volunteer of the year in Sandwell. Another woman volunteered as a teaching assistant for around six months while awaiting the outcome of her application. She has now been granted refugee status and is on the path to fulfilling her aspiration of becoming a teacher in the United Kingdom. What is the legal situation of people who work in a voluntary capacity?

There are five substantial reasons why the arguments expressed so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, should commend themselves to your Lordships’ House. First, these amendments would provide asylum seekers with a route out of poverty. More than 3,600 asylum seekers have currently been waiting more than six months for an initial decision on their case, surviving on just £5 a day.

Secondly, it reduces the burden on the taxpayer, as asylum seekers who are able to work will not need to be supported for extended periods and will instead be able to contribute to the economy through increased tax revenues and consumer spending. It also safeguards their health and prevents them having to resort to irregular work in what some describe as the black economy.

Thirdly, it avoids the negative consequences of prolonged economic exclusion and forced inactivity. During my 18 years as a Member of another place representing an inner-city neighbourhood in Liverpool I often saw that kind of grinding poverty first hand: the detrimental impact on mental health and self-esteem, the break-up of marriages and families—many Members of your Lordships’ House are very familiar with these kinds of arguments. The dignity that work gives should never be underestimated.

Fourthly, what is the experience elsewhere in other European Union countries? With the exception of the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland, other European countries allow asylum seekers to work after nine months and 11 of them grant permission to work after six months or less if a decision has not been made on their asylum application. That has not been a bad experience—it works very well and has not been a pull factor, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was right to remind us.

Fifthly, for those asylum seekers who are eventually given permission to stay, avoiding an extended period outside the labour market is key to ensuring their long-term integration into UK society and encouraging them to be self-sufficient. Therefore, alleviating destitution amongst asylum seekers is a prerequisite if we believe in the upholding of a person’s human dignity. The right to work is fundamental to this and it also relieves the state of having to provide financial support.

In 2014, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, set out the defence of the Government’s policy when he said that asylum seekers are,

“provided with support and accommodation while we determine whether they need our protection and until they have exhausted the right of appeal”.—[Official Report, 17/3/14; col. 30.]

However, the reality is that £5 a day to meet their essential living needs of food, clothing, toiletries and transport and to pursue their asylum application—housing and utility bills are paid for separately for those who need it—is wholly inadequate. Which of us could survive on that kind of paltry sum? Therefore the asylum seeker loses, but so does the state. We must give asylum seekers a route out of poverty and help them not to become part of a dependency culture.

At the end of June 2015, more than 3,500 asylum seekers had been waiting more than six months for an initial decision. The Minister arranged an all-Peers meeting, which I was able to attend, and Mr James Brokenshire, the Minister, was also there. He of course said that the Government’s aim is to ensure that there are no people waiting for longer than six months. Can the Minister tell us just how many people are waiting for longer than six months and how long it will be before that objective is met?

I am told that an asylum seeker spends an average of around 18 months on Section 95 support. Asylum seekers who have to survive solely on this level of support for extended periods of time will suffer a negative impact on their mental and physical health.

While a Member of the Commons, Sarah Teather chaired a cross-party parliamentary inquiry into asylum support for children and young people. In January 2013 it found that,

“asylum seeking parents are prevented from working, leaving families dependent on state support. This means that parents are left powerless and lose their skills”—

a point to which the noble Baroness alluded—

“while children are left without positive role models. The government’s own research has highlighted that this can lead to high levels of unemployment and underemployment once a family gains refugee status”.

That inquiry took evidence from over 200 individuals and organisations, including local authorities and safeguarding boards, and specifically recommended that asylum seeking parents and young adults should be given permission to work if their claim for asylum had not been concluded in six months—the point of these amendments.

Let us be clear: by keeping them out of work, many experienced and professional asylum seekers are deskilled, and the time spent not working hinders the opportunity to develop a career. It prejudices the chance to get references for future employment, and it denies people the chance to gain experience. Mr Brokenshire said that this provision would,

“blur the distinction between economic migration and asylum”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 10/11/15; col. 461.]

