Net Migration

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Green of Deddington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how they intend to meet their commitment to reduce net migration, given the estimate by the Office for National Statistics, published on 24 November, that net international migration to the United Kingdom was 504,000 for the year ending June 2022.

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

The Government are committed to controlling immigration and ensuring that it works in the UK’s best interests. Our immediate priority is continuing to tackle abuse in the system and prevent dangerous and illegal crossings. In the medium to long term, we will continue to strike a balance between reducing overall net migration and ensuring that businesses have access to the skills that they need.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, half a million immigrants in one year is truly extraordinary: more than the population of Manchester or Edinburgh. Admittedly, that includes 200,000 refugees from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan. Even if you allow for that, it is now clear that the Government’s points-based system has opened up nearly half of all full-time jobs to immigrant workers. Will the Government now retighten the requirements for work visas for students and dependants so as to get a grip on the huge wave of immigration that they have so foolishly sparked off and which, rightly, is a very serious concern to many members of the public?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As the noble Lord rightly observes, the net migration figures estimated by the ONS this year reflect the very unusual international circumstances in which we find ourselves. Home Office statistics show that we have helped over 144,000 people from Hong Kong, 144,600 people fleeing the war in Ukraine and nearly 23,000 people from Afghanistan to find safety in the UK. This means that the current set of figures is an outlier. The level of immigration for study visas reflects government policy, in that we are encouraging students from other parts of the world to study at British universities, with the great benefit that brings both to Britain and to those people who have the benefit of a British education.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, it was suggested earlier that Cross-Benchers are a bunch of left-wing intellectuals. I do not think I have ever been accused of being left-wing and certainly not an intellectual. That may explain why I intend to strike a very different note.

I intend to tackle a subject that many of your Lordships love to hate. You have guessed it: immigration and, in particular, its impact on and consequences for the future of our society. I will do that in about four and a half minutes, I think.

This Government promised at the last election to take back control of immigration and to reduce it. Regrettably, they have failed to do so. The truth is that, quite apart from the chaos in the channel, which I shall leave aside, immigration in its normal sense is running out of control. Last year more than 800,000 long-term entry clearances were issued, the highest total since 2005. How many migrants left in that year? We do not know. Why not? It is partly because Covid disrupted travel patterns, as we all know, but also because the official statisticians chose to abandon key parts of the International Passenger Survey, even though they had nothing reliable to replace it with. What we see is a rapid increase in the inflow and no reliable information on the outflow in the past year or two.

Looking back over the past 10 years, we know that the Conservative Government who promised in 2010 to reduce net migration to fewer than 100,000 a year allowed it to rise to an average of 230,000 over that period. Looking back over the past 20 years, three metrics illustrate the impact of immigration on such a scale. They are not very often referred to but they are not in doubt and they are not challenged. First, the UK population has grown by nearly 8 million and 80% or more of that increase was due to immigrants and their subsequent children. Secondly, the share of births to one or more foreign parent has almost doubled in England and Wales to about 35%. Thirdly, the ethnic minority population of Great Britain—I include in that migrants from the EU—has almost doubled to 21%. We now find that in London immigrants by that definition are 56% of the population—a majority. Birmingham at 48% and Manchester at 43% are not far behind.

What of the future? The share of ethnic minority children in state-funded schools is now about one-third. Twenty years from now, on reasonable assumptions, they could well become the majority in our schools. Meanwhile, on a wider scale, three well-known academic projections have put the white British population 40 years from now at between 55% and 65%. That means, whether you like it or not, that our grandchildren would, in their lifetimes, have become a minority in what I would call their own country. Just think about that for a minute. Is it really what we want to see for the future of our country? Some will say yes, but an awful lot of people, especially the less rich and the less comfortable, would not welcome it at all.

We are already seeing the impact of these very rapid changes on our political system. I will not say much about that as it is really not my business, but all parties are increasingly concerned to attract the immigrant vote. As a result, the Immigration Rules, already under pressure from industry, have been steadily weakened. We are getting close to the point where there is no effective control. Meanwhile, although the salience of the matter varies with time and with what else is going on, in 2021 a YouGov poll found that 55% of the public said that reducing immigration should be a high or medium priority for the UK. As I have pointed out before in this House, that amounts to about 30 million adults. The Lib Dems do not like that, but it is the case.

It is no use blaming the white British. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, in her recent comprehensive study of immigration into the UK, put it rather well. She said this:

“It isn’t racist … to say that the pace of change from immigration in recent years has been too much for some communities … People are understandably uncomfortable when the character and make up of a town change out of all recognition in five or 10 years.”


That was her view, and I happen to share it.

