Ukraine Refugee Visas

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Cormack for his question. He and I have discussed this most days since he gave me the letter last week. The way government works, the responsibility for this is with the Department for Education. I have taken it up—I believe he has too—with the Universities Minister, and I hope to have an answer for him soon. He gave me until early next week, and I intend to keep to that.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has certainly got into the real hot seat of the Government, and I wish him well. I do not like to be churlish, because he has not been in the job a long time, but a number of things are quite puzzling. I have written to him about a family, a mother and a child, who have made five separate applications to get here, yet nothing seems to be happening. The bureaucracy is still there, and it is delaying people. We are a laughing stock. One has only to switch on the news; every day there are families complaining that they cannot get here. It is embarrassing for us all.

One other thing: the Minister says he does not know the number of arrivals. That seems to contrast with the almost daily tally of people who have arrived illegally on boats. We seem to know exactly how many have arrived day by day, yet we do not know how many there are when they come under an official scheme. We need to be given confidence that something is working.

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I hope he knows that I have the utmost respect for him. I worked with him on the Syrian refugee programme. He disagreed with me a lot then, but we had a very proper and positive dialogue. I think he also knows that it is always my hope and attempt to do what he asks me to do, because that is the kind of person he is—and, I hope, the kind of person I am. What he said about the five applications is totally unacceptable. I apologise if he has not had an answer. I personally have not seen his letter, but before I go home today I will make sure that I have and will report to him on that.

I take a little—I want to be tactful and not say “offence”; I do not say that at all—disagreement with what he said about us being a laughing stock. With our family scheme and our Homes for Ukraine scheme, more than 20,000 people have gone through the system. I assure him and noble Lords that this is not complacency. The figure is more than 3,000; the scheme started days ago. I will be held to account at this Dispatch Box, but I think it is too early to do so.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, before we move on to the second UQ, I urge noble Lords to keep their questions very succinct and short—ideally just one question, possibly two—then hopefully my noble friend will be able to keep his answers short as well. The more Peers who can get in on this important subject, the better.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister answering read the whole Statement, which is quite proper, but it took up half the time. Surely that should not eat into our time.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Could I possibly put the noble Lord right? The Clock started from nought after the Statement was read, so there was a full 10 minutes after the Statement was read.

Ukrainian Nationals: Visitor Visas

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

My Lords, I will just clarify the situation. The six months to which my noble friend refers is the six months of the sponsorship scheme. That is the minimum period for which individual sponsors may be asked to provide accommodation. That, of course, is extendable. All the benefits, rights to education and all the other facilities extend for the full three years. Depending on what the sponsor wants, however, those people might have to move to another sponsored accommodation or elsewhere after six months.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not yet had the chance to congratulate the Minister on his new post. Many of us have quite high hopes for what he is going to achieve; I hope that does not damage his political future. Will the Minister have a look at the difficulty Ukrainians are having in getting visas to come here? There is still a very slow rate of progress, so could he do something to speed it up, please?

Home Office Visas for Ukrainians

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I can certainly undertake to do that for my noble friend.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, it is not as if we have not had weeks of notice that this was going to happen. What has been going on? Has the Minister looked at today’s papers—not necessarily the Guardian but the Conservative-supporting papers? They are all appalled. British public opinion is appalled at what has been going on. If Ukrainians who do not have family connections wish to seek safety here, what is the pathway for them to do it? Will there be limits? Will they be able to come easily or will it be more difficult? This morning, I had a desperate email from somebody asking if we could take 80 orphans. What is the policy?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord might recall me talking this week about the humanitarian sponsorship pathway, which is for Ukrainians without family in the UK who want to come here. There is no cap on the number of people who can come. All they need is a sponsor. As was mentioned previously, we have been inundated with offers. One thing that I discussed this morning with Richard Harrington was how we capture that generosity and ensure that the people who want to help can help.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the Ukrainian family scheme drives a welcome coach and horses through the usual Home Office approach to refugee family reunion, which is to oppose anything but a very narrow definition of “family”. The Home Office, in my opinion, seeks to restrict this safe route very considerably. As I understand it, the new scheme would allow children as well as adults to sponsor parents, grandparents, siblings and their immediate families, as well as allowing adults to sponsor their children over 18. It does not go as far as Amendment 48 from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in including, for instance, reunion with an aunt or uncle, and I look forward to him speaking to that amendment.