But this amendment addresses that concern, because permission to work would apply only when the delay was not due to action taken by the applicant. I therefore hope that this amendment commends itself to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I completely agree that it is an important point and I will be happy to write to the noble Lord and others who have spoken on this after our session in Committee today.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

I am grateful to the Minister for his response to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. Can he be clear in that response on the distinction that is being made between voluntary activity and voluntary work, which I found very difficult to understand, and I am sure that many in the field will find it perplexing too. Their worry will be that either they as organisations or some of those asylum seekers who are involved in voluntary activities could find themselves prejudiced against or even prosecuted. These are significant issues that need to be addressed in some detail.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I take the point from the noble Lord, and that is why it would be better if our response was written down once we had had a chance to think about it carefully and get our definitions right. I will circulate the response and put a copy in the Library of the House so that voluntary organisations know where they are.

Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

Amendments 3, 6 and 13 would put the involvement of the devolved Administrations on the face of the Bill. I had a look back at the Modern Slavery Bill, which seems to deal with this issue in the way that I have dealt with it in these amendments. I have picked up that progress has been made on this, and I hope it has. It hit my consciousness only last week during a visit to the Scottish Parliament. Although the Governments continue, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly will go into purdah in about nine weeks’ time because of their elections. This adds another dimension to our consideration of the Bill, because clearly these things need to be sorted out quickly, and not just in respect of this clause. I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has laid before the Committee of your Lordships’ House this afternoon. In particular, I support her remarks about Scotland and the need for proper and adequate consultation. She is right to say all those things.

The noble Baroness referred to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, an issue to which we will return in the later group of amendments dealing with government amendment 39 and those connected to it. However, it is linked in some ways with these amendments. I will not pre-empt remarks on the amendment by addressing it in detail, other than to note that, as the noble Baroness said, 112 government amendments have been tabled. There has been no pre-scrutiny of this legislation by both Houses, and these amendments have been introduced for the first time here in Committee, which is asking an awful lot in terms of producing good quality legislation. I know that this is not the Minister’s fault, but I raised that issue with him in the excellent meeting that he organised for all Peers. To make legislation on the hoof is always a mistake.

I am not alone in thinking that. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association has written to us to say:

“The volume of these amendments, the late stage of their introduction and the time available means that both ourselves and the House will be limited in our ability to provide the scrutiny that this detailed legislation requires”.

That was a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, a few moments ago. We simply cannot do our job properly when we are stampeded into having to make decisions on major questions of this kind with so many amendments being placed before us at once. The ILPA also says:

“We note that new clauses introduced by the Government contain a range of new delegated legislation which will not have been subject to scrutiny by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee which reported earlier on the Immigration Bill”.

That issue will surface again when we come to the question of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

I do not want to be churlish, either, because the legislation that we considered last year—also introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bates—was classic and admirable of its kind, and benefited from having been scrutinised by both Houses. It was showpiece, showcase legislation and the Government should be justifiably proud of having introduced it—as should Parliament for having enacted it. The danger in some of these amendments, and we will come to this in due course, is that they may undermine some of the excellent legislation that we enacted last year. I hope that when the Minister replies, he will therefore address the concerns raised by the noble Baroness and the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association. The noble Baroness did not describe this as hybridity, but effectively inserting an entirely new Bill inside an existing Bill at this late stage in parliamentary proceedings amounts to that. I hope her amendment will be taken in the spirit in which it has been offered, and that the Minister will address all those points.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has just said. This is not the first time during the passage of this Bill that a vast number of government amendments have been inserted. The same thing happened in the other place immediately before Report, and the same complaints were made that none of the amendments had been scrutinised properly. Indeed, there was no time to do so before the other place had to vote on amendments in Committee that they had not had time to scrutinise. Remembering my own time in the Ministry of Defence, if I were faced as a civil servant with such a huge and complex piece of legislation, with additional complexities, I would have complained to the Secretary of State and to the Permanent Under-Secretary that legislation was being made so complex that it was simply undeliverable.