To conclude, this massive, continuing inflow could well lead to serious social tensions in Britain, as we are already seeing in France. Even in Sweden there have been serious riots. Indeed, its Prime Minister said recently that integration is failing and that certain communities in Sweden live “in completely different realities”. Noble Lords may think that some places in the UK are similar. I hope that in the coming Session this House will turn its attention to the crucial impact of current levels of immigration on the whole future of our society. It is not too late to act, and policies are available. What is needed is the political will to address an issue that so many have preferred to avoid.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, I feel it necessary to say a few words because I was the Member responsible for bringing the amendments on offshoring to the House’s attention. I do not intend to make another Second Reading speech, because this not Second Reading. I do not intend to repeat the speech I gave when I introduced amendments in Committee. I am still opposed to the whole question of offshoring, particularly to Rwanda, for the reasons I have already given. I believe that it is inappropriate, legally dubious and very expensive, and I do not believe that it will have the effect, as is argued, of deterring the traffickers who should be dealt with in a harsh manner.

The other end of this place has twice now made it very clear that it does not support the wisdom that has come from this House. There is a constitutional issue here. Ping-pong is what it is; I believe that the will of the other place will prevail. As we have argued so forcefully, the responsibility for these actions must be laid squarely now on the shoulders of our friends in the other place—the Conservative MPs in particular and the Government—and, on that basis, I rest my position.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I shall be extremely brief, noble Lords will be glad to hear. I should just like to draw attention to the state of public opinion, which is amazed by people arriving on our beaches in their tens of thousands. It was 30,000 last year; it could be double that this year. The public do not like it and they are right. It is very bad for the Government’s reputation. It is not so good for the Opposition either, in that the political system is failing to deal with an obviously very serious question.

The only way to deal with it is to break the business model of the traffickers. The Rwanda proposal is very far from ideal but for the present we have no alternative. I have to say, therefore, that it has my reluctant support.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I just want to make three very brief points. First, I strongly agree with my noble friend Lord Kirkhope that ping-pong should not be an endless game. We should focus today on the two things which are recent and have come to our attention since the Bill came before us.

The first is dealt with by Amendment D1, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, and supported by my noble friend Lady Stroud. The Government have very rightly said that Ukrainian refugees should be able to work when they get here—so they should. We do not need a different policy for other asylum seekers—a point made very eloquently by my noble friend Lady Stroud. I think we can focus on that today.

The other thing, of course, concerns Rwanda, where I strongly sympathise with the points made by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the policy—and I strongly sympathise with the brief but trenchant intervention of Theresa May in the other place—it ought to be for Parliament to make the ultimate decision. To my mind, the right reverend Prelate’s amendment is far too long; my noble friend Lord Hailsham’s is straight and to the point. If we are to deport asylum seekers from this country to a third country, it should be with the approbation of both Houses. I hope this House will not indulge in too many votes tonight because we have to observe, as my noble friend Lord Kirkhope said, the constitutional conventions and proprieties which mean that ping-pong should not be an endless game.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Green of Deddington]

64: After Clause 56, insert the following new Clause—
“Age assessments for age-disputed persons: initial assessments of undetermined age
(1) An age-disputed person must be treated as an adult where their physical appearance and demeanour strongly suggest that they are over the age of 18.(2) Where the age-disputed person’s physical appearance and demeanour do not meet that threshold, and doubt remains as to their claim to be a child, the person must be treated as being of undetermined age until a further age assessment is carried out.(3) Those of undetermined age must not be placed alongside minors in schools or accommodation.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would place in primary legislation a rule for tighter initial age assessments for asylum seekers and would ensure that, where doubts about the person’s age are raised by initial assessors, applicants will not be placed alongside children in schools or accommodation.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I have retabled my amendment in the light of the Minister’s reply in Committee. Judging by Hansard, there was a very good discussion, albeit at three in the morning. We need to be clear about what we are trying to achieve here. Surely it is, first, that adults should not easily claim to be children and get away with it, and, secondly, that where doubts about age remain, the claimants concerned should be kept separate from those who are clearly children.

One aspect which was not covered in Committee was the very considerable increase in claims from those who were falsely claiming to be children. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said that, in 2019, those found to be adults amounted to less than half the cases. I have in my pocket the Home Office table showing the outcome of these claims since 2006. The year which the noble Lord chose, 2019, was the lowest percentage in the last 10 years. We now have the percentage for adults in the last two years, and they were 43% and 66%, respectively. I will not provide more statistics, except to say that what is really important is the number of cases to which these percentages refer. In 2019, there were only 304 age-disputed cases; in 2021, there were 1,500—I repeat: 1,500. The whole scale is much greater and justifies the tightening of the criteria for which I am calling.

