Immigration Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

In addition to the HMRC statistics published in 2014, figures produced by StopWatch show the scale of the problem in this country. From its analysis of British Crime Survey data produced in 2008 and 2011, StopWatch found that black and ethnic-minority drivers consistently reported higher levels of car stops: 33% of people with mixed black and white ethnicities reported being stopped; for both the black Caribbean and Asian Muslim communities the figure is 18%; for white drivers, the figure is just 11%. We already have lax stop powers on the statute book which allow individuals to be stopped without reason. Yet rather than working to address the discriminatory reality of this provision, the Government seek to tie this power to the immigration system, creating the obvious potential to ramp up discriminatory impacts and inflame existing grievances. I oppose Clauses 41 and 42: they should not be part of this Bill.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, it seems to me that a very serious proposition is being made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I think that we ought to be very careful about it. The proposition being made is that, however valuable this clause is, it should not be passed because we cannot trust the police to carry it through properly. That is a very serious criticism. I have not been alone in my criticism of the police; I think that, particularly in London, there are very serious criticisms to be made. However, if we are to legislate on the basis that we cannot trust the police to behave properly towards the citizens of the United Kingdom, we had better look much more seriously at what we are doing with the police. We really should take it more much more seriously than is proposed here.

I think that many things happen in the police which are unacceptable. It is still true that relationships between the police and the press are far too close, and many of us have significant criticisms. But if the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, suggests that the police cannot carry through a necessary activity to ensure that illegal immigrants are properly dealt with and that the activity should be carried through not by the police but by immigration officials—who, evidently, can be trusted to behave in a proper way—then this is an argument not for this Bill but for a wholesale Bill about the nature of the police.

I do not believe that the British people would be very happy if this House decided that it would legislate in a way which was less likely to meet the needs as this Bill presents them simply because we have now accepted the inherent racism of the police force. That seems a fundamentally dangerous step to take. I would be very unhappy if the Minister were willing to be led down that route. Yes, of course, we have to have the toughest guidance; yes, of course, we have to make sure that whenever racist or discriminatory activities are found to be in the police they must be dealt with considerable severity; but we have to solve this problem—if it is a problem, and I am prepared to accept the views of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, from his own experience—by reform and training in the police, not by saying that we will have less efficient laws because they cannot be properly and safely implemented. Are we going to say, therefore, that there should be no stopping of cars being driven in a dangerous condition because the police feel that they would be more likely to stop some kinds of people rather than others? We really cannot run a state on that basis. If this is a real problem—and I am certainly not saying that it is not—it is a problem which has to be dealt with by the Home Office and the police force, and not one which should lead us to make laws which are different from those that we would have made because we are afraid of the way in which they would be implemented.

Therefore, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will take this very seriously, not for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has presented but for the reason that a democratic society has to have the laws which it needs irrespective of the differing feelings of people of differing ethnic or any other backgrounds. We are touching something fundamentally dangerous. It is precisely that kind of feeling that causes the resentment which one finds widely in Britain—a belief that we do not legislate in a colour-blind manner but in a manner which takes the view of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and therefore stops us legislating as effectively as we should. I hope that my noble friend will be very careful in the way in which he responds to this debate.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, in briefly following what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has just said, I say that there is a case for examining the way in which policing is conducted, and I agree with him that it is unfortunate that we have to have a debate in the context of the Bill. I support what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, as I did in Committee. That is based not so much on a belief that all our police officers behave badly, but more on the experience I had more than 30 years ago, in 1981, when the Toxteth riots erupted. They did so in part because of bad policing, and indeed they were linked directly to the stopping of a young black man on his motorcycle in Lodge Lane in Toxteth. The riots led to a thousand policemen being hospitalised in Liverpool as a consequence. Everyone who looked at the events in Brixton and in Liverpool afterwards, notably Lord Scarman, found that the overuse of stop-and-search powers had been part and parcel of the problem.

I guess that the question for the House today is: will this take us back to that kind of regime? That is what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is asking us to address. I must admit that I looked carefully at the letter kindly sent by the Minister as part of the compendium of letters he has written during the passage of this Bill. They run to page 146, which probably tells noble Lords quite a lot about the volume of correspondence we have had, and that is to the Minister’s credit. I just want to mention two phrases set out in the letter because they help to bring some clarity to what is intended in the Bill and perhaps might reassure both the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon. The first is that,

“it is important to bear in mind that the police will use the powers contained in these clauses reactively, after they have stopped a vehicle for an objective reason”.