The Ukrainian family scheme is not the normal, routine Home Office approach. That approach was expressed at Second Reading of my Private Member’s Bill on refugee family reunion, and in Committee in response to my amendment, which was essentially the text of that Private Member’s Bill, as is Amendment 47 today.

In Committee on this Bill, the Minister said that the Home Office recognised

“that in some cases there will be exceptional and compassionate circumstances which warrant a grant of leave”

for the purposes of family reunion and that the guidance on exceptional circumstances would be “published in due course”. Can the Minister tell us what progress has been made in publishing that guidance? Yet again, as so often, the basis of the policy is just the exercise of discretion. It does not give certainty.

The Ukrainian family scheme is of course welcome, but in its recognition that, having fled to safety, refugees need their families, it should be a precedent, not an exception. As to allowing children to bring in family members, the Minister said at Committee stage of this Bill that

“noble Lords will at least grant that I have been consistent in opposing that sort of policy, because of its negative consequences”,

which, she claimed would creative incentives for children to be encouraged and forced

“to leave their family and risk extremely dangerous journeys to the UK in order to sponsor relatives.”—[Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 1474.]

In fact, it is the lack of safe routes such as family reunion that force dangerous journeys. Families Together, the coalition of 90 NGOs, talks about how the existing rules mean

“that those family members who have become separated but are not covered by the rules are left with the invidious choice of staying put in insecure and dangerous places or embarking on treacherous, expensive, unregulated journeys.”

I agree with another NGO, the excellent Safe Passage, that:

“Safe routes save lives, reunite families and support refugees to rebuild their lives … welcomed by our communities.”


I hope that the Government will take the precedent of the Ukrainian family scheme and widen it out to their family reunion policies. I beg to move.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 48 in particular. I say at the outset that I am grateful to the Minister for the trouble she has taken to give me a chance to talk to her and her officials about the clause and the Government’s view of it. Although I do not think that either of us was persuaded by the other as a result of our conversation, nevertheless I am grateful for the trouble she went to.

I want to just say a word or two about the background. Until we left the EU we had the benefit of the Dublin treaty, particularly Dublin III. To summarise, the benefit of that was that a refugee child or a child claiming refugee status could seek to join a relative living in this country. For example, a Syrian boy in France could apply to join an uncle in Birmingham or Manchester. That worked fairly well. The figures show that it was quite successful and it was an important part of reuniting families.

When we were concerned that Brexit would put an end to all this because the Dublin treaty would no longer apply, this House passed an amendment to the 2017 legislation so that the Government would negotiate to continue the family reunion provision after we left the EU. That was passed by this House on a vote, it was eventually accepted by the Government in the Commons and it became the law of the land. Then came the 2019 legislation and the Government took the provision out again, for reasons we never understood. Many of us were alarmed that something that had been passed could just be reversed, as it were, by other legislation.

Partly to conciliate me, I think, the Minister arranged a meeting. I was quite surprised that there were three Government Ministers and seven officials at the meeting, and me: it was sort of 10 to one. The effort was made to persuade me that everything would be all right under the then Immigration Rules. The then Immigration Minister was Brandon Lewis. He looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t you trust me?” I found this quite difficult. I said, first, “There is no guarantee you will stay in your job for very long.” Indeed, within weeks he was promoted to Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Secondly, I said, “I may trust you personally but I don’t trust the Government.” I am afraid that is still my position on this legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Dubs]

48: After Clause 37, insert the following new Clause—
“Immigration Rules: entry to seek asylum and join family
(1) The rules laid down by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 1(4) and section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 for regulating the entry into and stay in the United Kingdom of persons not having the right of abode must include provision for admitting persons coming for the purpose of seeking asylum.(2) These rules must make provision, for the purpose of seeking asylum, for persons in Europe who have a family member in the United Kingdom who is ordinarily and lawfully resident in the United Kingdom.(3) For the purposes of this section, a “family member” means – (a) when the person in Europe is an unaccompanied minor:(i) a parent, including adoptive parent;(ii) aunt or uncle;(iii) grandparent; or(iv) sibling, including adoptive siblings;(b) spouse, civil partner, unmarried partner of the person in Europe; and(c) such other persons as the Secretary of State may determine, having regard to(i) the importance of maintaining family unity;(ii) any dependency between the family members;(iii) the best interests of a child; and(iv) any compelling circumstances.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would require the Government to make provision within the Immigration Rules for unaccompanied children, and certain other people in Europe, to be admitted to the UK for the purposes of seeking asylum where they have a close family member in the UK.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, now is not the time for a long speech. I am disappointed in the Minister’s response. I believe that family reunion for Ukrainians is highly desirable, but she has just rejected family reunion for other people because the system is not working well enough. I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, if the names had not been filled on Amendment 28 then I would have added my name to it. I remind the House of my interests as set out in the register, both in RAMP and Reset.