We have to realise that the immigration system in this country is currently under stress. There are said to be some 600,000 unrecorded migrants in the country now and we will face not just a flood of people coming here from the Middle East but an additional flood of people from places such as Africa thanks to climate change. Therefore, we should be simplifying our legislation so that it can cope with pressure rather than complicating it in this way.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendments 8 and 10 are on resources, and again I was confused as to where to deal with this. However, the means as well as the ends need to be willed; fine words about objectives are not enough. This has been such an issue throughout discussions not just on the Bill but on the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. Quite rightly in previous debates, the point has been made that it would be very good to extend the remit, but we must make sure that they have the money to do so; otherwise, we risk damaging the good work currently done. It is essential that the director takes resources into account. Otherwise, what is said is effectively meaningless.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, these amendments, which I support, raise both the role and resources available, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, described, to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. Reading though the exchanges in another place, it is clear that the Government were uneasy at Report stage about the lack of clarity in the Bill. Otherwise, why would the Minister, Mr James Brokenshire, have given an assurance to the House of Commons that they would go away and reflect on the matter? Therefore, it would be interesting to hear today the outcome of those reflections.

Certainly, looking at what was said in another place, there are some contradictions obvious to anyone who reads those exchanges. The Minister said, for instance, in Committee:

“We intend the director’s remit to cover labour market breaches, not immigration offences”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 27/10/15; col. 163.]

That is very straightforward. However, at a later stage, he said:

“The provision is not intended to stray into the separate issues of immigration enforcement, but if cases of people who are here illegally are highlighted, the director would be duty-bound to report that and to pass on intelligence through the hub that is being created”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 27/10/15; col. 166.]

I would therefore like to know what happens when there is a contradiction between those two roles. Where there is a protective role and an enforcement role, what would be the director’s expected priority in those circumstances? We said throughout the proceedings on the modern day slavery and human trafficking legislation that it should always be victim focused. Is this a derogation from that, or are we simply being consistent with what we did before? The House needs to know before we give this the green light.

I was surprised when the Minister in another place, in refuting the arguments that have been put forward again in your Lordships’ House today, said,

“I simply do not think it is necessary”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 27/10/15; col. 166.]

I wonder why he came to that conclusion, because clarity in legislation is always highly desirable. Otherwise, why would he have wanted to go away and reflect; why would these amendments have been moved in another place; and why would they be here again today? Clearly, something is necessary. Will the Minister, if he cannot put it right today, be agreeable to doing so on Report?

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I share colleagues’ concerns about the lack of clarity of the remit and purpose of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and the indications of a lack of resources for the organisation so far. The Migration Advisory Committee has already been cited, but it is worth mentioning the remarks of Sir David Metcalfe in evidence to the Committee in the other place. He said that funding remains an issue, particularly for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and that:

“In the low-skilled report, we calculated that you would get an inspection from HMRC once every 250 years and you would get a prosecution once in a million years”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 20/10/15; col. 20.]

The odds of bad employers being caught, let alone prosecuted, seem slim. It comes to something when the US State Department is moved to mention the lack of resources. In its Trafficking in Persons Report 2015 it mentioned concern that there needs to be an increase in funds for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. It is a little galling to have to be told by another Government that there are not enough resources, but we could take that to heart. That report also stated that government funding for specialised services for victims of trafficking remains limited. We are judged to be falling down on resources.

I, too, was confused by the exchanges in committee in the other place about the director’s focus outside workers who are here legally. The suggestion seems to be that a labour market offence can be committed only against persons legally in the country, which suggests that others are going to be dealt with through an immigration lens. I add my voice to those who have asked for clarity about whether the director will be focused on employers who most exploit workers, including those without leave to be in this country and to work. Without that wider remit outside legal workers, the director cannot be effective against the worst employers.