Later in the same letter, talking not now about vehicles but about the entry into people’s homes, the letter states:

“The officer could then only enter premises where there are reasonable grounds for believing the driving licence could be found there”.

All this revolves around the words “objective” and “reasonable”. When the Minister replies to the debate, I hope that he will explain in a little more detail what kinds of circumstances he envisages as objective and those he regards as reasonable. That might give us greater confidence that the powers suggested here will be used properly.

I conclude by saying that it would be dangerous to presume that the police of our country are incapable of implementing the laws that Parliament passes in an objective way, and the noble Lord, Lord Deben, was right to remind us of that. But we must remember our story. In 1981 Sir Kenneth Oxford was the chief constable for Merseyside. Many people believed, as I did myself at the time, that the policing had been overly aggressive. It is notable that the young assistant chief constable who subsequently came to Merseyside, Bernard Hogan-Howe as he then was, would later rise to become chief constable of the area. He introduced very sensitive community policing, and I suspect that the extremely effective policing he developed during that period is one of the reasons he was appointed the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Good community relations were built up during that time. I would therefore be very nervous of anything that destabilised that delicate balance, which is why I seek further clarity about the reasonable and objective use of these powers.

Immigration Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my declaration of interest and the fact that for many years I have helped businesses trying to combat modern slavery. I am a little less critical than the noble Lord, Lord Alton, of the changes being made, because I think that they are necessary, but I agree that it would have been better, had we had the time, to make them in a different way. But we have this opportunity and not to have made them would, I think, have been a grave mistake. I support the noble Lord’s suggestion that the Government give an undertaking that we will come back to this in a year’s time to make sure that these necessary changes have done what we hope they will do.

I want to draw the attention of the House to something that is very often forgotten. It is that when companies look at their supply chain and seek to see where there is modern slavery, they usually start in some distant country. They think about somewhere where the rule of law is not as we would expect it to be. The shock, to many, is how much is found in so-called civilised and advanced countries—not just in Britain and the European Union but in the United States. It is very valuable that we have moved from the narrow attitude that you get this only in agriculture or with gangmasters, or that you get it only a long way away, to an understanding that we actually get it in almost every place, in almost every country and in the most remarkable situations.

I will quote an experience of mine. While I was working very hard on what we should do in countries in the Indian subcontinent, the very first and worst case happened in Manchester. We have to recognise that the issues with which we are dealing here are almost universal and a terrible indictment of man’s inhumanity to man.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I want to ask about the information gateway provisions, and in particular Amendments 8 to 11. These are very substantial and intrusive new powers introduced at a very late stage of the Bill. Will the Minister elaborate a little on the justification for introducing them and why they were not thought of at an earlier stage of the Bill, even before Committee? They seem very wide, talking about the disclosure of information,

“for the purposes of the exercise of any function of the Director”.

Like my noble friend Lady Hamwee, I would be interested to know whether the Information Commissioner has given advice. If so, will the Minister share that advice and assessment with us? There is a need for safeguards to match the breadth and depth of the powers. It strikes me that, while mention is made of the Data Protection Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act—which is not quite RIP—there is, of course, a new EU regulation on data protection that will be directly applicable and therefore will not have to be transposed into an Act of Parliament. Have these powers been health-checked against the new regulation, which may be somewhat tighter than the Data Protection Act in certain areas?

I want to ask specifically about medical confidentiality. In Amendment 9, which introduces a new clause after Clause 5, subsection (1) says:

“A disclosure of information … authorised by section (Information gateways) does not breach … an obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure”.

Since health bodies—NHS trusts, the Care Quality Commission and so on—are on the list for information sharing, this obviously raises the question of whether medical information is going to be covered, which is likely.

There do not seem to be any similar provisions to those in new subsections (5), (6), (7) and (8) of the new clause in relation to intelligence information and information pertaining to HMRC, where there is an obligation not to disclose information,

“without authorisation from the appropriate service chief”,

or “from HMRC Commissioners”. There does not seem to be anything comparable for medical data. Clearly, these are sensitive personal data for which a higher level of stewardship is already required under the Data Protection Act, and even more so under the new EU regulation. I would like an assurance that these provisions have gone through the filter of the ICO and the new EU regulation.

