Education System

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, we have run out of time but the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, has been waiting for some time.

School Trips: Passport and Visa Requirements

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As I explained to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, I think that collective, group passports are still in existence, although we expect them to be phased out at some point. The EU is now in the same situation as the rest of the world.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, in an answer last June, the Minister suggested that collective passports under the 1961 Council of Europe treaty could be used. It turns out that these can be used only for nationals of the country sending the visit; in other words, a Spanish student in a French school could not benefit from this. Will the Minister undertake to talk to the group of tourism blue badge holders in London to try to devise a scheme—for the whole world, not just for Europe—that encourages young people to come to Britain? It is first impressions that often bring a lifelong admiration for a country.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Earl will know that we continue to accept collective passports from countries that have ratified the relevant Council of Europe treaty. Nineteen countries have done so but, in practice, only the UK, Malta and Slovenia actively issue them. As I said earlier, I think they will probably be phased out.

Migration

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Thursday 28th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I find it interesting that migration is a “difficult subject” given that, it is true to say, we are nation of immigrants. On the funding of specific museums and organisations, I was lucky to be able to speak to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, yesterday. I will have to go back to my colleagues in DCMS and ask them about the noble Baroness’s question.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, while I am pleased that this museum exists in the constituency that I used to represent, I point out that the Question is about knowledge and understanding of the contribution of migrants. I hope that the Department for Education and other areas of government that promote information will continue at all times to stress the positive contribution that migrants have made to this country, including both the Minister and me, who hail from outside the UK—or our families do, to be more exact.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. As he was talking, I was just thinking how one of the awful moments for the Home Office was the Windrush scandal. One of the huge contributions that was made to this country after the war was by the Windrush generation. It has come to the forefront of people’s minds in the last few years, more than ever before, how people such as those in the Windrush generation helped this country, as did the Irish.

EU Bilateral Agreements for Asylum Seekers

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I say to the most reverend Primate that I thank the Church of England in particular for everything it has done to support asylum seekers; the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has been the first person to take part in community sponsorship. The work of the Church has been incredibly important. Clearly, we will be trying to expedite asylum claims as quickly as possible. We have suspended returns to Afghanistan—understandably so—and I hope that the claims of all those who are waiting in the queue will be seen to as quickly as possible.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that asylum seekers, who are not required to take any PCR test when they land in the United Kingdom—unlike double-vaccinated Members of this House—are put at a great disadvantage? Does she envisage that they will be required to take a PCR test before they can be sent back anywhere?

Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The panel is clear that it did not find any evidence that freemasonry had any effect on the investigations. The Code of Ethics, published by the College of Policing, makes it clear that the police must remain impartial and that membership of groups or societies must not cause a conflict of interest or impact an officer’s duty to discharge their duties effectively.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, at Chapter 10, Paragraph 470, there is a quote that

“‘the corruption of freemasonry influenced every attempt at seeking the truth in the initial Morgan criminal investigation and subsequent enquiries’.”

Later, there are some figures on the voluntary database, where 96% of judges, 88% of magistrates, but

“only 37% of police … declared whether or not they were Freemasons”.

The recommendation actually says:

“All police officers and police staff should be obliged to register in confidence”.


They are not asked, but are obliged to do so. Later on, it says:

“The ‘rotten apple approach’ to dealing with corruption does not meet the needs of a police service seeking to minimise, and even prevent corruption”.


Is it not time at least to accept the recommendation that police officers should be obliged to register whether they are Freemasons?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, on the definition of freemasonry, the Code of Ethics published by the College of Policing makes it clear that the police must remain impartial and that membership of groups or societies must not cause a conflict of interest or impact an officer’s ability to discharge their duties effectively. As I said earlier, the panel is clear that it found no evidence that freemasonry had any effect on the investigations.

Passport and Visa Measures

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I reiterate that we will not be reconsidering, but I do not agree with that assertion that thousands of children will not be visiting. What about the children from the rest of the world who visit this country? Are they in a different category? We are treating everybody in exactly the same way. Of course, there is always the option to get collective passports for groups of children issued under the 1961 Council of Europe treaty.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is getting a bit of a reputation for doing everything to annoy Europe. The Minister speaks about other countries, but all the nearby countries are in the European Union. All we are doing is making people feel unwelcome. We are tearing up something which does not need to be torn up. The Minister says that she will not reconsider, so I will not ask her to, but I will ask her to reflect on the damage this is doing to Britain’s reputation outside this country.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I have much respect for my noble friend, but one could flip that the other way and say of the long-standing issue of children outside the EU: have we made them feel unwelcome for years? I do not think we have.