In Committee I laid out the understanding of the two groupings proposed and argued that almost no one will actually qualify as being in group 1. I had no repudiation offered to that argument. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, Ukraine is currently illustrating the problem precisely. I was also concerned in the response to the debate in Committee by some of the language of discretion within the two groupings.

We need a simpler, more efficient asylum system, and I continue to be convinced that what is proposed will provide a more complex, slower process. Fundamentally, I am with all those who oppose the two-group system, as it creates a fundamental injustice for fair treatment of all refugees, regardless of how they arrive.

Today, a letter signed by over 1,000 leaders from all the major faith communities of this country was delivered to the Prime Minister. I quote from that letter:

“Dear Prime Minister, As leaders within faith communities across the UK, we are horrified and appalled about the potential repercussions of the Nationality and Borders Bill. We urge you to reconsider the proposals even at this late stage.”


It goes on later to say:

“Currently, Clause 11 sets out the differential treatment of refugees. This separation of refugees into ‘Group 1’ or ‘Group 2’ undermines the longstanding and widely understood expectation that a person’s asylum application is decided on the individual merits of their case and whether they would face serious threats to their life or freedom if they were not to be granted refugee status. The artificial manufacture of a two-tier system creates two different classes of refugees. This would not be based on needs or merits but would depend on the ability of a person to arrive in the UK via a ‘regular’ route of travel. This is a clear breach of the principles of the Refugee Convention, and we have seen no credible evidence that it will stop irregular migration across the English Channel; it is therefore, policy made without a basis in evidence or morality. Criminalizing and punishing vulnerable asylum seekers who have little choice but to arrive in the UK through ‘irregular routes’, when the majority are subsequently able to prove that they have a legitimate basis for their asylum claim, is a disgraceful and dishonourable policy, and should be abandoned.”


The letter says some more about other clauses, but concludes:

“What we need now, is political leadership which acknowledges and allays the concerns of the public while promoting the importance of compassion, human life and dignity. We remain willing to assist in any way we can to this end, and ask that key representatives on this issue from the government would agree to meet with faith representatives to explore what both we, and the government, can do to help address some of the concerns we have raised.”


Just to be clear, Members on these benches who are engaging in the debates during the progress of the Bill made a conscious decision not to sign that letter because of our privilege of being able to speak here. If we were not here, we would have all signed it. It has over 1000 signatures of those from all major faiths. I doubt the Minister is going to agree to withdraw all of Clause 11, but I sincerely hope that she will ask the Prime Minister to respond positively to the letter and recognise that faith leaders representing faith communities across the land should be heeded and not ignored.

If I may add that, on the Australia example, it is not as simple as the noble Lord, Lord Horam, has suggested. There are many in Australia who will tell you that the system is not working and has not stopped the problems; indeed, I think Novak Djokovic might tell you of his own personal experience of how it is not working because of the people he met in the hotel that he was held in, some of whom have been held for a very long time. There is another simple reason it does not work: geography. The United Kingdom is in a very different geographic setting from Australia. I long that we remove Clause 11.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the right reverend Prelate, and I am totally in support of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and his amendment.

I agree with the right reverend Prelate: all the evidence we have from Australia is that it is not working. I have talked to people in Australia who say that we should not go down this path because it is not sensible and it does not work.

I shall be extremely brief. The idea that, at this stage, we start renegotiating the 1951 Geneva convention—presumably on the basis of clauses such as Clause 11—is a frightening prospect. This is no time to be tearing up one of the most fundamental human rights documents that we have, which protects vulnerable, innocent victims of war and persecution. This is no time to be saying that we will change that. If the Government are not proposing to do it that way, why have this clause?

