Calais Jungle Camp: Child Refugees
Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, in the two days that I have been in post, I have not got any further than France. But my noble friend has already spoken to me about this and I undertake to look into her request over the summer.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness to her post. Mindful of the fact that over 200 children went missing when the southern part of the camp was dismantled, will a commitment be given in the case of unaccompanied children to avoid the perils of sudden dispersal?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The right reverend Prelate makes a very important point not only about safeguarding children, especially when they are unaccompanied on their journey, but about being mindful of some of the legal frameworks of the countries they have come from, so I totally concur with the right reverend Prelate’s point.
Policing and Crime Bill
Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, I congratulate Ministers and their officials on bringing forward such a large Bill in so orderly a fashion. This is a Bill of nine parts; even Gaul was only divided into three. I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I make a number of points from so varied a terrain.
While the Bill addresses licensed premises for the sale of alcohol, we have no mention in it of other licensed premises, which are also vulnerable to criminal activity. We know from freedom of information requests reported in the press that from 2013 to 2014 there was a 20% rise in the number of police call-outs to betting shops. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, who wished to attend this debate, himself submitted a freedom of information request recently to the Gambling Commission, which reveals a 68% rise in reports of violence against the person at London betting shops over the last five years.
Much of that rise has been linked to the increase in the number of fixed-odds betting terminals, which now account for more than half the profits of high-street bookmakers. Local licensing authorities remain unable to impose conditions on the use of these machines. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans has asked me to indicate to the House his intention to bring forward amendments in Committee to rectify this anomaly, and he is hopeful of a sympathetic response.
Noble Lords will be aware of concerns raised by the mental health charity Mind about provisions in this Bill, but I am sure your Lordships will join me in applauding Her Majesty’s Government for the very real progress we find in these provisions—if sensitively implemented—regarding the maximum time that cells may be used, the use of a person’s home as a safe space and the exclusion of 16 to 17 year-olds from cells. A statement on a step change in provision from the Department of Health and local authorities where there is no complementary provision would be welcome during the Bill’s passage.
I hope that Ministers will look favourably on proposals emanating from the Children’s Society, the NSPCC and Barnardo’s for an extension in the use of child abduction warning notices to cover vulnerable 16 and 17 year-olds more widely than the very small group to which they currently apply. The Minister may be aware that the organisations concerned are also pressing for all victims of child sexual exploitation and abuse to receive an automatic referral to their local child and adolescent mental health service when they disclose their abuse. It would be helpful to know whether the Government will consider addressing these points during the passage of the Bill.
On quite another point, Part 3 and Chapter 1 of the Bill introduce very important changes for both the rank structure of the police service and the exercise of policing powers towards the population at large. Neither the Explanatory Notes nor the College of Policing review on leadership, which the notes reference, mention the previous wide-ranging review by Sir Patrick Sheehy in 1993, commissioned by the then Home Secretary, now the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne. It recommended a flatter rank structure for the same reasons as stated now. The ranks of deputy chief constable and chief superintendent were abolished from the beginning of 1995, only to be reintroduced in 2002 as the police service was found unable to manage effectively without them. It will be important not to repeat this error. Do the Government intend to extend provisions in the Bill to the British Transport Police and other non-Home Office forces?
On the provision to specify only a set of core policing powers for police officers and to allow chief officers of police to designate other policing powers at their discretion for policing staff and volunteers, I have some concerns. I myself am an officeholder, as, for example, are all my parish clergy; none of us is an employee. The point about being an officeholder seems to have been lost in drawing up these provisions. When Sir Robert Peel brought in major reforms for the policing of Ireland and of London, he none the less applied the ancient office of constable as a key component in the delivery of this new form of policing. For that reason, Section 10 of the Police Act 1996 gives chief constables a power of direction and control over those officers. It is this office, paid or unpaid—hence special constables—that distinguishes them from staff. The bald provisions as they lie in this Bill blur that distinction without, it seems, realising it. The College of Policing review noted a number of contributors questioning the ongoing relevance of the office of constable in such a scheme. It is indeed an argument worth considering, but in that case we should consider it in depth, not ignore it. Mere affirmation is not sufficient.
The value of the reforms of the Police Reform Act 2002—most notably the introduction of police community support officers, which have been a particular blessing on the streets of my diocese—and the later allocation of a core standard set of powers to them, was that they preserved a distinction from police officers. With standard powers, one gets some idea of what a PCSO is meant to do. If all staff and volunteers, for whom issues of accountability and regulation must necessarily arise, will have a range of powers at the discretion of chief officers, who themselves will change every four years or less, what hope is there for public consent and understanding of what these professionals will do? Indeed, I am left wondering what will happen to PCSOs, and neighbourhood policing with them, under these new arrangements. I trust that these points are of some use.
