Asylum Support (Amendment No. 3) Regulations 2015

Debate between Lord Bates and Baroness Williams of Crosby

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We will, of course, continue to monitor the impact. We will continue to work through the National Asylum Stakeholder Forum with other groups. We have set out our position, and if people challenge that position and have data that show that there is unintended hardship as a result of these regulations, they should come forward with them. They should make the data available to us, and we will then consider them.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

I declare an interest as the patron of the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, which does some excellent work. Has the Home Office considered the possibility of consulting voluntary organisations that work on a day-to-day basis in detention centres, many of which contain people who have been here for very many months and should not be in prison or detention centres anymore? I have the greatest respect for the Minister, but could he consider suggesting that there should be careful consultation with voluntary and high-minded bodies that look after detention centre internees to discover what they think of the present provision that the Government are making?

[Lord Bates]

I am happy to do that. We should constantly be listening, and I know that officials have engaged with people in those situations and are constantly listening to what they are finding and what hardships people are going through and looking at new data which have been made available to them. This is constantly under review; in fact, there is a structured requirement for us to undertake a review on an annual basis. If other organisations have evidence, then let them bring it forward, but noble Lords should bear in mind that we have produced our own evidence in quite considerable detail that shows to our satisfaction, as Ministers, that we are complying with that judgment set out before us. That is the reason why the changes have been made, and why I am asking the noble Baroness and the noble Lord to consider not moving their Motions.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Bates and Baroness Williams of Crosby

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for moving this amendment and giving the opportunity to put one or two additional points on record. This amendment would not permit guidance to be issued to universities until a report had been laid before Parliament setting out the impact of—

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I apologise to the Minister but I was not aware that he was going to respond to the amendment now, which would rule out Amendment 14D to which I wished to speak. I turn to that amendment briefly to explain the point of it. It looks a very small amendment but it is a rather serious one.

Amendment 14D relates to those with whom the Secretary of State would consult in advance of putting out the various kinds of guidance, which has already been dealt with to some extent by the Minister in his very helpful amendment requiring an affirmative procedure by Parliament. That meets one of my major concerns, which is the involvement of Parliament in every way and at every stage of the Bill. That is absolutely crucial, especially given the scale of the challenge that the Minister on more than one occasion told us we must meet. The solidarity of Parliament in dealing with these issues is crucial.

Let me explain why I put down this amendment. It was for the very simple reason that absolutely nowhere in the Bill that I can find is there any requirement of any kind to consult the age group that we are most concerned about. There is absolutely none. There are no references to student organisations, youth organisations or for that matter young people at all. Yet I think many of us recognise—I will in just a moment give an example of this—that the most effective force to persuade young people to abandon any thoughts of terrorism is other young people. Statements by senior officials, however senior they may be, cut nothing like the ice and have nothing like the persuasive power as other young people who see the devastating effects of terrorism and bring those to the attention of their friends and colleagues.

One of the things I regret is that the statutory requirement that students should be represented on university bodies which we brought in with the Education (No. 2) Act 1968 was abandoned by the then Government in 1987, so there is no requirement of that kind any more in law. One of the great advantages of requiring that students be represented on, for example, university courts and academic panels was precisely that they were then brought into the operation of the university itself, and into its responsibilities and its authority. That became an important and significant factor in dealing with what one might call young extremism.

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[Lord Bates]

I am conscious that we are rehearsing arguments from the previous debate. Our argument, in fairness, is that they have not seen the guidance because people have not actually seen the guidance, which has not been published following the consultation. It will be informed by the debate that we have had.

Our hope and desire, though, is that this is very light-touch. It deals with what most, or many, academic institutions are already doing; it links in with their existing programmes for how computers are used on campus or in the library. It builds on that rather than trying to build some new bureaucratic edifice, which in our view is not necessary.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I am a little worried because the argument is moving towards the costs of bureaucratic reviews and so forth, and away from the central point that I believe to be critical for any chance of success in what the Government are trying to do: the formal involvement of young people. At the moment, and I hope my noble friend will forgive me for putting it this way, there is nothing in the Bill requiring universities to formally discuss with their own students how they handle the requests and guidance from the Government.

[Lord Bates]

Of course there is nothing in the Bill to say, stipulate or prescribe that, but there is nothing to stop it. I would have expected, although I am happy to reflect further on this—perhaps we should reflect further on these comments in the guidance when it comes forward—most higher and further education institutions to engage with the student body, particularly student associations, about how this should be implemented on their campuses in order for it to be effective, and not to be onerous but to be very targeted. That would be a very good thing to do.

I am conscious also that I was drifting in the direction of Amendment 14B from the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, rather than the noble Baroness’s Amendment 14D. Still, this has been a helpful debate to have; it has elucidated some important principles about the engagement of young people, and about ensuring that the costs and the impact of the duty and the guidance—when it is produced—should be evaluated and should be in the spirit of what is intended, which is to be light-touch, not onerous, and to be focused on what Clause 25(1) says about avoiding people being drawn into terrorism specifically. With that, I ask my noble friend to consider withdrawing his amendment at this stage.

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[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I have a very simple and totally inexpensive proposal, which is that in issuing the guidance the Secretary of State will make plain that he or she expects a university to consult its students before deciding to agree to accept the guidance that is then issued.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am happy to put this point on the record without further reflection. I believe that best practice should be that academic institutions should engage properly with students on how this Prevent guidance to have due regard to the guidance is going to be implemented. As we will discover in the next group, the guidance will come through an affirmative procedure in both Houses. I will reflect further on the noble Baroness’s comments ahead of that and make sure that her remarks are considered by the Secretary of State.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

In the light of that helpful response, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Higher Education: Overseas Students

Debate between Lord Bates and Baroness Williams of Crosby

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

STEM graduates—graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics—are certainly in demand. They will have no problem, if they have a bona fide employer, in meeting the criteria for tier 2, so there is no problem in ensuring that that opportunity will remain open. We want to welcome them. The question is whether 100,000 people ought to be able to stay on, as was the case before, without any limitations, doing jobs as baristas or making pizza deliveries. That is in no way to diminish the value of those jobs, but simply to say that that is not making best use of their degree and that they are jobs which could be provided to people who are here legally in the domestic market.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that there are two areas where the ability to stay on for two years after completing one’s graduation is of great significance? One is adding to scientific teams, where the addition of a graduate who stays on for the time being to work on a team in an area such as cancer research is vital. The other vital area is that in the past students studying medicine have stayed on and worked in A&E before they returned to their own countries. That does them well because they gain experience; it does us well because it makes it easier to get a quick response in A&E.

[Lord Bates]

I totally agree with my noble friend. Those are exactly the types of profession where we want to see more places occupied by highly skilled and qualified graduates in this country. They would have no problem securing employment and meeting the criteria under the tier 2 provisions in either of those examples. Information released last week on the number of students in the past academic year showed that the number of postgraduate students staying on for research had risen by 9%, which we should all welcome.