Net Migration

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, from 1 July it will be incumbent upon people who enter this country to do so through a legal route, and the immigration system will be operating from then. It is right that we provide inadmissibility for people who do not come through those safe and legal routes.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, while I support many aspects of the new policy, in particular for asylum seekers, will the Minister look at the scandal of people landing on the beaches of this country, seemingly at the end of a system of abuse of the system, and make it an offence, with suitable penalties, to enter the country illegally?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend has illustrated the abuse on so many levels of people coming to this country through non-legal routes. People landing on the beaches is a scandal for all sorts of reasons, mainly because criminality has brought them there. They are not necessarily criminals, but criminality has brought them there and criminality does not care at all for the safety and security of those people.

United Kingdom Resettlement Scheme

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate for the meeting I had with him and Reset. We talked about funding and the importance of the security of funding. We will continue with resettlement. That process has been paused and almost stopped at times, but we are reworking our approach to asylum to deliver a fair but firm system. I look forward to bringing those provisions forward.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, the key word in the Minister’s Answer was “legal”. I point out that we have a lot of refugee programmes and a visa programme for Chinese nationals. When we look at the resettlement scheme, I ask the Minister to ensure that, when we choose the refugees to resettle, we pay some attention, like the Canadian Government do, to the contribution they can make to the British economy and its future?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I totally agree with my noble friend. Just because someone is a refugee, it does not mean they cannot contribute to society and the economy. Many of them can and are highly skilled. Going back to the conversation I had with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, that is precisely what we are looking at. These people have much to contribute to our economy.

Refugees: Napier Barracks

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I can say to the noble Lord that, first, we are working very closely with public health authorities. Secondly, on the various aspects by which you might judge how people are living, there is drinking water, including bottled water, and three meals a day, two of them hot. I have gone through the healthcare provisions, and legal advice is also available. There is wi-fi on site, and everyone has a phone.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

The Minister has outlined the very large increase in the number of people in this sort of accommodation, and I accept that the Minister and the Government are doing their best. The one thing that they are failing on is the number of people who are getting into the country as illegal migrants. What I would like to hear from the department is that Napier barracks is closed because we have got a grip on illegal migration. Can the Minister promise us that that is also a priority?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I can echo the words of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who has said that the asylum system is broken. Over the next few months, we will see how we will change the immigration and asylum process to be firm and fair, while ensuring that it absolutely clamps down on those facilitators of illegal migration, who are criminals.

Health Measures at UK Borders

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure we all support the Minister in what is a very difficult job. The Statement says that people should be staying at home unless they have a valid reason to leave, and that going on holiday is not a valid reason. I could not agree more; that is absolutely right. However, I ask the Minister to realise that there are some legitimate reasons why people need to travel. If I heard correctly, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is in Norway at the moment, presumably because he has a very good reason to be there.

I wish to ask the Minister two questions. The Statement says:

“We will introduce a new requirement so that people wishing to travel must first make a declaration as to why they need to travel. This ‘reason for travel’ will be checked by carriers”.


When will this come into force and will it be available online? It says, “checked by carriers”, so presumably the carriers will be given some guidance. Can the Minister clarify whether the result of a negative lateral flow test done by the NHS is acceptable when presented to Border Force as proof that the bearer is not infected and therefore eligible to travel?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, guidance is always issued when the rules change, and it is absolutely right that it would be issued in this case. The noble Lord is absolutely right: the rule is to stay at home unless there is a legitimate reason to leave. Of course, some people do have legitimate reasons to leave and I know that he is one of them.

NHS tests cannot be used for predeparture travel purposes, and it is not because of the type of test—for example, the lateral flow test. It applies to any NHS test, and that is because we believe that the NHS testing capacity should be used for health purposes and not for the purposes of travel. However, I take his point about the necessity of him having to travel. Protecting public health remains our top priority and we need to reduce the risk of importing Covid. All business is important, but we acknowledge that a high proportion of work can be done online—not his, I know—and people should limit travel where possible to essential journeys. I am afraid that exemptions from the self-isolation passenger information and predeparture testing requirements will not apply to business travel. A limited number of jobs qualify for exemption, which are vital to maintaining the flow of critical goods, protecting essential services, protecting national security or facilitating government work.