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I think that I have responded to the majority of the points that were raised—

[Lord Deben]

I thank my noble friend for giving way. I still have a problem, and that is that we are making these major changes, but the Bill is still called just the “Immigration Bill”. Given that the Bill now covers things that are at a much further remove from immigrants, the Government really ought to think seriously about its Title. It really is something very different from that.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, may I just remind the House that the Companion is very clear that, on Report,

“Only the mover of an amendment … speaks after the minister … except for short questions of elucidation”?

[Lord Deben]

If I may say so, I was asking for direct elucidation. I wonder whether the Minister would answer my question.

--- Later in debate ---

Is there not also a possible perverse result? If people are illegally in the country—I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about asylum seekers not being illegally in the country; I assume that we are focusing on those who are—is not the priority to seek their removal? The proceeds of crime proceedings that could be taken against them could be very lengthy, and you would be finding a reason to prolong their stay in the country at the expense of someone—certainly the criminal proceedings would be at the expense of the taxpayer. It would be very hard to remove these people and therefore say that they could not be present at their own criminal trial, so you would give a perverse extension of the stay of people in the country who should not be in it. This does not seem to be terribly wise policy-making, as regards both the resources of the CPS and the perverse incentives to prolong people’s stay in the country.

[Lord Deben]

I wish simply to thank the Minister for these changes, particularly in view of the two codas from our legal friends on the dangers of the amendments and the explanation that my noble friend put forward about their real meaning. I hope the Minister will take back to the Government the great advantage to be gained from being seen to listen to sensible arguments in the House of Lords and changing the legislation as a result. There are many other occasions when we would get through our business much more quickly if sensible debate was ended by a sensible change of mind by government.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will contribute a slightly wider point to the discussion. It is surely clear to all of us that a substantial number of people would like to come to this country and work illegally. As the Home Office will confirm, nearly half of those who apply for asylum have previously been working illegally and apply only when discovered. We have literally thousands of people queueing up in Calais wanting to get into Britain and work illegally. They know perfectly well that they will be illegal when they get here but they come because they want to work and send money home. Understandable though that may be, it is surely essential that there should be a disincentive to those people from making that attempt. The obvious thing is to make it illegal. There is no way that they will understand the intricacies of British law—indeed, the deputy mayor of Calais does not understand them—so it must be made illegal. If the Government can usefully adjust the law in terms of prosecutions, so be it, but let us keep our eye on the ball. There are literally thousands, if not many thousands, who would like to come and do this and they should be deterred.

Riot Compensation Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Friday 26th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I shall detain the House only for a short period, I feel that that this is another of those occasions where my intention is never to allow the lawyers to have it all their own way. As a non-lawyer, I should point out that Lord Mansfield was of course extremely prejudiced on this matter because he himself had been the subject of a riot. His house was entirely destroyed and his books thrown out in the Gordon riots. He was saved in his major house, Kenwood, only by ensuring that the rioters were liberally supplied with drink as they appeared on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Most of them having drunk enough, they decided it was better to go home than to burn Kenwood House. We owe our present ability to visit Kenwood entirely to the provision of drink by Lord Mansfield.

The only reason I know this is that the house I live in was occupied at the time by the magistrate who called the Riot Act as far as the Gordon riots were concerned. As a Catholic, I understand that those sort of riots were very uncomfortable. His house was marked by the rioters; they would go through in the daytime and mark the house with a cross, and because others were on their side you would not dare rub this cross out. However, he stood in front of the doorway and rubbed it out with his hand behind his back and therefore saved his house, although he was unable to save Lord Mansfield’s.

When we discuss this later we should not do so with too much dependence upon Lord Mansfield, who had every reason to want compensation.

Immigration Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I lend my support to the remarks made from all sides of the Chamber in support of Amendments 151 and 159, which would provide for a proper evaluation of the right-to-rent scheme before we roll it out nationwide.

