Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Hamwee

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, from these Benches I add our thanks, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Bates, who has started on a rather long walk, as my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said. It is one of a series of admirable walks but the noble Lord’s colleagues have been walking well alongside him, and after him, during the course of the Bill. It feels a little odd to agree that the Bill do now pass, because we are by no means clear what it will provide by the time that it has endured—a word that the noble Lord the Chief Whip might use—ping-pong. We are by no means finished with these issues or with the Bill itself.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, from the Cross Benches, perhaps I can briefly add a remark to those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, particularly in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bates, whose leave of absence was agreed by the House only yesterday. I was privileged to get to know the noble Lord, Lord Bates, when we served in another place and we remained friends after he left the House of Commons. I was delighted when he was appointed as a Member of your Lordships’ House; I was even more delighted when the Government had the good sense to appoint him as a Minister of the Crown. He has discharged his responsibilities in the House over the passage of time, particularly on the Modern Slavery Act and now on the Immigration Bill, with great distinction. We have huge admiration for the work that he is undertaking, which is to raise the peace pledge and the work of the Red Cross and Save the Children. It touches on many of the issues which we have debated in your Lordships’ House during the passage of the Bill so, before the Bill passes, I am sure that we all add our voices to those which have already been raised in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for all that he did.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Hamwee

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 154 in this group. The Minister has referred to the large number of government amendments and I accept that many of them are in response to comments made in Committee, although I am not sure that that could apply to the 46 amendments in this group. At the last stage, there was a good deal of comment about the number of government amendments laid at a relatively late stage of the Bill. These further amendments are not so much a response to the Committee as continuing the substantial development of the issues. The Minister may know that there has been some pressure on us to argue for recommitment of these clauses so that we can look at them calmly as a whole. That would have been the right thing to do. I canvassed a little on that but I detected not a lot of enthusiasm and I accept that we have limited time, so I will not spend time this afternoon arguing for recommitment. But I wanted to put that point on the record.

The first amendment is not the biggest but let us start at number one. I do not begrudge a pension for the director of labour market enforcement, but the amendment has puzzled me. I had a look at the Modern Slavery Act to see what was provided for the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner and it does not refer to a pension. Given that it is not that unusual to appoint someone to a post which focuses on an issue, under the umbrella of a department but something new and quite discrete, is there not by now a standard formula for the appointments of such postholders? Does the wheel have to be reinvented a little differently each time?

By far a bigger issue is the reporting lines. The director deals with organisations that also have departmental reporting lines and which are now on the receiving end—that is a deliberate choice of phrase—of the provision of the strategy and the intelligence hub. On the charts with which we have been provided, there is no arrow in the reverse direction to show the contribution of those organisations. The Minister has heard me say this before, but this is particularly an issue for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the board of which is almost airbrushed out; it is hardly acknowledged. The director himself or herself has two masters in the form of two Secretaries of State with differing and possibly incompatible priorities. The Home Secretary is concerned with enforcement while BIS is concerned with deregulation, and I believe that it is to be BIS that will host and fund the director. An even bigger issue is that of resources for the functions and duties on which the amendments elaborate. The GLAA is to have new, extended functions and duties, and we need to be assured that adequate resources will be in place over the spending review period.

Amendment 2—I assure noble Lords that I shall not go through every amendment—seems to go into quite a degree of detail. Surely the detail of how one does something, which in this case is the obtaining and providing of information, should not have to be in legislation in this way. As long as the director has the power to require information, should that not be enough? The strategy will now propose annually the information that is to be provided and,

“the form, and manner … and frequency”.

The more you spell out in legislation, the more you have to spell out. Having gone a little way down this road, you realise that if you have done that, you need to spell out the other as well.

Amendment 21 refers to a court in a “part” of the UK. The Minister should be aware that I was going to ask this question: what is a part of the UK in the case of a court? Is it a country or is it a jurisdiction, which of course is not the same as a country in the case of the law and the courts because England and Wales are a jurisdiction. Is it a county or a town? It would be helpful to know which it is.

On the information gateways set out in Amendment 8 and subsequently, again I am not sure why it is necessary to provide for information to be disclosed to “a relevant staff member” and then to define who that is. If the director asks for information, surely any staff member is working on behalf of the director. This may be something technical related to the Data Protection Act and noble Lords may think that I am being spectacularly pedantic in raising it, but if someone gets it wrong, there are consequences. If an irrelevant staff member, as it were, seeks information, what is the status of that?