As to the test applied, the Minister said that our current threshold is that a person claiming asylum is declared to be an adult when

“their physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggest that they are significantly over 18”.—[Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 1568.]

That is a pretty tight restriction. My amendment would adjust that to when

“their physical appearance and demeanour strongly suggest that they are over the age of 18.”

The change is to “strongly suggest”. I believe that this falls well within the Supreme Court judgment to which the Minister referred in his speech: BF (Eritrea). That judgment found that claimants could be treated as adults if two Home Office officials considered that the person looked significantly over 18. My amendment tightens the criteria, but that is what we need to do in the face of the significant exploitation of the present scheme.

My last point concerns the important and related issue of safeguarding those who are found to be children. Surely it is common prudence that doubtful applicants should, until their cases are resolved, be kept separate from those known to be genuine children. I look forward to an assurance from the Minister that arrangements are now envisaged which will achieve this result. I beg to move.

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and of Whittington Health NHS Trust, and as chair of the Schwab & Westheimer Trust, charitable trusts set up to provide education for young asylum seekers.

I am speaking to Amendment 64A. When we last debated age assessments for young asylum seekers, in Committee, it was in the small hours of the morning, and the issues to which we should have given real attention did not get enough scrutiny. The issue had had precious little scrutiny in another place, because these provisions were brought in so late by the Government in the passage of the Bill. I am very grateful to the Government for the amount of information which they have provided recently, but there is still more to tease out. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords will understand why I and my colleagues—the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham—are putting forward this detailed amendment at Report. I am grateful to the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the British Dental Association, the British Red Cross, the UNHCR, the ADSS, the British Association of Social Workers and many others for their briefings and help.

There is widespread concern about age assessments among all the various voluntary and statutory agencies concerned with young asylum seekers, and among many medical, dental and scientific bodies. Because of the small family charity which I chair, I spend time with asylum-seeking young people who are desperate to get their lives back on track by getting an education. Most of those I meet are older than the children and young people presently under discussion and whose age might be disputed, but by no means all. From what they tell us, I know how traumatised they can be, and have been, not only by their experiences in their home countries and on their incredibly difficult journeys but by the processes they have been forced to go through once they have arrived in the UK, and the way in which they are often not believed—almost as if there is an assumption that they will not be telling the truth.

The fact that they might be asked for consent before they undergo an age- assessment process is neither here nor there. Refusing consent would undoubtedly be a black mark against them in a system which they already perceive as doubting their word. Many of them will not have paper evidence of their date of birth, precisely because of what they have been through. The idea that the Home Office will control these procedures, and insist on them, fills many of us with distinct unease as it almost certainly means that already traumatised young people who have been through terrible experiences to reach the UK will be forced to endure yet more traumatising experiences, possibly including intimate examinations which are hard, if not impossible, to justify.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, we had a long debate and the House will be glad to know that I shall be extremely brief. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her very powerful contribution to my case. To sum up: we need the support of professionals in this matter, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, said, but also the support of the public, a point raised rightly by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. Very briefly, we face having asylum seekers arriving by the tens of thousands, as I mentioned. They are clearly briefed to destroy their documents—only 2% of them have them—and the number of those who claimed to be children but were found to be adults was 1,500 last year. That was five times any previous year, so there is a case there.

The Government are right to get on the case and I hope they will have a useful negotiation with those who think otherwise. This is clearly a difficult policy area, but I leave it to the Government to take matters further. Meanwhile, I beg to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 64 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I declare my position as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong. I am in the rare position of congratulating the Government very warmly and thanking them for listening to campaigners, including on their own Benches, in taking this step for the younger people of Hong Kong who have at least one BNO passport-holding parent. I also join the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in congratulating the Government on the welcome programme for the BNO passport holders coming here. The APPG heard from the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, this week and we appreciated his enthusiastic words on that programme.

I will make one extra point. The all-party group held an inquiry into the treatment of young medics and humanitarian workers in Hong Kong during protests. Those young people had to have their voices disguised to testify to us. I remember one of them, who as he was talking to us on the Zoom call was glancing at the door, saying, “I don’t know if the police will come through that door at this moment.” I have no doubt that some of those young people speaking to us had parents who were BNO passport holders, but some of them did not, yet they were young people who had made similar contributions to that society. My simple question to the Government is: will they in future, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton said, work with Commonwealth countries to see that all of those young people who have made brave contributions to democracy and the rule of law in Hong Kong are able to find a route out if they need to?