Immigration: Detention of Pregnant Women
Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Keen of Elie
At present there are management data from diverse sources, including medical data, border data and detention data. The Government are considering how best to collate the information and whether it will be necessary to actually publish it. I ask the noble Baroness to bear in mind that our intention is to minimise the number of pregnant women in detention, and that will dictate how we proceed.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, I would be grateful if the Minister would detail the criteria and give examples of the exceptional circumstances that justify the detention of pregnant women under the Act.
Lord Keen of Elie
We have made it perfectly clear that detention in all cases is the exception and not the rule. In the cases of vulnerable adults, including pregnant women, it will be wholly exceptional for them to be detained. In general it is anticipated that detention will be required only in circumstances where someone arrives at the border without any right to be in the United Kingdom and can be more or less immediately returned to their country of origin.
Domestic Abuse: Rural Communities
Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Keen of Elie
I am obliged for the sympathy of your Lordships’ House. Let us be clear, social isolation is one of the issues that can cause the development of abuse. Social isolation can be made worse because of geographical isolation. Therefore, rural communities can be more susceptible to these developments. What we have to be able to do is come in and deal with these problems at an earlier stage. That is one reason why we introduced the new law in December 2015 with regard to domestic violence, to ensure that coercive behaviour—not necessarily physical—could be addressed more effectively.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, following on from that point about isolation, with rural areas often isolated from dedicated support services, local clergy can be particularly well placed to act as a conduit between victims and the relevant authorities. Can the Minister inform the House whether any steps are being taken to provide training to local professionals in rural communities, such as clergy and GPs, to help improve reporting and communication and to ensure that victims receive the help they need?
Lord Keen of Elie
One of the difficulties in rural communities is often that victims will not come forward, even to their general practitioner, for fear that knowledge of their situation will become more widespread. They are concerned by that. That is why we are advancing the national statement of expectations as a blueprint for rural and urban areas in order to bring together a partnership of health experts, social workers, the police and the Church.
Migration: Middle East and North Africa
Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Keen of Elie
The Government have been excellent at dealing with the question of unaccompanied children applying for asylum. Let me put it in context for a moment. In 2015, there were just over 3,000 applications from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. More than 35% of the applications came from Albanians and Afghans; about 6% came from Syrians.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, what possibilities does Her Majesty’s Government see for effective governance in Libya and for the much-needed increase in giving by our international partners to maintain the displaced populations of Iraq and Syria, which will impact on the movement of people and, most importantly, make a positive contribution to their lives?
Lord Keen of Elie
There have been indications of improvement in the governance of Libya, but it remains a difficult and problematic area—of that there can be no question. However, this Government are dedicated to addressing these problems at source. That is where the solution will be found.
Immigration Bill
Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Baroness Afshar (CB)
I support the amendments to Clause 17, not least because alienating youths born and bred in this country results in their choosing to leave it to fight with groups that accept them, be it in terms of their creed or their colour. The measure will create active enemies of this country. It is unwise to do that to young people raised in this country with hope who then find themselves treated as terrorist suspects.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, I share some of the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, who sketched out the problems with enacting this clause. As the Government rightly tell us, reasonable suspicion is a well-established precept in English law and policing practice. However, this does not mean that it is infinitely elastic in its application. A prior question needs to be asked when legislating: is it applicable in this circumstance, and with what effect?
This House is entitled to ask the Minister to consider that there will be circumstances where to exercise such judgment will involve the very real danger of identifying individuals who have leave to remain or who are not even subject to immigration control. Surely that would be an intolerable imposition. We know all too well that our fellow citizens do not take to being stopped for unfounded reasons.
Thus I return to the question I asked at Second Reading, which was not to query the idea of reasonable suspicion in all its existing applications but simply to ask what will constitute reasonable suspicion in these circumstances. A concrete example from the Minister would help.
The peril of such a path is made all the more obvious by the knowledge that alternative powers already exist, without this sort of provision. I trust that the Government will listen to the concerns expressed in this House about this clause and remove it from the Bill.