I have comments to make about what seems a very narrow gateway in terms of control and the time-consuming and cumbersome nature of it, but I would particularly like to ask what consultation has been undertaken on these provisions about information with the Information Commissioner, the commissioners appointed under RIPA, which is not yet RIP, and with the bodies concerned. I ask because there are issues about bureaucracy, protection and confidentiality—health bodies are involved here so I assume confidentiality has been considered—and I wonder whether the Home Office might produce a flow chart showing who must provide what, for what purpose and to whom, and whether it can then be used by the recipient for that purpose or another purpose?

Finally, my Amendment 154 would change the title of the Bill. A third of its clauses now deal with the labour market. There have been very significant additions since the Bill started life in the Commons. It seems to me—this is a substantive point and, I know, one of real concern among organisations—that it would be appropriate to call the Bill the immigration and labour market Bill. There were several amendments throughout the passage of the Bill to the effect that labour market matters are not confined to immigration. Indeed, they are very much wider than immigration. It is important not to badge the GLAA, the stand-alone body, as an immigration enforcer, and important not to adopt the mindset that immigration should be the driver of dealing with labour market abuses, or that labour market abuse is confined to illegal immigrants.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly—I know that there are more substantive issues that the House will want to move on to fairly soon—simply to place on record my consternation that in Committee we decided to invent a whole new authority, the GLAA, yet here were are on Report with more than 100 new amendments. Ministers are damned if they do and damned if they do not. I recognise that we have a Minister who listens carefully to debates in your Lordships’ House. Indeed, he has a rollercoaster of meetings outside your Lordships’ House. His energy and willingness to listen are much to be commended, but could he distinguish for us which amendments have arisen as a result of consultations with and suggestions from outside organisations and Members of your Lordships’ House, and which are government amendments that are necessary to put right things that were not considered in Committee?

Would he also not agree that it is not good to make legislation on the hoof? In Committee I contrasted it with the way he dealt so impeccably with the modern slavery and human trafficking Bill, which had enjoyed pre-legislative scrutiny from Members of both Houses prior to being introduced in another place, and which was dealt with with great diligence by Members of both Houses and in an exemplary manner by the Minister himself. Surely that is the way we should enact legislation. But the Immigration Bill has completed all its stages in another place. It has now come here and he has introduced whole new clauses without any pre-legislative scrutiny or consideration of them in another place.

If we are honest, there has not been much consideration here. We pride ourselves, do we not, on being a House that scrutinises legislation in great detail, line by line and clause by clause? I honestly do not think that we can say we have done that with these clauses. Personally, I do not understand all the implications of the amendments that have been introduced. Although I am grateful to the Minister for the compendium of letters and detail that he sent us this morning, the idea that one could have read it all in advance for today is, I think he would agree, pretty unlikely.

So all I am doing is appealing to the noble Lord to look at the way we have dealt with this and ask officials whether it would not have been better to come forward at an earlier stage, or wait for another opportunity. I also put in an appeal at least for post-legislative scrutiny. If there is to be no sunset clause in the Bill, can we at least have an undertaking from the Government that we will revisit these clauses especially in 12 months from now to see how they work?

I have one other question for the noble Lord on resources. He will recall that at meetings held on the periphery of your Lordships’ House I questioned the level of resources available to what was the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, soon to be the GLAA. I know that he is deeply committed to tracking down those who exploit labour, who are involved in human trafficking and all the dreadful things that have been rehearsed at earlier stages of this and previous legislation. Is he really confident that there are sufficient resources? Given the research done by universities such as the University of Durham into the funding of the GLA, does he think that those resource problems have been overcome?

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Hamwee

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

I am not quite sure how that fits in with what I was saying. I am certainly not arguing that there should not be a good returns process; in fact, I have tabled an amendment to that effect later in the Bill.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

If the noble Baroness will allow me, one thing that does not seem to have been referred to in the course of our debates is the exponential increase in the number of people detained. I think that there was an 11% increase last year, with around 31,000 people being detained in this country. Does that not underline the importance of what she is saying about looking for alternatives to this? I gave the figures earlier: the cost to the public purse is around £36,000 per person detained. Millions of pounds are being spent on something that does not give great credit to our nation. Surely we should look for an alternative to this. We know that such alternatives exist elsewhere, which is where Stephen Shaw seems to be pointing us. Is that not what we should be doing between now and Report?

[Baroness Hamwee]

Indeed, and the sentence before the one which I quoted referred to a system,

“both … more protective of the welfare of vulnerable people and”,

delivering,

“better value for the taxpayer”.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Hamwee

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Hamwee

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[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.