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will even more briefly strike a slightly different note. This proposal—I know it has virtually gone through—is very unwise. We have a scheme which already applies to rather more than 5 million people. That is surely enough, and we should leave it at that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to add my voice, albeit briefly, in support of both these amendments, particularly Amendment 78 in the name of my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig of Radley. Although his amendment is prescriptive in asking the Government to respond

“Within three months of the passing of this Act”,


I think he told the Minister that if an assurance can be given that, within a reasonable time of the Bill’s enactment, the Government will move on this issue, he would be happy not to divide the House. I agree with him about that and if that assurance can be given, it will surely meet the terms of his amendment.

We are not talking about large numbers—it not 5 million people—but people who have served the Crown. If anybody is vulnerable today as a result of the passing of the national security law in Hong Kong, it is surely people who have served the Crown. There is no question in my mind about the justice of what my noble and gallant friend is arguing for, but this is not the first time of asking; he has urged us to do something about this year in, year out—in good times and bad. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to deliver in the Bill what my noble and gallant friend has asked for.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, as a retired second lieutenant who served in Borneo alongside Gurkha regiments, I am very happy to support these proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am always worried that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will not get home, so if he wants to exit stage left, I will not be in the least bit offended. I am very keen that he gets his train.

On Windrush, that tragedy did not arise because people did not have a piece of paper. That problem arose because, through successive changes in immigration law over the years, Windrush was simply forgotten. Of course, it was at the time a declaratory system, but the problem did not arise because people did not have a piece of paper.

To return to Amendment 79, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Oates, will not be happy with what I will say. I hope that I can provide a comprehensive and sensible reason why, to quote my noble friend Lady Shackleton.

We provide all individuals who are granted UK immigration status with a formal written notice of their grant. It is in the form of a letter sent by post or email which sets out their immigration status. They can retain the letter for their own personal records and use it, if they wish, when contacting the Home Office about their status.

We took full account of the recommendation from the beta assessment of the Home Office’s “prove your right to work” service and have introduced a wide range of support to help vulnerable users as we roll out the e-visas, which are the secure, online services which can be used to view and prove immigration status. We are and have been implementing the change in an incremental way since 2018, to ensure that no one is left behind.

Those who struggle to use them can also contact the UKVI resolution centre, including by phone, for help using the service or sharing status on the individual’s behalf. We have also developed mechanisms which reduce the need for individuals to prove their status themselves when accessing public services: for example, benefits and healthcare. Status information is already shared automatically with HMRC and DWP and the NHS in England and Wales.

We published a policy equality statement in relation to the EU settlement scheme on 18 November 2020. The statement considered the impact of e-visas and set out the support available to users who need help. There are reports of incidents where the system may not have worked as it should have, but feedback on the e-visas and online service has been generally positive. Most users find it easy to use and it is aligned with other digital government services, such as DVLA services for renewing driving licences and paying vehicle excise duty. E-visa holders can check their status at any time by logging into the view and prove service; they can even contact the Home Office if they experience any issues with their e-visa.

The noble Lord, Lord Oates, previously referred to the Government’s intention to remove biometric residence permits, biometric residence cards and frontier worker permits from the lists of documents acceptable as part of a right-to-work check. We can do this because the online system works. The cards will remain valid for other purposes, including as an identification document and to board travel services when returning to the UK. As the noble Lord is aware and has mentioned previously, we have been considering the merits of introducing a QR code. As he said, I committed to take the matter back and discuss it with the Home Office. He is absolutely right: we have written to the3million, setting out why we do not think it is a viable option. We have had to consider a wide range of factors, not least that using this method in the context of demonstrating vaccination status is not equivalent to using it to show immigration status, since a person’s immigration status can change in a way that their vaccination status cannot.

The information on an insecure printed document, even one validated by a QR code, would not be a secure method of sharing and proving immigration status in a way that gives confidence to the user and the checker. We consider that it would open the system up to potential fraud and abuse because the QR code would not be sufficient to verify the identity of the document holder. We have looked into whether we could incorporate a facial image on to the QR code but found that the technology would not support inclusion of high-resolution facial images. It would not adhere to the principles of data minimisation, whereby only as much personal data as is needed for the checking purpose should be shared and accessible only for as long as required. The checker would require an app on an internet-enabled device capable of reading the code, whereas any internet-enabled device with a web browser can be used to check a share code. Our reply to the3million, which I will share with the noble Lord, has been published on its website and provides a full explanation.

Physical documents obviously expire—my parents insist on printing their Covid passes out, and sometimes they are near or at expiration—they can become invalid or be lost, stolen or tampered with, and they take time to replace, leaving our immigration system open to fraud and abuse. They do not provide that real-time information. Last year, UK Visas and Immigration received over 44,000 reports of lost or stolen biometric residence documents and issued over 22,000 replacement cards for those reported lost or stolen. Implementing this amendment would involve significant costs; they could well be over £270 million if we had to issue a physical document to everyone with an immigration status.