I have spent a fair amount of time volunteering with a local charity for homeless people in Wimbledon called Faith in Action. On one occasion I was asked to help a person whose documents had been stolen—an occupational hazard when you are a rough sleeper. It was a lengthy and frustrating morning and afternoon—and quite expensive to boot—and I was not successful in tracing the documents on that occasion. I say this because it is clear to me that homeless people, foreign nationals and those from a black and ethnic minority background who have a right to rent but are not in a position readily to produce the necessary documents will be excluded from the rental market as landlords inevitably become more risk-averse in the face of the harsh penalties that could be incurred.

A number of people have talked about the many different organisations that have put forward their case strongly and well. Crisis—a national charity for single homeless people and a member of the Home Office panel—is one of them. It states that, according to an evaluation of the Immigration Act 2014 in Birmingham, which other noble Lords have mentioned, six of the local charities surveyed said that people they represent have become homeless as a result of the scheme, while interviews with landlords found “potential” for discrimination. They, of course, are not alone in those findings. The Law Society raises similar concerns, as does Liberty. To that list I can add Shelter, St Mungo’s and the JCWI. In fact, any charity that works on the ground with homeless people or supports immigrants’ welfare will say the same.

So I can do no less than lend my support to Amendments 151 and 159. Surely it makes sense to delay implementation of the offences contained in this Bill and the rollout of the right-to-rent scheme until independent evaluations of the associated risks have been carried out.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I find myself in a very difficult position. I have to say to my noble friend that there are three elements to this aspect of the Bill, which the amendments address, which seem to me incomprehensible. The first is that, if one is running a private business and is going to make a major change in the way it is run, one has a pilot scheme that one evaluates—preferably independently—and then decides whether or not it has worked. I do not understand how a Conservative Government who believe in private enterprise have not learned this from the private sector. It seems to me that you do not behave like this. You have a pilot scheme, you have it independently assessed, you announce the results and then you discuss what those answers mean.

So I have a problem of comprehension to start with. It is an important problem, because the second difficulty I have is that I find it pretty unacceptable in this country that people should have to prove that they are suitable for renting a flat before they are allowed to do so. I do not find that very attractive. I am one of those who have always believed in identity cards, which I think would be convenient for everyone. But this Government do not believe in identity cards and have tried to argue all the time that they are not necessary. However, we are now creating a sector, a section of the community, which in fact has to have an identity card. I object in principle to the concept that some should have it and others should not.

Central to that is the issue that, however one likes to dress it up, it is likely that landlords will be more suspicious of people of an ethnic minority or with a foreign accent than they will be of those who speak correct English with the crystal accents heard in this House. I do not think that many of us who have spoken today, even those with self-confessed “odd” surnames, would be refused rented accommodation, because landlords would not expect us to be unable to prove our suitability for that flat.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I will of course come to that. I realise that there are some very detailed questions and I am certainly not skipping past them, but I wanted to put on record the Government’s response to the amendments before turning to the matters raised in the debate.

There are some interesting points here, the first of which is that, while this scheme has been rolled out into the private sector, the requirement to prove identity has been in operation in the social sector. It was introduced by the Labour Government in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. It provides a duty on local authorities to check that those entering social tenancies have a right to be in the UK. Indeed, it goes further and places a duty on local authorities to notify the Home Office where they come across people who do not have a right to be in the UK. What is new is that that requirement is being applied to the private sector.

On the criticism of the independence of the office of evaluation—a point made by my noble friend Lord Deben and a number of noble Lords—the Home Office Science evaluation had scrutiny of the consultative panel co-chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Best. It might be helpful for the Committee to have on record the members of the landlords consultative panel, co-chaired by James Brokenshire and the noble Lord, Lord Best. The representatives included: the Association of Residential Letting Agents; the UK Association of Letting Agents; the Residential Landlords Association; the National Landlords Association; the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors; the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; the Department for Communities and Local Government; the Equality and Human Rights Commission; the boroughs of Sandwell, Dudley and Walsall; the National Approved Letting Scheme; Birmingham and Wolverhampton city councils; Universities UK; and Crisis.

[Lord Deben]

I did not criticise this as not being an independent group. My point was that the work should go on for longer before it is assessed, perhaps by the same group. It is not a question of complaining about the independence of the group; I fear that there has not been sufficient time to be able to draw the kind of conclusions which have been drawn. I think that is precisely what the noble Lord, Lord Best, indicated—that it would have been better to have had a longer period. All I was suggesting was that if you had a longer period and then had the independent assessment that would be better, given what a serious matter this is.