I am confused by the number of definitions of worker. We can add to them the definition under EU free movement law, but perhaps that would unnecessarily complicate the matter in hand. However, there seem to be at least three definitions of worker, and it might be sensible to have one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the figures are interesting. Nobody is ever content and no one will say, “That’s enough”, but my impression—I say this as somebody who hears those figures, although they do not really mean anything to me; I am not an expert in any of those fields—is that there are organisations struggling to do the job that they have and which in some cases they do absolutely extraordinarily. Just hearing figures expressed in millions does not advance the argument in the way that I know the noble Lord and I are concerned with.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

Before the noble Baroness leaves the point about resources, she may recall that during the proceedings on the modern slavery and human trafficking legislation we were told that between 2011 and 2014 the Gangmasters Licensing Authority saw a reduction of 17% in its budget—a figure that I think we can all comprehend very easily. I wonder—this is directed at the Minister partly through the noble Baroness—whether the figures that he has just given represent a real increase on those reductions and whether we are seeing a reinstatement of the moneys that were cut.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am looking to the Minister, but he has not received inspiration on that yet.

Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, earlier today a number of noble Lords referred to their misgivings about the changes being made to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. During the passage of the modern-day slavery and human trafficking legislation, I moved amendments on the GLA and queried its ability to meet its obligations because of the resources made available to it—a point referred to earlier by my noble and learned friend and by other Members of your Lordships’ House during our earlier debates. During the passage of that legislation, I moved amendments to enable the GLA to utilise assets from the proceeds of the crimes that it had investigated. In doing so, I reminded the House of the events which led to the genesis of the GLA, notably the 23 Chinese men and women who drowned in Morecambe bay after their Liverpool gangmasters took them to undertake cockle picking. At the time, a local fisherman, Harold Benson, described the tragedy as not only awful beyond words but absolutely avoidable.

In December 2014, during the passage of the legislation on modern-day slavery, I told the House that the lessons of Morecambe bay had not been fully learned. I described a similar incident in the Ribble estuary in which 17 cockle pickers of eastern European origin had been snatched to safety. In those debates, I cited the small number of personnel employed by the GLA, the cut, which I referred to earlier, of around 17% in the GLA’s budget between 2011 and 2014, the small number of convictions—just seven—and the research by the University of Durham calling for the mandate of the GLA to be extended. Instead of seeing an expansion of the GLA’s remit in order to prevent labour exploitation, there are genuine fears that the Government’s amendments that we are considering represent a severe threat to the GLA, with changes to its role, remit and name resulting in a greatly weakened licensing labour inspection regime. If this comes to pass, it would inevitably allow new labour abuses, such as those I have just described, to abound.

The main issue revolves around the creation of what has been described as flexible licensing standards without a requirement for affirmative procedures. Government Amendment 77 to omit the requirement for the GLA to make rules by statutory instrument in effect means that the GLA has power to amend licensing standards and must—this is changed from “may” in the original GLA Act—seek approval of the Secretary of State, but not Parliament. The Secretary of State still retains the power she always has had under Section 6(2) of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act to remove by negative procedure certain circumstances in which labour providers do not require a licence.

In summary, these amendments, taken with existing powers, mean that the Secretary of State could greatly reduce by negative procedure the number of labour providers licensed in a GLA sector, as suggested by the recent consultation response, and could greatly reduce the licence standards to be applied to those who are licensed with no requirement for any statutory instrument. This appears to be what the Government mean when they talk about flexible licensing, which was put forward in the consultation and supported by just 19%—less than one in five—of the respondents.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee published a report on the new government amendments only last Friday and found that these new powers to change rules without parliamentary approval are inappropriate and therefore should be removed from the Bill. Focus on Labour Exploitation states that,

“the GLA is a first line of defence against the labour abuses that develop into severe exploitation and modern slavery. We are extremely concerned that a new ‘flexible’ licensing regime as proposed in these amendments will leave the GLA powerless to prevent widespread abuses and therefore exploitation and instead caught up in police style investigations that absorb a huge amount of time and resources”.