It seems to me that there are too many examples—whether it is Afghans who have got to neighbouring countries but cannot get any further, or Ukrainians who have got to neighbouring countries—that give the lie to the idea that, somehow, you can get here by the sort of route that the Home Office approves of. It is complete nonsense. It is not workable and it diminishes this country in the eyes of the world.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I was so annoyed by what the noble Lord, Lord Horam, was saying, because part of it was absolute nonsense. Australia is actually riven with debate on the whole system of asylum that it offers to refugees, and the offshoring is extremely contentious, not to mention inhumane. Plus, of course, what he has described as all the problems that we have with refugees are actually failures of the Government. Why does he not ask his Government to set up safe systems for refugees to arrive in Britain? That is the real problem: we do not have them.

I shall go back to what I want to say: compliance with the refugee convention seems absolutely part of what we should be doing as an honourable country. We should not think in terms of interpreting it in our own way. Just as countries all over Europe are throwing open their doors to Ukrainian refugees and refugees from other countries who have found themselves in Ukraine, we are putting up walls and nailing doors shut, rather than being honourable about the situation. Imagine people from Ukraine being subject to the two-tier refugee system, as the so-called legitimate ways of escaping Putin’s violent invasion are cut off and Ukrainian refugees have to use so-called illegitimate ways of getting to the UK. The Bill harms those refugees.

If people do get here from Ukraine or other countries, are they to be left homeless and begging on the streets because there is no recourse to public funds and they are banned from work? These people are professionals: they are teachers, nurses, skilled engineers and tradespeople with lifetimes of hard work behind them. They are all banned from contributing in this country, and it makes absolutely no economic or social sense. When Ukrainians claim asylum, do we lock up the women and children in detention centres if they are struggling to find the right paperwork?

If this Government were brave, they would go out and celebrate the asylum system and create one that was fit for purpose and champion the UK as a place of refuge. But this Government are not brave: they pander to the far right and use national rhetoric to divide and rule. At this point, the Government ought to reflect on the whole Bill and realise it is not appropriate for the circumstances we are in. It is cruel, it is inhumane, and quite honestly, the invasion of Ukraine should be a turning point for us. The Government should abandon the Bill and perhaps start thinking about a “refugees are welcome” Bill.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

No; it is very simple —too simple for the noble Baroness—but it would mean that we do not need huge amounts of security in order to keep people where we put them. I hope that Government will take powers to do something on those lines. I do not think what they are now proposing will work, and I think it would be even worse if some of the proposals we have heard today came into effect.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I would not want this whole debate to turn on the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Green. All I would say is that his suggestion that people should be kept in a form of virtual detention and penalised if they happen to leave it is surely unacceptable. I am afraid that I do not accept the thrust of his arguments anyway. If he looks at the figures, he will also find that, although more people came across the Channel by boat in the last year or so, the numbers have not increased all that much, compared with those who came on the back of lorries before. The numbers have actually gone down a bit.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

That is correct. If the two are added together, it averages about 40,000 a year over the last eight or 10 years. The problem now is the publicity surrounding all this, which makes it more difficult. Also, these numbers could easily double, as the Home Office says, and then we are in a new situation, going back to the early 1960s when it ran completely out of control.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

I do not want to pursue the point, because it is diverting us from the particular amendments, which I support. I say at the outset that the Minister has the advantage that, having been able to look at the Joint Committee on Human Rights reports on this, she will know exactly the quotes and arguments that we are going to use. It will be no surprise to her at all. She knows exactly what we are on about. I am certainly speaking as a member of that committee.

Before that, perhaps I could pay tribute to the Kent Refugee Action Network. During the pandemic—at its height—when the issue of Napier barracks arose, it drew our attention to what was going on. I am sorry I could not go with the right reverend Prelate on his recent visit, but at the time of the pandemic, we were not able to go on visits and I am sure the Minister was not able to, either. She gave us a version of what was going on in the barracks which frankly was disproved by the local people on the ground, who told us that the conditions were bad, and that people with Covid were mixed up in dormitories with people who did not have Covid. I am afraid the Minister at that time appeared to be misinformed as to the situation there. All these issues were raised at the time. I cannot remember how long ago it was. We had quite a long earlier debate.

I do not want to go over the ground that other noble Lords have covered. The Joint Committee on Human Rights looked at this. We have some good quotes from Bail for Immigration Detainees and from Médecins Sans Frontières. I will not quote those, but I do want to quote paragraph 91 of the JCHR report:

“It is imperative that the Government learns from the poor treatment of asylum seekers housed in former military barracks. If accommodation centres are to be used to house those awaiting asylum decisions and appeals or awaiting removal from the UK the conditions must ensure that residents are free to come and go, treated with respect, provided with adequate access to healthcare and legal advice and not prevented from mixing with the rest of society”.