[Earl Cathcart]

I have a reservation. The Minister said that this is being done at the social housing level. However, it is relatively easy to get the message across to that sector because you just write to all the councils and tell them what it is. You cannot write to all the landlords because nobody knows who all the landlords are. There is no national register of landlords. I believe that is where the confusion has arisen in the pilot area, where 65% of landlords—two-thirds—do not understand the code of practice on preventing illegal immigration or the code of practice on avoiding discrimination. The message has not got to the landlords. When the Government roll this out, I wonder how the Minister proposes to get the message out to all landlords right across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

In terms of the unacceptable burden of checks, landlords are not being asked—

[Lord Deben]

Can I come back to single rooms that are let in a house? I have said to the Minister that I am perfectly happy to go along with him if I could know that we have looked at this particular issue. As far as I understand, we have not got very much evidence about the interaction between this legislation and people letting rooms in their own house. Do we know how many people have been interviewed on this? Do we know that it does not have the effect that I fear it has? If he can show that to me I will withdraw entirely but I just want to know and I am not sure that the evidence is there.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

To save the noble Lord from jumping up and down, our concern is that this could affect some people who have a perfect right to be here, such as British citizens—this is part of the point that the noble Baroness was making about people who are homeless. Vulnerable and disadvantaged groups—I talked about women fleeing domestic violence—may simply not have the evidence. A landlord who is in a hurry, and if there is great competition for space, is more likely to take the person who has all the documentation right at hand. It is not just between people who are not supposed to be here and people who are, because actually other groups are vulnerable to the unintended discriminatory consequences as well.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend give an assurance that these new powers, which are no doubt welcome, will not be used by park authorities to enable them unfairly to compete with people within the parks? Unfortunately, some national parks have behaved in a pretty high-handed way. I think that happens less now than when I was Secretary of State, when I had to deal with such cases. I just want to make sure that the new powers cannot be used in a non-competitive way.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there has been much speculation about what these powers might mean in respect of fracking and so on. The whole purpose of the amendment is to give park authorities the scope to be more innovative, rather than to act in an unduly competitive way with each other.

The part of government Amendment 77 that amends Section 65 of the Environment Act 1995 is minor and technical and contains the amendments consequential on government Amendment 54. I hope that noble Lords will feel able to accept the amendment.

Identity Cards

Lord Deben Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord will be aware that we have had this debate before. The decision that was taken to abolish the national identity register and identity cards, which had been introduced by the previous Labour Government, was done on two grounds: first, on cost, because it cost £85 million to run and nearly £1 billion was required to maintain the register; and secondly, in terms of effectiveness, because the very people whose identity we might want to have would be the last people in the queue to comply with the requirement for the ID card. That is not to say that we are not doing anything about that; we are simply saying that we have a different approach. We have passports and driving licences—84% of the population have passports and over 60% have driving licences—and all people who come from outside the EEA to live in the UK for a period in excess of six months are required to have a biometric permit to do so.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, with hindsight, would it not have been better to have corrected the faults in the Labour Party proposals and put them into operation so that now we would have a system which worked? Is it not odd that we are the only country in Europe that thinks that this system without identity cards is somehow superior? Should we not learn from others just occasionally?

[Lord Bates]

Of course we learn from others, and the reality is that we have a system of photographic ID—I have mentioned lots of types, such as biometric passports, but also general passports and driving licences, which we have in this country. At a time when our principal concern is national security, we have said that we choose to spend the investment that would be required to put in place a system of ID on better equipping our security forces and better securing our borders to ensure that we can keep people secure and safe.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I do not like having a law which states as a fact something which is clearly wrong. I hope my noble friend will therefore accept these amendments, in spirit if not in the exact letter.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

When my noble friend comes to do that, perhaps she will help me with the problem that I have got. I feel that “instrument” is probably not the right word, particularly when used with food. This is one of the ugliest bits of this ugly Bill, and any prettying up of this part would be very helpful.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I just mentioned a turnout of 65%, although of course I accept that that turnout occurred in a referendum. The noble Lord will appreciate that particular circumstances arose in the first police and crime commissioner elections, which took place in November. The role is now established. The England and Wales crime surveys found that awareness of police authorities is 7%, but awareness of police and crime commissioners is 63%. I believe that that will be reflected in the turnout next year.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that this has been a remarkable success and that some of us who were antagonistic to the idea at first have now learnt through our own experience—mine, for example, in Suffolk—that this is a very good way of ensuring that the public have greater control over the part of policing that they should control? Therefore, we should thank the police commissioners for the work that they are doing.