In our debate on the Modern Slavery Act, the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, answering for the Government said:

“We need to consider this carefully and ensure that in seeking to broaden the GLA’s remit, we do not undermine the good work that is being done already”.—[Official Report, 10/12/14; col. 1879.]

I entirely concur with that sentiment. We must be very careful indeed not to do precisely that.

The noble Baroness also said:

“The GLA is working with the University of Derby to devise training and to develop an anti-slavery training academy for use by supply chain businesses. This will build on the GLA’s excellent existing collaboration with business in its regulated sectors. The GLA is well placed to tackle the serious worker exploitation that lies between the more technical compliance offences that fall to be investigated by HMRC and the serious and organised crimes that are addressed by the National Crime Agency”.—[Official Report, 10/12/14; cols. 1880-81.]

Presuming that this is the aim of today’s amendments, what are the resource implications? This point was made earlier by my noble and learned friend and other Members of your Lordships’ House. Without the necessary resources, how on earth will this agency be able to do these things? Clearly the Government envisage an expanded role. This will include police-style investigations and powers for offences across the labour market. Alongside this is the proposal to have a more flexible approach to licensing.

The Minister needs to be clear about whether the aim of the amendments published on the very day that the consultation concluded—which hardly demonstrates that there was a long period of reflection—is to remove strict compliance obligations from those businesses which have been compliant hitherto or whether it is to give the GLA more teeth. I wonder what the Minister makes of the minimal support which the flexibility proposal received from the respondents—just 19% out of a total of, I think, 93 respondents to the consultation, who came from academia, charities, trades unions and industry.

Existing GLA licence standards are crafted to give strong protection against exploitation. That includes issues such as working hours, pay, accommodation and safe transport. Clearly, flexible licensing should not mean a reduction in licensing. This must not become a sort of trade-off between licensing as a means of raising labour standards and preventing exploitation and a more flexible approach that could divert time and resources to tackling extreme cases instead. That in turn would create a climate in which rogue gangmasters could flourish and undermine the excellent intentions of the legislation we passed on human trafficking and exploitation of people as modern-day slaves.

Furthermore, the amendment removes a requirement for the GLA to make rules by negative procedure—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, when we were dealing with the earlier amendments. In effect this will mean that the GLA would have the power to amend licensing standards and must seek the approval only of the Secretary of State and not of this House or the other place. The Secretary of State still retains, and always has had, the power to remove certain categories of labour providers requiring a licence by negative procedure. These amendments mean that the licence standards to be applied to labour providers in a given sector could be significantly reduced or expanded without parliamentary scrutiny. Unless Parliament is engaged in the shaping of licence standards, changes could be made without a clear evidential basis and without proper and full consultation with all stakeholders with expertise in labour sector licensing requirements. GLA licensing rules should not be changed without detailed impact assessments, including worker consultation, which might assure Parliament that any changes would not negatively impact upon the vulnerable workers whom they are designed to protect.

In conclusion, when the modern-day anti-slavery legislation was enacted, it had the benefit of pre-legislative scrutiny and of the forensic examination by both Houses. That is not the case with what is before us today. We would be wrong to treat this avalanche of amendments lightly or to be pushed pell-mell into approving them in haste.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

I, too, want more clarity on the same issue that we have been discussing for the past half hour or so. I refer to the new Schedule, on page 32 of the Marshalled List. Why is some of this necessary? At the bottom of that page, the proposed new subsection states:

“The body known as the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is to continue to exist”—

that is very nice—

“and is to be known as the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority”.

Given that the word “Licensing” is disappearing, does that arise in respect of the present functions of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority simply because those are being subsumed in the wider exercise that is mentioned at the bottom of the page, where it says,

“the Authority and its officers must carry out those functions in accordance with the strategy”,

which is the wider strategy? The more I think about it, the more I cannot quite believe that this will do anything other than restrict some of the present functions of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. Therefore, at the foot of page 32 instead of just saying “continue to exist”, which, as I say, is very nice—a pat on the head, so jolly good—why could we not say “and its functions continue to exist”? Could the Minister clarify why that is not the case?