I will say one other thing. At the time this issue arose, the Home Secretary said that the barracks were used by the British Army and asked why we were complaining. That was wrong in a number of respects. First, it was years previously that the Army had used the barracks. Secondly, they were not mixing up people with Covid with other people. If the conditions were not adequate now, they were not adequate for the Army then—but to use that as an excuse, and say, “It’s good enough for refugees because the Army used it 10 or 15 years earlier” seems an unacceptable argument.

I am sorry the Home Office has been put in this position. I welcome what the Kent Refugee Action Network has been doing to support refugees in Kent generally, to support refugees in the barracks and to campaign on the same arguments that are characterised by these amendments.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, it seems to me that this debate reflects what we said yesterday in our debate and what some of us tried to say on Second Reading. There is an irreconcilable conflict and quandary between our desire to receive people in the way in which we would wish them to be received and treated and the number of people who have been coming—and are likely to continue to come—and our capacity to handle them. The Home Office’s proposals attempt to increase the capacity and the quality. I totally understand the criticism of the proposals, but it seems to me that we are in no way in sight of a practical solution to this problem.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I am sorry to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I thank those who have been complimentary about this amendment and make it clear that it is a team effort on our part. I really did not expect it to provoke such debate, but the thoughts that are teeming round people’s minds are bound to burst out at some point.

I want to ask about Amendment 129, and I will return the compliment to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. It makes an immensely important point but reading it, I wondered whether there was not already an offence—an inchoate offence, possibly, under the existing immigration legislation, or possibly even conspiracy. I do not want to anticipate Clause 40, but are there any problems in using Sections 25 and 25A of the Immigration Act 1971?

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall comment briefly on the discussion we have been having. Why is it young men? I talked to some of the Afghans who got to Calais—this was before the Taliban took over Afghanistan completely—and they said to me that the Taliban were trying to recruit young men into their fighting forces, so the family clubbed together to help them escape, because they were the ones who, at that time, were most vulnerable. Today, it may be that the women in Afghanistan who are more vulnerable, except that they cannot find their way out. But that is one of the reasons why more young men than young women have fled. Indeed, if one looks at the people who got to northern France, quite a few of them have connections with this country, and quite a few are seeking to establish family reunion. That is an argument why we should be able to provide safe and legal routes for people from northern France to come here: so they can achieve family reunion. We should recognise what they have fled.

My noble friend Lord Coaker described the terrible conditions. My comments are going to go a bit wide of the amendment, but I hope that your Lordships will allow me to continue. I think that if we actually explained to people in this country what it is that people are fleeing from—the awful circumstances, the terrifying persecution, war, people being killed in front of them, and so on—they would be much more sympathetic to refugees coming.

The majority of the refugees who reach France claim asylum in France. A small proportion of those claim asylum here—if they can manage to get to this country. In relation to the number of refugees in the world, we are talking about rather small numbers, but there are some very important points of principle, because we are talking about people who are very vulnerable. That is why I am keen on Amendment 36 and I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Green.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Dubs]

30: Clause 10, page 13, line 11, after “birth” insert “without any legal or administrative barriers”
Member’s explanatory statement
This would give effect to the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to ensure that, in compliance with Article 1 of the 1961 UN Statelessness Convention, British citizenship is only withheld from a stateless child born in the UK where the nationality of a parent is available to the child immediately, without any legal or administrative hurdles.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I again refer to my membership of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. We have produced detailed reports on many aspects of the Bill, including on this matter.

It is surely a basic right that nobody should be stateless. This is fundamental. Stateless people have fewer rights—they have virtually none—and they are vulnerable. I have tabled this amendment to avoid statelessness.

As things stand, stateless children born in the UK are covered by this provision in the Bill. Prior to the British Nationality Act 1981, all children born in the UK were British under jus soli. As I said earlier, I served in the Commons at the time—indeed, I was on the Public Bill Committee which dealt with this Bill for many long weeks—and we had a long discussion about jus soli, and I only hope that the position I took then is the same as the one I am taking now—in other words, in opposition to the provision. I think I can claim that I have been consistent over 40 years; I hope so, but if anyone wants to look it up in order to disprove it, I will listen to them.