Our provision of a letter sent by email or post meets the need for a physical document showing a person what their immigration status is, and it can be kept for personal records. The ability to view and prove immigration status online in the form of an e-visa provides foreign nationals with the certainty that they need to demonstrate their rights in the UK now and in the years to come. I hope—although I doubt it—that I have reassured the noble Lord on his concerns. On the other point, I am very happy to meet any interested parties that wish to discuss this further.

I turn to Amendment 82 from my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and the noble Lord, Lord Green, on trade agreements containing provisions on visas. We should recognise that the Immigration Rules and decisions about visa requirements are sovereign national powers which rest with the Home Secretary. I sympathise with my noble friend’s desire to retain national control over visa policy. We took back control of our borders when we left the EU and now have the freedom to set our own rules in the interests of the UK.

However, trade and immigration are separate policy areas and the UK does not routinely discuss immigration in trade negotiations. What comprehensive free trade agreements typically include is provisions on so-called mode 4 trade in services. These set the terms for the temporary movement of service providers between parties to the agreement. Immigration policy, as opposed to mode 4, is our overarching approach to long-term immigration and border controls.

I know my noble friend has expressed concerns about the Government’s negotiations with India on a free trade agreement. As is standard in UK free trade agreements, I expect we will explore mode 4 provisions, which could support British and Indian businesses and consumers, in our negotiations with India. This is not a one-way conversation. UK business stakeholders have identified mobility issues affecting UK service suppliers seeking to go to India, which we might seek to address in these negotiations. This is just as we have done in our free trade agreements with other partners such as Japan, Australia and the EU and would expect to do in any future comprehensive free trade agreements. But any agreement will be consistent with the points-based immigration system and we will not compromise the principles or functioning of that system.

I also want to note that Parliament already has appropriate involvement in the scrutiny of free trade agreements and their provisions through the CRaG process. The legislative framework set by CRaG provides Parliament with the opportunity to undertake scrutiny of an FTA prior to its ratification. I understand the point my noble friend raised previously that CRaG is a rather binary tool, but it would not be appropriate to have additional processes to consider individual issues within the agreement. Immigration is clearly an important issue but comprehensive trade agreements, by definition, cover more areas. It would not be practical or desirable to have carve-outs for individual issues; taken together, these could make the process of negotiating and scrutinising trade agreements lengthy and impractical.

While I agree with the thrust of my noble friend’s argument that robust scrutiny is critical, I cannot agree with the amendment. I instead point to the comprehensive processes we already have in place to ensure that Parliament has its say on trade agreements and, critically, that any changes to domestic law would need to be passed by this House in the normal way. I hope I have set out clearly for my noble friend why this amendment should not be pressed.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Before the Minister sits down, is she confirming that any immigration negotiations with India will be confined to mode 4?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Yes.

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I am sorry that we do not have Divisions in Committee any more as I might have won the day then. However, we have a lot to get through this evening, so I am looking instead to the Government for a clear statement of their intentions on providing up-to-date figures on channel crossings, and perhaps some follow-up discussions with me. I am not going to go away on these data issues. I beg to move.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 80, which I have co-sponsored. The problem is that Covid has sent immigration statistics into a tailspin, to which the Government’s response has made matters worse. As I understand it, the Government suspended the International Passenger Survey that took place at all airports when Covid struck, mainly to protect the staff, who would normally have been interviewing people all day. That is fair enough. It was also the case that the number of international passengers fell through the floor, so it was not much of a guide to levels of immigration.

All this roughly coincided with efforts by the ONS to use existing statistical data to estimate migration flows. That effort has already run into trouble. In any case, it is by definition a year late because it relies on statistics that are looked at every 12 months.

The purpose of the amendment is in effect to call for the reinstatement of the International Passenger Survey, improved where possible, so as to have a clearer and more up-to-date indication of where we stand. I need hardly remind the Government that they promised to “take back control” of immigration. At present, they have very little idea of the present scale of immigration, and when they do find out they are likely to have an unpleasant surprise, with very little time to adjust their policy before the next election. That is their problem.

I will also speak briefly on Amendment 81, which concerns people crossing the channel. The Home Office has announced that it will publish the statistics on only a quarterly basis. I hope that is wrong and that the Minister will be able to say that it will be much more frequent than that.

There seems to have been a kind of fix between the Office for Statistics Regulation and the Home Office, whereby it was agreed that quarterly publication would ensure that the statistics were

“put into the longer term and wider immigration and asylum context and so better support the public debate and understanding”.