Refugees: Eritrea

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

As my noble friend Lady Anelay has made clear, we took very seriously the UN special rapporteur’s report on the situation in Eritrea. In fact, it was the basis of the ongoing Article 8 dialogue with the EU as part of the Khartoum process. It seems that the Eritrean Government have given an undertaking to limit national service, which was the principal driver of a lot of the migration flows. On the noble Baroness’s second point, we have had an opportunity to look at the Select Committee’s report, which was published on 5 January and is very thorough. We will be responding to it in due course but it raises a number of very important issues.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the June 2015 report of the UN commission of inquiry said that probable crimes against humanity are being committed in Eritrea? That is why there has been such a haemorrhaging of the population, with 10% of the people—some 350,000—having fled thus far. If we do not come to terms with the root causes, will not those massive numbers of migrants continue to rise? What are we doing to pursue the recommendations in that report? Furthermore, does the Minister not recognise that when those migrants leave Eritrea, the story is not over, as the beheadings in Libya by ISIS only go to prove?

[Lord Bates]

That is absolutely right. It was a horrific report and it is not something on which the British Government are standing idly by. It is an issue on which we have engaged with the Eritrean Government through our embassy in Asmara. There was a meeting between the Foreign Minister and James Brokenshire at the margins of the EU and African Union conference in Rome in November, and that was followed up by a visit by Foreign Office and Home Office officials to assess the situation there. We continue to put great pressure on the Eritrean Government to live up to the commitments that they have made. It is only by tackling the cause of the problem, whether in Eritrea or Syria, that we can hope to stem the flow that results in the consequences that the noble Lord has highlighted.

Immigration Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I should like to contrast this Immigration Bill with the Bill which the Home Office laid before us last year on human trafficking and modern-day slavery. That was a well-crafted piece of legislation, which enjoyed bipartisan support and was significantly improved as it made its way through both our Houses of Parliament. Ministers were warmly congratulated on the way in which they engaged with complex issues and the organisations working in the field, but I wish that I could say the same for this Bill.

As the Minister knows, last week I chaired a briefing organised by the Refugee Children’s Consortium, which comprises some 40 agencies. No one could have left that meeting believing that organisations ranging from Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society to the Refugee Council, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association were anything other than deeply concerned by the impact which the Bill will have on some already incredibly vulnerable people.

I would draw a further link with the showcase legislation on human trafficking and modern-day slavery. There is a widely held view, which I share, that the enforced destitution, which has been referred to in this debate and which this legislation sets out to achieve as a misguided way of disincentivising immigrants, will push desperate people into the clutches of traffickers and leave them open to the very exploitation which the 2014 Act set out to deter.

It is sometimes said that when you legislate in haste, you repent at leisure. I feel very uneasy about a Bill which has all the characteristics of hasty legislation: proposals not fully thought through or developed; inadequate evaluation; and drafting that has been struggling to keep up with the progress of the Bill. Another tell-tale sign of unseemly haste is the way in which extensions to Scotland, Northern Ireland and, in some cases, Wales are deferred to regulations—a point which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, alluded to. How can this possibly be a good way of making law?

Nor have we properly evaluated the impact and effect of the Immigration Act 2014 before legislating further. I refer to issues such as the removal of rights of appeal, the creation of civil penalty schemes for landlords and the dispensing with time-honoured remedies and rights of redress. So when we get to Committee and Report, I hope that we will carefully scrutinise in particular Clauses 37 and 38, which are concerned with the destitution of refused asylum seekers.

In a speech which I made in October in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, when she sought to annul asylum support regulations, I quoted Asylum Link Merseyside, of which I am a patron and which is based in the heart of the inner-city areas that I represented for 25 years as a city councillor or as a Member of the House of Commons. As I said then, it said:

“This government policy of making asylum seekers destitute works on the assumption that by forcing people into extreme poverty they will choose to return to countries from which they have fled in fear of their lives”.