Clause 10 has a new requirement that will make it more difficult for stateless children to acquire British citizenship. It puts another hurdle in the way of acquiring that citizenship. The onus will now be on children—or, if they are very young, the people responsible for them —to produce the evidence, unless the Home Secretary is satisfied that the child is unable to acquire another nationality. The provision will effectively mean that a child born in the UK, or their parents or carers on their behalf, will have to prove that they could not reasonably have acquired another nationality—so the onus is on the child, or the parents or carers, to prove that. That may be quite a difficult point to prove, and the onus is switched in allocating the burden of responsibility. That could be especially hard for children who do not have significant support or access to the relevant documents. For example, the children of refugees might find it very difficult to have the necessary documentation or to be able to produce the evidence, so it would put a significant additional burden on them.

It is an anomaly that when children become adults they can apply. It remains an oddity that a child can remain stateless for some years until they become an adult, when they can then apply. What is the advantage to anyone of having a child stateless for that period? It certainly cannot be in the best interests of the child, and that surely must be the bottom line. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child always talks about what is in the best interests of the child; Article 7 says that a child should be registered as having a nationality immediately after birth. That is fairly clear. Furthermore, it says that a contracting state shall grant its nationality to a person born in its territory who would otherwise be stateless. With this clause, the Government are going against these provisions in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It is difficult to see how Clause 10 complies with the United Kingdom’s obligations under both the 1961 United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is an unnecessary measure that makes things even more difficult. I can see no argument, not even the security arguments that the Minister advanced in the previous debate, for putting this hurdle in the way of children who might otherwise be stateless. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Dubs and the proposal that Clause 10 should not stand part of the Bill. I put on record my thanks to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for the very helpful work that it has done on the Bill, with a whole raft of very useful reports. According to ILPA and the Bar Council, this clause contravenes the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, and that should give us pause for thought. Research by the European Network on Statelessness shows how some children in very vulnerable circumstances will be affected, as my noble friend said, and found that there can be good reasons for delays in registering a child’s nationality.

To my mind, the justification that the clause is needed because there has been a significant increase in the number of registrations of stateless children smacks of the culture of disbelief and suspicion criticised by Wendy Williams in the Windrush report. Surely it is to be celebrated that more children are exercising their rights—no thanks to the Home Office, which has been dilatory in making children and their parents aware of these rights and in removing the barriers to registering them. It is thanks to the hard work of organisations such as the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens that more children and parents have become aware of the right to registration. As I say, this is to be commended, not cracked down on as if it were some kind of crime.

As the JCHR observes, and Amendment 31 addresses —a point made also by my noble friend Lord Dubs—it is difficult to see how this clause is compatible with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. While the Home Hoffice human rights memorandum states that it has considered the best interests of the children affected, it is not clear from it how such a clause is in their best interests, so can the Minister spell out exactly how this clause meets the best interests of children affected?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I shall write to noble Lords about this in more detail, because it is quite detailed, and explain where the figures have derived from. I was actually quoting the judge in his conclusion that an “obvious route to abuse” would be opened. I shall send the figures to the noble Baroness. On case sampling, many of the cases have a poor immigration history, with 79% of the parents having no leave at the time of the birth and only 16% having such leave, but I will outline it to noble Lords in greater detail and they can draw their own conclusion.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I have tried to follow the Minister’s reply, and I am bound to say that I too am a little confused about these figures. I think she has just not yet made her case. Please could she give us more information before we get to Report? If not, we will not be persuaded by this. I may not have been quick enough to pick up all the nuances—I do not think any of us were, really; it was quite difficult. I look forward to getting more information from her; we shall have to listen to what she has to say. I am grateful to noble Lords who contributed to the debate, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 30 withdrawn.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I am fully in support of the amendment, of course, to which I have put my name. I have served on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and we have condemned this provision and said that it should not be part of the Bill because it is a breach of fundamental human rights. I have been on quite a lot of demos, and I would probably run foul of this legislation if it went through unamended. I cannot think of any demo that I have been on where we did not try to make noise, because that is part of what being on a demo means. I wonder whether the people who drafted the wording have ever been on a demo themselves—I do not believe it. Those of us who have been on demos know that the noise is encouraging; it tells spectators, who often join in support anyway, what we are about and what we seek to do. This is an absurd idea.

