Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Norwich and Baroness Kennedy of Shaws

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

I support the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, in this amendment. I reiterate what he said: that this is a narrowly drawn amendment. It was drafted by the British Red Cross but is supported by a number of NGOs, including the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association. It is closely defined in that it expands the categories of family members eligible for family reunion. It can only be, as the noble Lord has said, those who are coming here to seek respite from war, genocide or ethnic cleansing. They would have to be joining a family member who is already here, having been given refugee or humanitarian protection status. The two caveats are, first, that they would not be able to have recourse to public funds—they would be sponsored—and, secondly, that they would be registered with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or a similarly recognised authority.

We make this argument to the Committee, and to the Government, on the basis that the people involved have close connection already with a family member in Britain. They are at the most extreme end of those who seek support and assistance—who seek a haven from persecution. This draws on the great tradition that we have in this country of offering asylum—genuine asylum—to those in desperate need.

I remind the Committee of what happened in the late 1930s. Although I am a Scot of Catholic background, I am married to a man who, on the one hand, is the son of a Presbyterian Scot but whose mother was a refugee from Austria. She came to this country in 1939, as a doctor from Vienna, and she and her sister managed to get out. Because of Quakers in this country, they were looked after or sponsored on their arrival into this country. They were able to bring their mother from Austria by sponsoring her. We still have among family papers her passport, which bears the stamp “J” for Jew. She came to this country precisely in the way that we are advocating that people should be able to come now—people who are fleeing persecution and are able to say, “Let us have a close family member come and join us”. I know that other Members of the Committee will join me in urging the Government to keep that great tradition alive by allowing for this amendment. It is precisely of the same order.

I add a coda. The two daughters went on to become practitioners—doctors—who brought great credit to the way in which they were able to join this community. They always felt an enormous indebtedness to the generosity of the people of this country. I urge the Committee, and the Government, to accept the amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, who has added his name to Amendment 234, cannot be in his place, but I am glad to speak on my own behalf and, I hope, for him, too, since we are of one mind on this matter.

One of the great privileges of being a bishop in the Church of England is found in the many connections we have with Anglican dioceses overseas. The diocese of Southwark has very long-standing links with Zimbabwe, while my own has an association with Papua New Guinea that has gone on for 60 years. I was last there in August and September, visiting the remoter parts of the western highlands, which was a challenge. The welcome is amazing and humbling, but what one learns is about the huge significance of family and kinship roots in such societies. They make all the difference for individuals between flourishing and destitution. They provide the practical and emotional bonds through which people make sense of life. They are the source of social and financial security, elder care, childcare and so on.

I reflected while I was there on the atomistic character of many British social and family relationships, which seem very limited and limiting by contrast, and certainly unthinkable to them. Consequently, when states fail and insecurity becomes unbearable, as we have already heard, families do shift, but they do not fracture even if the world around them does; mutual obligations hold. When one flees terror and ruin, there can be no better way to do it than with those with whom there exist bonds of affection and mutual obligation. It may seem to us to be an organisational and financial necessity to break up family units or kinship groups, but to those within them in such situations, it seems like madness.

I appreciate that rules already exist to provide for a degree of family reunion, but the sentiment behind the amendment is that they are too restrictive. What sort of family life do we believe in if a minor is admitted to the UK and granted asylum status but there is no basis in the Immigration Rules for parents or siblings to join him or her—or, in reverse, if a Syrian father is granted asylum but not his 19 year-old daughter left in a refugee camp? I realise that the Minister may argue that such cases can be considered outwith the Immigration Rules, but the number of these visas is dropping rapidly, down to just 11 in 2014, which suggests that this is a route that is now very little trodden indeed. I would be grateful for the Minister’s reflection on that tiny number in this context.

The problems and issues underlying our net migration figures do not subsist in family reunion, nor are they caused by them, and hence I hope that the Minister will respond favourably to Amendment 234.