Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Dubs

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I refer to a non-financial interest: I am a trustee of the Arise Foundation, which works for victims of human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I too wish Part 5 was not in this Bill at all. As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, told the Committee, it is odd to put issues concerning immigration and human trafficking together in this way, as though they are part and parcel of the same problem. They are not.

That is why my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss was right to be as passionate as she was and, reinforced by the remarks of my noble friend Lady Prashar, to say that the Government really need to recast and rethink this all over again. My noble and learned friend referred to the Salvation Army which is, as she said, the advisers to the Government on this issue. It says:

“The Salvation Army has held the Government’s Modern Slavery Victim Care and Co-ordination contract for over 10 years. In that time, we have supported 15,000 survivors of modern slavery. We, along with our colleagues across the anti-trafficking sector”—


all of us have seen reams of representations from pretty much every representative group that there is—

“would urge you to … ensure that vulnerable survivors of trafficking and slavery are not prevented from accessing the support they deserve.”

It is hard to see how many of the measures that we are debating very briefly in the context of such an important set of provisions will enable that to happen. I do not want to pre-empt what I am going to say on my Amendment 156A on the national referral mechanism, but simply to reinforce what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said in his curtain-raising remarks for the whole of this section.

My noble friend Lord Hylton, and I, along with my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, worked with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who was in another place at that time and doing incredibly energetic hard-working things to get the 2015 legislation on to the statute book. We all paid tribute then, as that came through on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, through both Houses, to the right honourable Theresa May, for what Lady May did in working for this legislation to happen. However the history books judge her period as Prime Minister or Home Secretary, I believe this is her most lasting legacy and something she should be enormously proud of. That is why I too quoted her remarks at Second Reading, and I was glad to hear the noble Lord refer to them again today. I urge the Minister to go back to what she had to see had to say about this.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol and I go back a long way. She was once a curate in what was then the Liverpool Mossley Hill constituency, so, we also have something in common with the Minister. Bristol and Liverpool have something in common: their knowledge of the transatlantic slave trade. In 2015, we saw this as a way of cleansing some of the past: not breaking down monuments or trying to cancel history but doing something positive. My worry is that what we are doing now is undoing so much of that good work. What are these imaginary windmills that, like Don Quixote, we are being encouraged to tilt at today? There is no data. Where is the justification? Knowing that the Minister has a forensic brain, I hope he will take us through what the justifications are for what we have here. Why, as the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said, are we disregarding what our own Joint Committee on Human Rights has said to us?

I have one more thing to say, and that is on Amendment 154, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker: Proposed new subsection (2A)(g) refers to

“fear of repercussions from people who exercise control over the person”.

Certainly, through the work that I have been privileged to be involved in with the Arise Foundation, we have seen many examples of that. That children are being treated no differently in this legislation beggars belief.

Amendment 154 also refers to victims of trauma. If someone has been traumatised, then of course the statements they will make, even possibly the untruths they feel they have to tell to prevent being sent back where they came, should not be held against them. This section also deals with people with diminished capacity, and I was struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said in one of her examples about people with diminished responsibility. We have all seen cases like that. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, who we will hear from later on, has done more than anyone in your Lordships’ House to draw to our attention the need to do more to help vulnerable people in that situation.

These amendments are good, but you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. I wish this was not in this Bill at all. There is still time for the Government to recast. Given the concerns that have been echoed, not just here, but right across the sector, I hope that the Minister will take this back to the Home Office, take it back to the Government, and say let us think again.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I am also a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and I am grateful to my colleagues on that committee who have spoken. The committee looked very hard at this issue, and we came up with very clear recommendations. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for having set the scene for this debate.

I want to be brief but will repeat the question put by my noble friend Lord Coaker. Why are the Government doing this? On some aspects of the Bill with which I am in profound disagreement, at least I understand why the Government, in their own way, want to do what they are doing—it might be quite wrong, but I understand it. In this case, I do not even know what the case is for the Government to do this. Are they trying it on so that they can withdraw the provision and seem to be meeting the wishes of the House? There is no justification at all.

Most Members of this House will be aware that people who have been in slavery, trafficked or traumatised by sexual exploitation, often find it very difficult to talk about their ordeal. They often want to keep quiet, because the experience has been so horrifying for them that they cannot put their own case to officialdom here. I have seen this over the years when I have met people. In fairness, some of them want to talk a great deal to get their experience out of their system, but many others do not. It is a natural human reaction; one does not want to talk about one’s awful experiences; one wants almost to shut them out. Then one finds there is a need to reveal information.

I was talking to some NGOs which were working with people who had crossed the Sahara. They said that the majority of women who fled for safety across the Sahara had been raped on the journey. Many of them do not want to talk about that. It is not within their tradition and culture to talk about it, yet here we are demanding that they should.

I find it very depressing that we have to debate this at all. I urge the Minister to say that the Government will think again. That is the only way out, otherwise, when we get to Report, it will not be a nice day for the Government, because we are bound by the comments we are making today, and by having a sense of integrity in putting forward the case for people who have been in slavery or traumatised to have a reasonable chance of being dealt with. The Government should not be trying to find ways to keep them out. I ask them to think again.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Dubs

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, just before the noble Lord concludes his very persuasive remarks, can he put into context for the House the numbers of unaccompanied children we are talking about? In the context of World Refugee Day last year, with 70.8 million displaced people or refugees in the world and a further 37,000 becoming displaced every day, the modesty of what was incorporated by your Lordships’ House and put into law should speak for itself. Will the noble Lord remind the House of the small numbers of the most vulnerable people of all that the amendment deals with?

[Lord Dubs]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am not sure that I have every figure at my fingertips, but let me do my best. Section 67 of the 2016 Act covered children being able to come to Britain without having family here. The Government capped the total at 480. I understand that we are quite well short of that, even today. The Government said the number of 480 was limited by the ability of local authorities to find foster families. That is not the case with children joining their relatives here, where clearly local authorities do not have to find foster places. I think, to date, several hundred children—the Minister may correct the figure—have come under the family reunion provisions in the Dublin treaty. We might be talking about 800. Without having the exact figures, we are probably talking about 1,000 or 1,000-plus in the Greek islands and in northern France. In the context of the international situation, that is very few.

The Minister said that we have taken a certain percentage of the EU total. Yes, we have, but probably only in relation to the size of our country. I do not dispute the figure from the Minister. However, refugees in a wider sense are going to be the most challenging issue to the whole world, and certainly to Europe and ourselves, over many years. But what we are talking about here is a very small number of children, who will be positively affected by this measure. That is why I am pretty keen on it. We had a small demo in Parliament Square yesterday, with a lot of people supporting it. We have had more than 200,000 signatures on a petition supporting the provision. I believe that we are essentially on the side of public opinion. I believe that we are essentially on the side of humanity. I beg to move.