Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Green of Deddington

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, the amendment simply deletes a key requirement in a spousal visa. Noble Lords will remember that the Migration Advisory Committee was invited to make recommendations on what should be a threshold. I take the point that the noble Baroness would not like a threshold at all, but the recommendation was £18,600 as the level at which no income-based benefits were paid. The level at which the overall costs to the Exchequer would be zero was £40,000. That gives an indication of the cost to the taxpayer of abolishing this income requirement. It is surely not right that the taxpayer should be obliged to subsidise at such a considerable level the arrangements of other people. This amendment would drive a coach and horses through that requirement, and I hope that it will be opposed.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on this amendment and I appreciate the knowledge and the strength of feeling of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. He has put this as a matter of fundamental principle. I respect that, but I am afraid that we disagree on it, and I shall try to explain why the Government feel like that.

The amendment concerns the family Immigration Rules for British citizens which also apply to those who are settled in the UK and those here with refugee leave or humanitarian protection to sponsor a spouse or partner to come and remain in the UK. Of course, we welcome those who wish to make a life in the UK with their family, to work hard and to make a contribution. However, we believe that family life must not be established here at the taxpayer’s expense and that family migrants must be in a position to integrate into British society. That is fair to the applicants and to the public and it is the basis on which the family Immigration Rules were reformed in July 2014 by the coalition Government.

The amendment would reverse those reforms by removing all requirements except the requirement that the marriage or civil partnership is not a sham. So the effect of the amendment would be to remove the minimum income threshold and accommodation requirements; to remove the requirement for basic English language speaking and listening skills; to remove the suitability requirements which prevent a foreign criminal from qualifying for leave; to remove the minimum age requirement; to remove the requirements which prevent the formation of polygamous households and prevent those with a prohibited degree of relationship from qualifying; and it would run counter to Parliament’s view of what the public interest requires in immigration cases engaging the qualified right to respect for family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights as set out in the Immigration Act 2014. This would undermine our system for family migration. Understanding basic English and being financially independent, for example, help to ensure that the migrant spouse or partner can integrate and play a full part in British society.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Green of Deddington

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, eventually I will be allowed to sit down. There are some very serious points here. There is a large number of destitute children in Europe. The issue is how we suggest our Government respond to that. Suppose we take 3,000 children in the UK as part as what I think has been described as our share. So 30,000 or 40,000 children are taken into care in Europe. Do we seriously think that none of the families who are refugees from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan will deduce from that that the best way forward, particularly as the borders close and the Turks get more difficult and so on, is to send a child ahead? I think that they might well. I cannot be definitive about this—we need the evidence and we need to think about it very carefully. But there has to be a risk that if you say, “Right, we’ll have the kids”, other family members will follow and we simply make the situation continue and possibly even get worse. Whatever we do, there is a dreadful situation. Let us be really careful that we do not make it any worse.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, we could probably spend four hours going backwards and forwards on this obviously important subject, but it might be useful, given that we have a number of things to get through, to hear the views of the Front Benches.

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[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, I support Amendment 240. The sheer scale of immigration is a major public concern. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that we need to get a grip, and part of that is a matter of reorganisation, which I think is at hand. Another part is to have a legal framework, and we are doing that today. But none of that is any use at all unless it is enforced. I am increasingly of the view that the lack of resources is becoming a serious constraint; it really does need to be looked at, and the Government should explain how they think they can achieve their objectives on the resources that they have so allocated.

Lastly, I offer qualified support to Amendment 241A. Illegal immigration is a very important subject that is often ducked. We have looked at this, and it is very difficult to get beyond merely ballpark estimates, but it is worth having a shot at and I think that the Government should do it—not annually, because there is just not enough information for that, but it should be done and it would be worth doing.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I shall be brief if I can, because—if I can make a pitch wearing my Whip’s hat—we have six more groups of amendments to debate.

It may help if I speak first to government Amendment 239C, which I hope will be uncontroversial. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for his support on this amendment. This makes a minor change to extend the maritime powers in the Bill to Northern Ireland port police by altering the definition of “Northern Ireland constable” in new Section 28Q of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, as inserted by paragraph 7 of Schedule 11 to the Bill.

The two harbour police forces in Northern Ireland, the Belfast Harbour Police and Larne Harbour Police, were not initially included in the Bill as the categories of officers listed are modelled on the maritime powers in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. However, we have listened to points made by Northern Irish Members in another place and agree that a consistent approach should be taken across the UK with the enforcement of immigration control. Therefore, this amendment aligns the position of port police forces in Northern Ireland with those port police forces elsewhere in the UK which are already included in the Bill. It will be a matter for individual port police forces to consider whether they wish to use the powers or rely on the relevant territorial force—for example, the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Amendment 239BA would extend our penalties for misdirected passengers to general aviation sites, private landing strips and helipads. It is the Government’s intention to operate the misdirected flights penalties only at sites where there is a designated control zone to which arriving passengers must be directed for border checks by the Border Force. I shall come on to the points that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, made in a moment. Given the large number of general aviation sites, landing strips and helipads in the UK that do not have a permanent Border Force presence, this amendment is unnecessary and unworkable. It would place a disproportionate burden on those sites. Border Force officers attend such sites only when they need to check specific arrivals.