Well, “weasel words” does not describe it. What they are actually doing is insulting the public’s intelligence. If they go on with that policy, they are simply trying to keep the facts from the public on a matter of considerable public concern. So it is not surprising that a number of MPs have actually attacked this move, with one calling it an attempt to cover up failure while another said that it was “burying bad news”. I regret to say that that may very well be an accurate statement of the position. The Government clearly have a serious problem here, exacerbated by their previous promises, but they will have to deal with it, and deal with it honestly.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 80, which I am pleased to support—and I also support Amendment 81 very strongly as well. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe is a demon for data, as she has just demonstrated in the House, as a basis for good decisions and keeping the public well informed about what is going on around them while avoiding rumour and anecdote, which takes us to a bad place, particularly in areas as sensitive as immigration. Therefore, I particularly share her view, and the view of the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, that the Government’s decision to reduce transparency about the flow across the English Channel is regrettable. It is clearly an area of considerable public concern and, for better or worse, we will not solve it by not publishing the figures—that is likely to make it worse.

I shall add one thing on the international passenger survey, when we come to relaunch, refocus and redesign it. I was once questioned as part of that survey, when I was travelling through Heathrow, and I was very pleased to answer the lady, who was very good and helpful. I went on and talked to her a bit about her job, and I can offer the House three take-aways. First, under no circumstances do you cross-question; so if someone says that they are coming here to be a plumber in Cardiff, a plumber in Cardiff they are—there is no question of whether they might be something else. That is not your job; you just write that into the form. The second was that you tended to have a predominance of older people answering the form. She said that younger people would be in a hurry, pushing on, and they tended not to want to stay and answer her questions —or there were not many of them. Older people seemed to have more time and, therefore, she felt that the survey was biased towards older people. Thirdly, and finally, on the issue of the early morning or transcontinental flights, known as the red-eye flights, unsurprisingly those people coming off those flights did not want to answer a survey—they wanted to get to a shower, a bed or their office. She told me that so difficult had it been that they had started reducing the number of staff who were on the early shift, and they brought full staffing on at about 8.30 am or 9 am, when people were in a more helpful mood—perhaps that is the best way of putting it.

I leave it to the House, and to my noble friend the Minister, but with that sort of anecdotal background, this can hardly be a system that inspires confidence as to the accuracy and value of the data that it collects. If we are going to relaunch it, we need to think much more clearly about how we are going to gather data in a way that creates confidence and trust.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

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

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

This is a thoroughly nasty amendment. That is all I have to say about it.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will not be quite as brief as that, but I will try to be brief.

I rise to support Amendment 33 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, which I have co-sponsored. It is surely right that the failure to produce identifying documents should be a factor—I put it no stronger than that—in assessing the credibility of a claimant. The destruction of identity documents has long been a means of undermining our asylum system. As I mentioned in Committee, we overcame a similar problem for those arriving by air simply by photographing the documents before they got on the plane, so if they stuck them down the loo, it was not going to help them, and that had been going on for some considerable time.

It is no accident that today, 98% of all cross-channel arrivals, whether by truck or boat, have no documents. Indeed, it is not in dispute that people smugglers instruct them to destroy any documents to reduce the risk of being returned to their home countries. In many cases, the applicants are making fools of us. Surely, the least we can do is to specify in law a requirement to take into consideration the absence of documents as a factor in judging the applicant’s credibility. I can think of no reason why that should not be the case and I strongly support the amendment put down by the noble Baroness.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I rise briefly to support this amendment. I had an opportunity years ago, when we were part of the European Union, to participate in an inquiry about FRONTEX and to go to Heathrow Airport to see the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Green, has just addressed. We were asked to be there at 8.30 in the morning to see what happened when people arrived at Heathrow on the overnight flights. Issues that have since been cured, largely, were then putting the immigration officers under enormous strain.

For example, on the day that we were there, a young man from Australia arrived who claimed to be British, but he came without any documentation; and a man from Brazil arrived for a holiday but without any money, so he was obviously going to work. Most significantly, a man on a flight from Nigeria claimed that he could not speak any of the languages available through interpreters at terminal 3, which is quite a wide range. I asked the reason for that, and they said that he will not speak until the flights back to Nigeria have left, and then he will start to speak, because otherwise he will be put back on the next flight to Nigeria. This was a prevalent issue, but I think it has now largely been tackled for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Green. It was a huge gap in our ability to provide control. Those measures are not applicable to channel crossings, but we do need to find ways to tackle this issue, just as the noble Lord, Lord Green, described how we tackled it at airports. In the absence of that, we need to make it clear in law that the lack of clarity referred to by my noble friend when she moved the amendment should be taken into account by immigration officials.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Order.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

If I may—

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

No. My Lords, this is Report. First, we are allowed to speak only once during a debate. Secondly, even if noble Lords were not here for Second Reading or Committee, they should not be making Second Reading or Committee speeches on Report.