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right and I absolutely agree with him. That is not just the opinion of my noble friend. The Home Affairs Select Committee has said that police and crime commissioners,

“have provided greater clarity of leadership for policing within their areas and are increasingly recognised by the public as accountable for the strategic direction of their police forces”.

That seems a pretty good endorsement.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I would like to make a number of points about Motion A1, which my noble friend has laid before your Lordships’ House. In doing so, let me say first to my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss that she has been involved in the drafting of this legislation, as she said, even before it was presented as a Bill. However, on Report I passed an article to my noble friend Lord Hylton that he had written in 1996, and which I had kept, about the importance of safeguarding domestic migrant workers. No one has done more in your Lordships’ House than my noble friend Lord Hylton to champion their cause. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Bates, was right to pay tribute to him.

Although this risks becoming like a mutual admiration society, I join with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, in congratulating the Minister on the exemplary way that he has handled the Bill. It has, throughout, been a bipartisan Bill—the Opposition have played a huge part in it, as have people from all Benches in your Lordships’ House—and a bicameral Bill, with a lot of interaction between both Houses. The right honourable Member for Birkenhead, Frank Field—we all wish him well as he recovers from his recent heart attack—chaired that important committee on the draft Bill. He is right to emphasise the totality of this Bill.

There is no one in your Lordships’ House, including my noble friend, who will put this Bill at risk in any way whatever, but making a good Bill even better is surely what Parliament is all about. We have made this provision better. I will come back to that in a moment, but it is worth pointing out that supply chain transparency, which my noble and learned friend referred to, was not even in the Bill after the pre-legislative scrutiny stage in another place; it was incorporated on the Floor of the House. Similarly, there was no provision in the Bill on domestic migrant labour when it began to go through its stages. We have been improving it as we have proceeded. The Minister will correct me, but I think in Committee and on Report—I was able to take part in all stages of the Bill—around 100 amendments, many of them emanating from the Government after the discussions we had in the meetings that the noble Lord organised for us, were incorporated into the Bill. That is why it is already so much better than when it began.

I take issue a little with my noble and learned friend. It is the job of parliamentarians to be here until Parliament is dissolved. We have not got to the last gasp; this is not Custer’s last stand, as she put it. I certainly do not regard people laying amendments before your Lordships’ House and giving them proper consideration, as we are doing, as blackmail. I think it unreasonable to suggest that. I ask the Government this in that context: why is it that an amendment that was incorporated on domestic migrant labour about a week ago in another place has taken so long to come back to your Lordships’ House? Why is it here on the penultimate day? Why could it not have been here on Monday, for instance, allowing for more consideration if time is really the issue?

As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, rightly said, there is plenty of time for this to go to another place tonight. I have served in one or other of these Houses for the last 36 years. As the noble Baroness said, I remember the so-called wash-ups where we were here all night long dealing with things going between the two Houses until we got it right. Often, we got it much better as a consequence. I think back to the LASPO legislation. I moved an amendment concerning the legal aid provisions for people who had contracted mesothelioma. Your Lordships, across the House, were good enough to support it and it ping-ponged back and forth between both Houses. On the third time of asking, the Government relented and modified the legislation. That is our duty as parliamentarians: to seek as much as we can get and to recognise the moment when no more can be gained. I am sure that my noble friend, who has been in your Lordships’ House for a lot longer than I have been, will be able to remind your Lordships of plenty of such precedents. If we are here tomorrow again debating an amendment and the Commons decide that they do not wish to modify Motion A but wish to persist with it, then we will no doubt hear from the noble Lord what he wishes to do.