On what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, was saying about the potential loophole, I should quickly mention how border authorities handle general aviation flights. The Border Force and police take an intelligence-led approach to general aviation, which strikes a balance between securing our borders and best managing resources. Flights are risk-assessed in advance and, when appropriate, border authorities will physically examine crew, passengers and goods. There are in excess of 3,000 private air fields nationwide, and it would be unfeasible for the Border Force and police routinely to meet all arriving flights. It was noted by the independent inspection report published in January that the Border Force has made a number of significant recent interventions in the general aviation environment. I confirm that all those travelling via general aviation are subject to the same immigration and visa requirements as those using scheduled services. The noble Lord asks whether we are doing something about it. The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 includes enabling provisions for a stronger legislative framework for advanced notification for general aviation. Regulations will bring greater clarity to what is needed from the sector but also provide for appropriate sanctions to enforce compliance by the small minority that do not provide advanced notification under the current arrangements.

Amendment 240 seeks to include provision for a statutory review of border security in the United Kingdom. The Border Force operates a control regime which is predicated on checking 100% of scheduled arrivals. Our collection of advanced passenger information from carriers enables us to identify known subjects of interest to law enforcement agencies before they travel, allowing us to intervene and direct airlines and ferry companies not to carry certain passengers so that they never even set foot in the UK. The Border Force adopts an intelligence-led approach in combination with its partners to identify and intercept contraband goods which have the potential to cause harm to the public. Our visa regime provides another vital way by which we are able to manage the threats from crime, terrorism, illegal migration, and espionage.

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration regularly reviews Home Office immigration functions, including our management of border security. Most significantly, following the independent chief inspector’s critical review of the then UK Border Agency, Border Force was established as a separate law enforcement body. The Home Office also works with a range of other partners, including port operators, carriers and road hauliers. This allows us to review processes and security interventions to make border security work efficiently, and to work together to intercept threats while keeping the flow of law-abiding passengers and freight moving as smoothly as possible. I assure the Committee that the Government keep the UK’s border security arrangements under constant review and these arrangements are subject to rigorous scrutiny by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration—as I have said—and by the Home Affairs Select Committee. The reports and publications of both of these are laid before Parliament. On this basis, we do not consider there is any need to introduce a further statutory review process.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord must clearly be too young to remember who abolished exit controls. It was indeed Margaret Thatcher, when Prime Minister, as an economy measure. She thought that they were unnecessary and cut the number of people employed by the border service. That was some time ago.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Perhaps I may correct the noble Lord. Exit checks to Europe were abolished by the Conservative Government in 1994 and exit checks to the rest of the world were abolished by the Labour Government in 1998. Both decisions were wrong.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

They were amended by this Government.

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[Lord Green of Deddington]

I think the important word is “essential”—operationally essential. If you ask that question, you will get the answer that you would hope for. But would it be operationally valuable? Were they asked that question and, if so, what was the answer?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I shall turn the question round. If you ask any law enforcement agency if it would like some information, it will always say yes. The question is whether it is nice to have something or it is an essential tool, and that is the advice that we have received at the moment.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Green of Deddington

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington]

The short answer is no. We have an asylum system which does not work as fast as people would like, but let us improve the system. The obvious answer is to process the claims more quickly and then this question would not arise. However, I would go back to the original, existing system.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, this is an emotive issue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, these are not new arguments. In fact, I think they were had on the last Immigration Act and possibly in immigration Bills before that. Of course, it is an emotive issue and everyone has sympathy with the plight of some of the people whom we are talking about. It is a difficult line to draw and we have to draw a balance.

I have listened carefully to the arguments in favour of allowing permission to work where an asylum claim is still outstanding after six months, removing the caveat that any delay must not be of the asylum seeker’s own making, and lifting restrictions on the types of employment available. The amendments would radically change existing permission-to-work arrangements for asylum seekers and the Government are not convinced that that is sensible. As a general rule, the Government believe that it is not appropriate to allow asylum seekers to work. It is important that we protect the resident labour market for those lawfully present in the UK.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am not aware of those statistics, but I will take a look at them.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

There are about 600,000 vacancies in the UK, and there always are. It is frictional unemployment. The only way that you can take another job is if a job is vacant.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

Thank you.

Syria: Refugees and Counterterrorism

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Green of Deddington

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again. It is actually the turn of the Cross Benches and then we can come to Labour.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, first, I warmly endorse the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond. Both he and I are former ambassadors in Damascus. We have first-hand knowledge of that country and its regime. We have been long concerned about the Government’s policy towards Syria and we think it is time for it to be reviewed. That said, does the Minister agree that the focus of the debate has been entirely on refugees, which of course is right? However, not all migrants are refugees. We have to keep in mind that a significant number—we do not know how many and we will not know until their cases have been considered—are in fact economic migrants.

It is very important that the actions taken by Governments in Europe and in the UK do not have the unintended effect of causing a very large flow of people into the Union and this country who have no right to be here. Does the Minister therefore agree that this is exactly the wrong moment to cut the resources available to the Home Office and the Border Force to distinguish between genuine refugees and economic migrants? They should be doing the exact opposite. We have a new and major crisis on this whole front and that should be recognised in the way we address it.