We cannot support this amendment because there is no differentiation between documents that are genuinely lost or stolen. We know that people smugglers control the people they are smuggling, including stealing and taking their documents away from them deliberately, so it may not be the fault of the asylum seeker that they do not have a document. This amendment and the other provisions in the Bill seem to ignore the fact that officials and tribunals are quite capable of deciding, on the basis of the evidence, what weight they place on the evidence that is provided to them and what should be considered in terms of the credibility of the claimant, without what is contained in the Bill or in this amendment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said, on the basis of a freedom of information request, that only 2% of asylum seekers were in possession of a passport. Only four in 10 Americans have a passport. Is it any wonder that those fleeing war in less developed countries, often when normal government services have completely collapsed, do not have passports? If you are fleeing war, if you are being bombed, if you are being persecuted because of your sexuality or your political views, the first thing on your mind is to get out of that country, not to go to the Government and ask for a passport.

This amendment and the related clauses in the Bill that seem to be telling officials and tribunals what interpretation they should put on evidence should not be supported by this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, we have heard some very moving speeches. Because I have consistently spoken over the years in favour of family reunion, I will say something about Amendments 47 and 48, which I support. I urge the Government to take them away and combine the best points from both of them into something workable, practical and possible to implement.

It is most important that children and young people who are already here should be able to sponsor their close relatives, and, conversely, older people here should be able to sponsor their younger next of kin.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I offer just a sentence on some of these amendments.

On Amendment 48, we need to bear in mind the risk that if we set up what is now proposed, children who are not yet in Europe will feel obliged to take quite serious risks to get into Europe to take advantage of it. With regard to Amendment 49, Syria is a good example. We decided that something needed to be done. We chose a target that, if you like, was doable—5,000 a year—and we did it. I take some encouragement from that. However, we need to be careful about the numbers, because we are already taking 40,000 a year, and if the Channel gets any worse that could be 70,000. We need to be careful not to lose the public’s support, which underlies all this.

Lastly, on Amendment 51, I have a good deal of sympathy with the comments of my noble friend Lord Alton on the Yazidis and others in Iraq. It may be that we should aim to do something similar to what was done over Syria, but again with a cap, in case the numbers run out of control. That has, indeed, been included in subsection (4) of the amendment, I think.

I mentioned public opinion, which changes from time to time. There is certainly very strong opposition to what is happening in the Channel; there is widespread public feeling that the Government, having promised to reduce immigration, have in fact lost control of the Channel. That, indeed, is the case. We cannot really expect the public to distinguish very clearly between asylum and other kinds of immigration. They are very uneasy, and in taking policy forward we need to keep that well in mind.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as we have heard, in addition to the family reunion amendments so ably explained by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and my noble friend Lady Ludford, this group includes amendments on setting an annual target for the acceptance of asylum seekers into the UK and the acceptance of refugees in specific circumstances—such as those faced by female judges in Afghanistan, the victims of genocide and those fleeing the appalling situation in Ukraine. If the noble Baroness does not take up the challenge set by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, to combine the best parts of the two family reunion amendments, we will vote for Amendment 48, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, explained, the Government need to build capacity in this country to enable us to take in at least 10,000 refugees a year—a number that is seen almost universally as the UK’s annual fair share of global refugees. Without a target to aim for, the necessary arrangements—the infrastructure and capacity in local services—will not be in place to cope with situations, such as Ukraine, that can arise, as we have seen, with relatively little notice. It is no excuse for the Government to say, “We are unprepared”. We must be prepared, and Amendment 49 seeks to ensure that we are.

I reiterate what I said late on Monday: the British people want to help genuine refugees, like those fleeing the conflict in Ukraine. What they worry about, rightly or wrongly, is being overwhelmed by immigrants. I repeat: in recent years only six in every hundred people coming to the UK to live have been asylum seekers. The British people have nothing to fear from this amendment. On the contrary, if it was explained to them, I am sure that they would support it overwhelmingly.

We support Amendment 50—so powerfully spoken to, and in the name of, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws—which makes special emergency provision for people at particular risk, such as human rights defenders, including journalists, and minorities. We also support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, to make special provision for victims of genocide.