Channel Crossings in Small Boats

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am glad that the noble Lord recognises the need for legal routes. Of course, we have a number of those. Under Dublin, someone can claim asylum in the first safe country that they arrive in, which is of course all the states of the EU. We have our national resettlement scheme, under which we have resettled more people than any state in the EU, and 46,000 children have received our refuge since 2010. We also have family reunification visas, of which we have issued 29,000 in the past couple of years. That is not to say that what is happening is right; it absolutely has to be tackled. With what has been happening with small boats, the only people who benefit are people traffickers and criminals.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

Setting aside the attractions of the UK because of language and relatively lax employment rules, I was on the Operation Sophia committee of this House, which looked at the EU’s system for dealing with migration. We concluded that the only way to deal with it was to break the business model. Will the Minister, first, consider, in talks in the Home Office, the need to destroy the boats and all the equipment that people arrive in, and, secondly, look at a system whereby they do not land in the United Kingdom but are put on a boat and taken somewhere else so that the attraction disappears? At the moment, if you land in the UK you have a 95% chance of staying. We have to break that if we are to deal with this problem.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend outlines some of the complexities of this. It is not in our purview to go and destroy boats that are not on our soil. They quite often come from France, as my noble friend said. On not landing in the UK, it is an internationally accepted arrangement that the first job of any maritime force, whether Border Force or whoever it is, to save lives at sea. That is a really important thing here. I will repeat what I said in the first instance: on taking someone somewhere else, when people are taken safely on to our soil we are obliged to hear and deal with their asylum claim. This is a problem for every state in the EU: we need to work, together with our partners, to deal with some of the problems of upstream criminality. The reason why people get on to these boats and take perilous journeys is that criminality, unfortunately, is at the heart of it.

Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 29th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the new Hong Kong BNO visa requirements reflect the unique and unprecedented circumstances in Hong Kong, and the UK’s historic and moral commitment to British national (overseas) citizens. There is no quota on numbers, and we are working closely with the FCO to forecast how many people are likely to apply. The visa will not set a precedent for our wider immigration policies.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I remind the Minister of Auguste Comte, who said that “demography is destiny”. We have had a population growth of 6.6 million in the last 20 years and are projected to grow by another 5.6 million in the next 20 years, making ours the fastest-growing population in Europe. The Migration Advisory Committee was consulted about the recent points system, limiting minimum salaries and the like. Has the MAC been consulted about the Hong Kong situation? Has it set down any guidance that should be followed and can we expect the 4 million to 5 million extra migrants that are predicted under this policy? Where does that leave the Conservative Party manifesto?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The BNO visa is a very generous offer indeed to BNO citizens, which is proportionate to the unique situation that has arisen. The new route will not set a precedent. In terms of the 4 million people who will possibly come over, we estimate that up to 2.9 million status holders are eligible for passports, and at the moment there are around 350,000 passport holders. In reality, a large number of those who are eligible will want to stay in Hong Kong or relocate to other countries in the region. It is not possible at this point to predict with accuracy the number of BNO citizens likely to choose to come to the UK.

Quarantine: Scientific Advice

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to publish the scientific advice upon which the travel quarantine measures are based.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con) [V]]

My Lords, SAGE, the Home Office’s chief scientific adviser and the Chief Medical Officer are clear that when the rate of domestic transmission is high, imported cases represent a small proportion of the total number and make no significant difference to the epidemic. The Home Secretary has agreed to publish a summary of this advice in due course.

[Lord Balfe (Con) [V]]

In her exchange on 4 June, the Minister said:

“The science advice has been consistent … It is for SAGE to determine when to publish its advice.”—[Official Report, 4/6/20; col. 1531.]


With respect, no: Ministers decide when to publish the advice. The Government’s measures are increasingly met with widespread derision and non-compliance. I therefore urge the Minister to say to SAGE that the advice must be published very soon if it is to have any credibility, otherwise the Government’s strategy in this field will, frankly, collapse.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford [V]]

It is a matter for SAGE when to publish its advice. It published advice from 23 March. As I said in my Answer, the Home Secretary has agreed to publish a summary of the advice in due course.

Covid-19: UK Border Health Measures

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Yes, this was the subject of a question to me a few weeks ago. There were some hiccups at the beginning of this process, and of course the media ran the odd story about the police perhaps being a bit overzealous. The police have, to a huge degree, got not only the consent but the support of the public. Something like 74% of the public think that the police are doing the right thing in how they go about enforcing—in fact, some people think that they should have been even stricter. But I totally take the noble Baroness’s point that people should understand the difference between what the law is and what the guidance is. The regulations are the law and the guidance assists in the application of the law.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I declare my interests as in the register, which include two jobs in Brussels, where I generally spend two days a fortnight—I am talking to noble Lords from there now. I am told that, under the regulations, if I do one day a week, I can travel to and from Brussels without being put into quarantine, and that these measures are backed by the science. But given that, this afternoon, Eurostar had not the faintest idea of what documents I would need to produce to escape being put into quarantine, and given that—with due respect to the Minister—I am still waiting for a reply to an email to her, what science was used to say that I should take four journeys a month instead of two?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I apologise to my noble friend publicly for him not having had an answer to his email. As he knows, the rules will start from Monday 8 June, so it is perhaps not surprising that Eurostar was not entirely sighted on some of the rules that will be in place.