I think of the span of history—my noble friend Lord Hain contributed to this discussion—and there are so many important changes that started with noisy demos. How did some of those changes happen? Without noisy demos, a lot of changes do not happen. One looks at the suffragettes and all sorts of important demos; this is the nature of our democracy, and this Government are trying to trample all over it.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support very much what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said on this provision. There are a lot of good things in the Bill, but this is certainly not one of them. People watching this—the public—will think that somehow the Government have lost common sense. The idea that anyone can go on a demonstration and not make noise shows such a lack of common sense that I really do not understand how anyone could possibly have put this forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, mentioned all sorts of demonstrations and historical events that have been helped by noise. Every Saturday, the Zimbabwean diaspora turn up outside the Zimbabwean embassy, sing very loudly and play their drums and music in a loud way. Who is going to decide whether that is bringing unease to people? It certainly brings unease to Mnangagwa in Zimbabwe, I hope. This is something on which I am sure the Minister is sitting there and thinking, “Why on earth are we doing this?” I hope that, even at this stage, the Government will not press these ridiculous amendments.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I have had the privilege of serving on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which has produced some interesting and critical comments about the Bill. I have also had a close association with the Refugee Council, Safe Passage and a number of other NGOs working with refugees. Having visited some refugee camps, whether in the Calais area or on the Greek islands, I have been impressed by the quality and determination of the volunteers, mainly from this country, who have gone to work with refugees and are dedicated to helping the most vulnerable of their fellow human beings.

We should be judged as a country by how we handle this issue, and I fear that we will come out of this badly in the eyes of other countries that have always thought that we take the lead in human rights and respect for the rule of law. If there is one sentence that sums up my criticism of the Bill, it is this. If there are no legal routes to safety, the traffickers have a field day. We are giving the traffickers far too much of an opportunity. That is what the traffickers want. How do they get their business except by there being no legal routes to safety?

We were all shocked and dismayed by the tragic drowning of people in the channel, not least the 27 people just recently. Our relations with France have to improve. We cannot deal with the issue of traffickers working in northern France unless we establish a good relationship with France as a country. It seems to me that shouting at the French and blaming them is not going to get us any further.

People say to me, “Why don’t these people claim asylum in France?” Of course, the majority do. Three times as many asylum seekers who get to France claim asylum there as seek to come to this country, and in the year up to 2021 the UK had the fifth highest number of refugees, but we were 17th in terms of per head of the population, so we are way behind. We are not doing as much as other countries, and in fact the French figures have been three times our figure. I agreed with the Minister in his opening speech when he said that we cannot take them all. Of course, we cannot. All I argue is that we should take our share of responsibility, along with other countries. It is a very modest request, and if it is put to the people of this country, they say they agree. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said about Clause 9, most of which I hope we will get rid of in Committee.

On the nub of my concerns, the comments made by my noble friends Lord Rosser and Lord Blunkett in particular, and others, sum up the criticism I have of the Bill. Surely we cannot be in breach of international conventions and just say blithely, “Well, it doesn’t matter what UNHCR thinks or what the 1951 Convention thinks. It doesn’t matter that we have no right to penalise people by the method of travel”. We cannot say that it does not matter: we believe in the rule of law and in international conventions. Also, we cannot keep saying that people should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. That is not the 1951 Convention, no matter how much the Government insist that it is. Just in a practical sense, if that were to be applied, the 1 million Syrians who got to Germany would have all stayed in Greece, Italy and Malta. Surely that is not a sensible policy. That is a point I would make very strongly.

I regard UNHCR as the custodians of the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees. We should not blithely say, “Oh, they don’t know what they’re talking about”, which is effectively what the Government have been saying. We cannot therefore make it a criminal offence to arrive in the UK seeking asylum without having valid entry clearance. The Government keep saying “Oh, well, we can remove people”. There is not a single removal agreement with any EU country and, having left the EU, there is no sign we are going to achieve one. How are the Government going to remove people to whatever country they arrived from, particularly as that would not be the first safe country either?

As regards offshoring, what did the Government think they were doing letting it be known that Albania was on the list? It was complete nonsense. If the Government did not leak that, the Albanians got it from somewhere and they hotly denied it.

There must be a better way forward. We have fundamentally to support the right to family reunion, particularly of children coming to join their relatives—as we used to under the Dublin treaty, which the Government took out in the 2019 legislation. We should also find some accommodation for child refugees who have reached Europe who may not have family here. We must base what we do on international co-operation. We cannot do it on our own; we must achieve agreement. We must stop ministerial hostility to incomers, to new people arriving here. That poisons the atmosphere and makes sensible debate very difficult.

Finally, I am dismayed that our humanitarian tradition will be further undermined by this wretched Bill, unless we amend the nasty and objectionable features of it.