Its experience has been that 98% of failed asylum seekers choose to stay, surviving on handouts, sleeping on floors or sleeping rough. Over the past three years, it has come into contact, in its words,

“with over 400 destitute asylum seekers out of which only 8 have chosen to return home voluntarily”.—[Official Report, 27/10/15; col. 1145.]

The Cardinal Hume Centre, a stone’s throw away from where we are gathered today, is one of the very few organisations that still provides free immigration advice from application right up to judicial review. The centre currently has a caseload of more than 300 open cases. From the centre’s front-line experience, it warns that using destitution simply does not work. Instead, it leaves people only more reliant on charities and more susceptible to abuse and exploitation.

Paradoxically, the Bill is likely to undermine immigration controls as refused asylum seekers will have little incentive to remain in contact with the authorities once support has been withdrawn. Statistics released by the Home Office last month revealed that a third of appeals are in fact accepted, so under Part 5 of the Bill there will be individuals and families with children who will eventually be granted asylum, but who by that point will have been starved and abandoned by the British state. How will that help with their integration into society?

The current demonising and scapegoating of migrants should make us think about the society we want to be: do we value these people as sources of economic potential or as human beings? My late mother came to this country as an immigrant from the west of Ireland. Her first language was Irish, not English, and she and her siblings fled harrowing poverty after the deaths of both their parents. She met my demobbed father, who was a Desert Rat, and married. She was always grateful for the opportunity to earn a living, make a home and bring up her children. In my years as a teenage student in Liverpool, there were still advertisements for accommodation that bore the words, “Blacks and Irish need not apply”. I also saw how easily people and communities could be stigmatised and discriminated against. All this makes me especially wary of laws which indefinitely detain immigrants and seem to discriminate against them. I hope that, in Committee, we will correct this injustice, and I entirely agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about indefinite detention.

We should also enable people to have the right to work, perhaps modelled on the American green card system. How many of us could survive in accommodation, given on a no-choice basis, with just £5.28 each day to cover food, clothing, toiletries, travel, communications and all other necessities? This year, the British Red Cross says that it has supported more than 10,000 asylum seekers and their dependents in that kind of situation. This is not Syria; it is the UK in 2015, and yet 10,000 people were in receipt of aid from the Red Cross. That is not the hallmark of a compassionate or civilised society.

The Bill also affects family unity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights insists:

“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”.

The situation in Calais was referred to earlier. There are currently an estimated 6,000 people living in the “jungle” refugee camp in Calais, and the majority of residents are refugees from countries and regions facing the kind of dangers of which we are all too sadly aware. Caritas Social Action Network recently visited the camp and spoke to young people fleeing terror groups. One young man, just 18, was left with little choice but to leave Iraq after his village was taken under Daesh control. Had he stayed, he would have faced two options: join or be put to death. His brother had already claimed asylum in the UK, and was now living safely in Liverpool, yet the restrictive family reunification rules mean he cannot join him here. Having experienced such atrocities and loss, is it fair that he would not be able to be reunited with his family in England?

I have referred to the camp in Calais on a number of occasions during exchanges in your Lordships’ House. Rob Lawrie, a former soldier, tried to rescue a four year-old girl from the camp because he could not bear to see her remain in the horrific conditions—he now faces five years in prison for doing so. He concedes that what he did was wrong, but it is hard not to think of the Kindertransport or Sir Nicholas Winton and the rescue of countless children caught up in the horrors of the Third Reich, which bears easy comparison with the depredations of ISIS. Save the Children says that 10,000 minors and unaccompanied children fled to Europe last year, but 4,000 have disappeared. Into what? The Minister has undertaken to meet Save the Children and I hope he will give us a detailed response on the position of unaccompanied minors and children and what priority they will be given, how local authorities will be co-ordinated to deal with them, what safeguarding will be put in place, and how the amazing generosity and goodness of countless British people will be tapped through nationally organised fostering arrangements.