I turn briefly to the substance of the amendment. Until we incorporated this new clause, the Bill contained nothing whatever to address the tying of migrant domestic workers to their employers. On two occasions in the last three weeks I have met domestic migrant workers on Cromwell Green, and I know that other Members of your Lordships’ House have done so too. They were brought here by the Kalayaan charity, which the noble Baroness referred to. They told me that when news of the vote in your Lordships’ House on my noble friend’s amendment was announced, a young woman called Marissa Begonia, herself a domestic worker and co-ordinator of the self-help group Justice 4 Domestic Workers, described how she received texts from workers asking her, “Am I free now?”. Unfortunately, of course, the answer is “Not yet”. However, I recognise that the Minister has gone some way today, particularly in what he said about the review, but that review can now take place anyway, regardless of what we decide regarding this amendment. These things are not mutually exclusive.

In a nutshell, the government amendment does not provide additional protections against exploitation. Once someone is trafficked, it forces them to go to the police without any guarantee of protection before they do so. One employment agency told me that it would not place someone on a six-month visa with no hope of renewal. As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, there is a real risk that it could drive people underground—again, with no access to things such as legal aid.

My noble friend’s amendment merely asks for the most basic of protections, and they are threefold: first, to change employer but remain restricted to domestic work in one household; secondly, if in full-time work as a migrant domestic worker in a private household, the option to apply to renew the visa; and, thirdly, in instances of slavery, a three-month visa to allow the workers to look for decent work. Without these kinds of provisions, we leave in place a system found repeatedly during almost three years to facilitate exploitation, including trafficking of migrant domestic workers.

Many workers coming to Kalayaan describe how they have “sacrificed” themselves for the well-being of their wider family. They do not self-protect in the way that someone with more choices would expect. Many explain that they are prepared to put up with practically any amount of mistreatment if they can provide for their children and ensure that the same will not happen to them.

In 2009, the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its inquiry into trafficking, said that the visa issue was,

“the single most important issue in preventing the forced labour and trafficking of such workers”.

No one is so naive—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bates—to suggest or imagine that the exploitation of domestic workers would be abolished by such minimal protections, but they would certainly be an improvement on the current situation. The Minister referred to the anti-slavery commissioner designate, Kevin Hyland, and said that he did not feel that this went far enough. Well, he is right about that, so let us at least go as far as these amendments and as far as we can by regulation in due course, but let us do as much as we can for the moment.

When the Minister comes to reply, can he say whether the measures might include provisions—maybe as a result of the review—for annual inspections, for checks with the Inland Revenue to ensure that employers have registered and are making reasonable levels of contributions, and for annual meetings between the worker and a trusted authority? All those will be crucial. I believe that my noble friend is right to have laid this amendment before your Lordships’ House and I do not think that it is a question of this being Custer’s last stand. I hope that, from my noble friend’s point of view and because of all the things that he has done in raising this issue in the past, we will continue to give him our support if he chooses to press the matter to a Division.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, all my instincts lead me—I think Members of this House will recognise this—to being enormously sympathetic towards the amendment before us. However, I remind the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that it is not just a question of some people saying that they do not want an amendment because it will hold things up and might mean that we lose the Bill. The argument is that there are serious faults in this amendment which need to be considered.

Counterterrorism Policy: Syria and Iraq

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The right reverend Prelate raises a very serious and sensitive point. I would say very carefully that whatever your perspective on the crisis in Syria, our recommendation is that you do not travel. There are other international agencies which are doing incredible work in trying to bring peace and protect individuals and particular groups in that area. We should give them our full support without adding further to the difficulties by introducing independent people into that very complex and dangerous theatre of terrorism.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that there are many people who are caused great pain by some of the comments made in the newspapers, particularly those who have been responsible for the education of some of these young people? Perhaps he heard the headmistress of the school which one famous character attended. Will the Minister do all he can to stop people pointing the finger at those who have done a job, tried to do it as well as possible and are now left in this awful position of being blamed for something that has nothing to do with them and that they could not have prevented?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. I am sure that whenever we see a horrific crime committed by an individual, every head teacher wonders if they could have done more. That is in the nature of the educational professionals that we have.

I am afraid that there are some people who have that sadistic, vile, criminal bent within them. That reinforces the fact that what we are talking about here is not any ideological or religious struggle. It is pure and simple criminality—and in the case of that particular individual, murderous criminality. It is a tragedy for the family and people who know them, but we should not blame ourselves for what an individual had responsibility for and should have controlled himself.