Immigration Bill
Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts(10 years ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, Amendment 134, which I wish to support, is simple, just and proportionate in its aims. I accept that Home Office officials must, in the discharge of their duties in this area, deal with barriers of language, emotional distress, the fear of authority, the complexity of people’s lives and, on occasion, deceit. All this takes time. However, it is far from unknown for applicants for asylum to wait months or even years for a substantive decision in their case. This subjects them to a fearful limbo, with limited means of support and the background anxiety of not knowing for a very prolonged period what the outcome will be. Furthermore, we know from the experience of our own citizens the deleterious effects of prolonged inactivity on their emotional and physical well-being, and how this can erode an individual’s skill base.
The European Union’s reception conditions directive, which came into force last July, recognises this and requires of all EU countries—except Ireland, Denmark and the UK, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, was saying—that asylum seekers waiting nine months for a decision may work. Germany has responded, interestingly, by legislating for a three-month threshold.
It is the policy of the Church of England, by resolution at its General Synod in February 2009, that all asylum seekers should be granted permission to seek employment. If the Government brought forward their own amendment with a threshold of nine months rather than six, as here, I could accept that. What is manifestly unfair is excluding such individuals from the world of work for an indefinite period, as at present. This amendment, with its threshold of six months, is not an invitation for migrants to enter the UK job market by an easy route. It could not be, with that sort of threshold. It is a measured and fair response to a manifestly unfair and damaging exclusion. I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and others.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to be able to speak in support of the amendment tabled by my noble friends on the Front Bench. Indeed, I, too, am delighted that this is now my party’s official policy.
The right to work—or, perhaps more accurately, the right to be allowed to undertake paid work—is a human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and incorporated into human rights law as part of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which recognises,
“the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work”.
After the Second World War, TH Marshall wrote that in the economic field, the basic civil right is the right to work. More recently, in 2007—long before I came to this place—the Joint Committee on Human Rights described the denial of the right to work as part of a deliberate policy of destitution, in breach of asylum seekers’ human rights.
The all-party parliamentary inquiry into asylum support, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alton—of which I was a member—talked about how asylum seekers who are not able to undertake paid work lose skills and are unable to provide a role model for their children, and about the impact on their self-esteem, self-confidence and mental health. All this has a damaging effect on their children. A Freedom from Torture report on poverty among torture survivors states:
“Many questionnaire respondents, and most participants in client focus groups, highlighted the importance to them of having permission to work while their asylum claim is decided as a means of supporting themselves and being self-reliant. Indeed, the lack of permission to work for asylum seekers was a major theme of discussion and the key change that focus group respondents called for, although they also recognised that many torture survivors”,
may not be “well enough to work”.
A letter to the Independent at the end of last year asked why asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the UK. It pointed out:
“We have skills to contribute: some of us are doctors, nurses, carers, teachers, builders. But these skills are wasted and deteriorate while we wait for a decision on our asylum applications. We want to contribute to the UK economy and to be part of this society”.
Much of government social policy, whichever party is in power, is premised on the principle that paid work is the primary responsibility and the most important contribution that people make to society, summed up in the rather tired mantra of “hard-working families”. Why should asylum seekers be denied the opportunity for a whole year of joining the happy ranks of hard-working families in the labour market—and even then joining only on very restrictive terms? The evidence shows that this impedes integration. The Home Office’s own research shows that delayed entry into the labour market can cause problems even when refugee status is then granted, leading to high levels of unemployment and underemployment.
We have already heard about what happens in other European countries. My understanding is that most of these countries have fewer applications for asylum than are received in the UK, which does not support the argument that providing the right to work acts as a pull factor. The lack of impact on the number of applicants is confirmed by a study of OECD countries. Indeed, after our last debate on the issue, the then Minister acknowledged the paucity of hard evidence to support the Government’s case. Moreover, as Still Human Still Here argues, it is not very likely that economic migrants would draw themselves to the attention of the authorities by making an asylum claim, so that they might be able to apply for permission to work in a whole six months’ time.
The danger is that asylum seekers will end up in the shadow labour market, facing the kind of exploitation we discussed earlier in the context of undocumented migrants. Indeed, can the Minister say whether, if they do take paid work, they could be caught by Clause 8 —criminalised for working illegally even though they are legally in the UK awaiting a decision on their asylum claim?
I fear that Governments are often timid with regard to the rights of asylum seekers, for fear of public opinion. However, surveys by the IPPR, and the British Social Attitudes survey, show that there is public support for allowing asylum seekers the right to work. The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, in an inquiry into destitution among asylum seekers a few years ago, said:
“Overwhelmingly, giving asylum seekers the right to work was the favoured solution identified”,
by those who gave evidence.