Finally, as currently drafted, the Bill fails to address the abuse and exploitation that migrant domestic workers face as a consequence of the tied visa system, an issue which I spoke on at each stage of the Modern Slavery Bill, and on which my noble friend Lord Hylton and I divided your Lordships’ House. I echo his remarks from earlier. In response to our debates, the Government asked the barrister James Ewins to carry out a review of the overseas domestic worker visa. Published last week, it covered the right to change employer, extension to two and a half years for such workers, information interviews and refusal of settlement. Mr Ewins says:

“On the balance of the evidence currently available, this review finds that the existence of a tie to a specific employer and the absence of a universal right to change employer and apply for extensions of the visa are incompatible with the reasonable protection of overseas domestic workers while in the UK”.

The tied visa system has increased the exploitation and abuse of domestic workers. Reform to the rules is desperately needed and it is vital that we do not miss this opportunity, once again, to rectify this injustice. The report quotes the Minister himself as saying:

“Abuse of domestic workers, whether UK or EEA nationals, those on an [overseas domestic workers] or other visa, or those who have entered the UK illegally, is an abhorrent crime and will not be tolerated here in Britain”.

Now is our chance to give legislative protection to this group of workers and I look forward to hearing from the Minister what the Government propose to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to do that. A number of noble Lords asked me to write to them on various technical aspects and I will do that. That letter will be sent out on 11 January, a week ahead of Committee stage.

My noble friend has raised one of the elements which is a problem. It is that we do not fully understand the scale of the problem. We deal with estimates. Even when the ONS undertakes forecasts, they are based on estimates. With effect from April, there will be exit checks and therefore we will know who is coming into the country and who is leaving the country and will be able to deduce by fact how many overstayers or illegal migrants there are.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

I realise that we are coming to a conclusion, but I think the Minister would agree that the theme that has run through the debate in your Lordships’ House today has been about destitution, deliberately making people destitute and the way that links into the landmark legislation last year on modern-day slavery and human trafficking. Before he concludes, will the Minister say a word about that? I do not think it should be left to a letter.

[Lord Bates]

The Bill does not represent a threat of destitution. We are simply making it clear that failed asylum-seeker families and other illegal migrants cannot expect automatically to be in receipt of Home Office and local authority support in circumstances where they could and should leave the UK. We need a better basis of incentives and possible sanctions on which, together with local authorities, to engage with these families in a process that secures more returns. We believe that the Immigration Bill will deliver that. I do not expect that to satisfy the noble Lord because I know he takes a great interest in this area, rightly so, and speaks up for those in need. We are not unmoved by that. As with previous Bills, in Committee we will work together constructively, with the general recognition that there is a problem and that the Government have received a mandate from the electorate to do something about it, to ensure that that mandate is delivered in a way which gets to the people we want to tackle and protects those who are in need of our protection. That is the challenge of the Bill. It has been eloquently set out by contributions to this Second Reading debate and I am sure it will be returned to in the new year as we go through the Bill methodically in Committee.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Channel Tunnel: Migrants

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister recall the case that was raised in the House just two weeks ago about Rob Lawrie and his attempt to rescue a child from the aptly named “jungle camp” at Calais? Can he say whether it has been possible for the Government to have the meeting with Save the Children that they committed to during Question Time? Can he also tell the House how many people are in that camp today and how many of them are children?

[Lord Bates]

I know that specific case: it was a very difficult one and we have offered some consular support on that issue. Of course, when we are dealing with vulnerable children, it is absolutely critical that they are recorded, that their records are taken and that they are closely supervised. On the specific point about how many people are in that camp, which is a terrible facility, one of the things in the joint declaration was that we wanted to reduce the number from 6,000. The number is now about 4,500, and that is a tribute to the French, who have started relocating people from that camp into what are called respite settlements in places such as Picardy. On the specific matter of Save the Children, the noble Lord will be aware of the UNHCR’s reservations on that. That still remains our position, but we are very much open to meetings.