As has been said, we have debated this issue a number of times in your Lordships’ House, even in just the five years that I have been here. Since the previous time we debated it, the financial position of asylum-seeking families has worsened because of the savage cut in asylum support for children. So the cost to them of not being able to undertake paid work is all the greater now, with damaging implications for their mental and physical health and that of their families. I urge the Minister to take this amendment away and think about whether the time has not now come to concede this most basic of human rights.
Immigration Bill
Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, the Bill is the latest in a list of substantive immigration legislation that this House has considered in recent years. Since the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 we have had five further pieces of primary legislation in this area, yet Her Majesty’s Government have published no White Paper on immigration since 2002—no considered, detailed overview and proposals through which we might consider all aspects relating to immigration before embarking on major legislation. The Explanatory Notes are helpful but they are no substitute for a White Paper.
I hope that the Bill, which has now been considered in another place, will not be subject to government amendments in this House save in those areas where Ministers are responding to concerns or amendments of your Lordships. We merit having the whole of the Government’s intended Bill before us now and I hope the Minister will give us that assurance.
Time forbids that I should discourse widely on immigration control. It is a proper function of the state but I fear that, as there is much over which we operate limited control, we find ourselves applying extraordinary effort to exclude support and consideration to persons over whom we have relative discretion. Yet the measures before us have not been quantified as getting us back to the Government’s ambition of net migration in the tens of thousands. Why, then, are they so urgent and so necessary?
The extension of immigration officers’ powers should not be in lieu of addressing declining numbers of police officers. It is true that they have powers already under the 1971 Act and that the power to seize property connected to offences unrelated to immigration when on immigration duties will be considered by many to be sensible. Whether immigration officers are selected and trained for such a purpose is quite another matter. Discussing this extension of the role of the immigration officer in criminal justice is precisely an area for which a White Paper is necessary.
The provision in Clause 17 to search an individual if the immigration officer has reasonable grounds to suspect they are in the UK unlawfully and do not have a driving licence is concerning. What could possibly constitute “reasonable grounds” for suspicion? A means of tracking irregular migrant activity is through the ways in which individuals engage in the regulated business of life—bank accounts, utility bills, rental agreements. To exclude the possibility of these may be counterproductive. It would be useful to hear from the Minister how successful such measures are in other countries.
Clauses 37 and 38 will reduce the meagre support available to those whose asylum claims have been refused. In July, the Government tabled regulations to cut support to asylum seekers by nearly a third to £36.95 a week. Before enacting these provisions we should reflect that, according to the latest statistics, under the current system, which is subject to appeal, 65% of cases are withdrawn by the Home Office or found against the department. Should we remove a right of appeal in such circumstances?
Clause 59, on regulations for the charging of civil registration fees, adding as it will to living expense, particularly for those on modest incomes, will have consequences. Will the Government consider a consolidated measure of relevant legislation following the passage of the Bill?
This is perhaps the point at which to add a personal reflection. At the end of October I visited the migrant camp at Calais. Not once were we asked for money. Frequently we were greeted. I saw the dignity and devotion of the makeshift St. Michael’s Church, I heard the terrible stories of many of those with whom I spoke and I witnessed the energy of those who had fled there. These were people of courage and vigour, and often victims of harm. I trust that the Government will act to address these and other concerns of noble Lords.
Syrian Refugees
Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bates
Specifically on the last point of the local authorities, Richard Harrington, a Member in the other place, is the Minister with responsibility for the Syrian refugees who are coming to this country, and he is working very closely with the local authorities and devolved Administrations on this important issue. The Prime Minister has repeated his claim that he wants to see 1,000 here by Christmas, and the Home Office and all other groups are working to ensure that that happens. A key part of this is that the resettlement scheme comes through the UNHCR, and we want the UNHCR to identify the people who are most vulnerable to ensure that those who are most at risk get the protection that we want to give them.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, how close are Her Majesty’s Government to announcing the details of a third route in addition to the two mentioned in the noble Lord’s Question—namely, the introduction of a private sponsorship scheme, in which many faith and community groups have expressed strong interest? This would enable faith communities to work in partnership with the Government and reflects a desire to do this, as expressed by the Bishops in their recent letter to the Prime Minister.
Lord Bates
That is under active consideration at the moment. Of course, many of the people on whom we are focusing at present are the most vulnerable and in need, particularly of medical care and what have you, so they may not be appropriate for the type of generous offer that has been made. But we have talked about creating a register for charities, churches and faith groups to get involved; there is also a page on the government website that tells people how they can get involved. Once the immediate urgency is over and the first group is brought to the UK safely, we will very much want to take up those offers of great generosity by others.