To put beyond doubt the mixed messages from the Government about what they will do to support refugees from Ukraine, Amendment 54A in my name, and signed by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, puts into primary legislation the requirement to support, by whatever means necessary, Ukrainian refugees who need to come to the UK. We passionately support all the amendments in this group.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

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

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief, because we had a long debate on this issue in Committee. It is, however, an issue that goes to the heart of the Bill—changing the definition of the offence to one of arrival rather than entry. I am, therefore, very pleased to move Amendment 55 and to speak to Amendment 58 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett. This is a fundamental change to immigration law that many of us are worried will criminalise asylum, full stop. One can only imagine what effect a similar law would have in Poland now, with people fleeing across the border. No doubt the Minister will say that it does not apply in those circumstances, and so on. The fact is, however, that the Bill changes the offence from entering to arriving, which raises serious issues and has serious consequences for us all.

For example, aside from those seeking asylum, would this provision apply to a person who arrives in the UK with the wrong paperwork? They have arrived and they have broken the rules: would that be a criminal offence under the Bill? The Home Secretary has presided over this situation for a number of days but has just recently announced that people can safely bring elderly relatives and parents from Ukraine into this country. On the basis of this clause, would those elderly parents be considered criminals if they arrived here without the right paperwork? The Government’s proposed legislative changes have real consequences for real people, as highlighted by the recent horrific events in Ukraine.

This clause should be removed from the Bill on both principled and practical grounds. I have guidance that the CPS has announced, in consultation with the National Crime Agency, the Home Office and the police, which says that those seeking asylum should not be prosecuted under existing offences of entering the UK illegally. That is in recognition of the fact that it is not in the public interest, and that asylum seekers

“often have no choice in how they travel and face exploitation by organised crime groups”.

That is in a press statement from the CPS. The Government are asking us to widen the offence to include arrival when the CPS and Border Force do not believe that the existing offence should even be used. Similarly, the Government’s answer has been that the powers will be used in only exceptional and limited circumstances, such as where a person has breached a deportation order—in which case, we should pass a power for those circumstances.

It is not right to ask the House to pass these powers —on the basis that the Government’s own agencies say that they will not use them—or to criminalise a person who arrives in the UK to ask for asylum from war and persecution. It is late, but this change in the offence will have serious consequences for the way our asylum and refugee system works. I beg to move.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, this is more important than it looks. Frankly, it is rather absurd that people can turn up in their tens of thousands on our beaches and there will have been no offence. That is not to say that they should be charged, but there must surely be some legal impediment to people just turning up.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, the Bill does two things. It criminalises and treats genuine refugees as second class if they arrive via a so-called safe third country. Also, this clause potentially criminalises everyone who arrives in the UK to claim asylum even when they have flown directly to the UK. It effectively criminalises all asylum seekers arriving in the UK unless they have been resettled through a government scheme—resettlement schemes that range from few and far between to non-existent.

From what the Minister said in Committee, I understand that the idea of the clause was to ensure that migrants crossing the channel in small boats who were rescued and brought to the UK could still be prosecuted, even though they had arrived legally. She said that the new offence would cover all claimants

“who arrive without the necessary entry clearance.”—[Official Report, 8/2/22; col. 1512.]

Someone who secures a visitor visa, for example, flies non-stop to the UK and claims asylum at the UK border would be guilty of an offence because their entry clearance was only to visit, not to claim asylum and stay permanently.

The Minister tried to reassure the House that this was not the Government’s intention, that the offence was intended to be prosecuted in only the most egregious cases and that the Government would be talking to the CPS. There are two issues with this. First, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said in Committee, this is the very definition of an overbroad criminal offence that relies on the offence being prosecuted in only a subset of cases. The second issue is the potential for government interference with the independent Crown Prosecution Service. The next thing will be the Government telling the CPS to prosecute some political activists and not others. This is a very dangerous road to go down.

Amendment 55, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Blunkett, to which I have added my name, would remove the offence of arriving in the UK without valid entry clearance from the Bill. We will vote with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, when he divides the House.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the argument from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, seemed to be addressed more to refugees than asylum seekers and I think that almost everyone who has spoken about the right to work of asylum seekers has urged faster decision- making. I want to speak to the two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, to which I have added my name.

The House has heard many noble Lords stress the importance of a trauma-informed approach and the difficulties of almost every asylum seeker, I would have thought, in telling their story almost as soon as they get here after dreadful experiences. It must be dreadful, even if the journey is quite straightforward, to tell the story coherently and fully. I fear the Home Office has not yet got it.

The Minister wrote to me last week on the interpretation of “without delay” and I thank her for that. She has had an awful lot of letters to write during the course of the Bill. The official who wrote this one said that

“if someone was fearful of acknowledging their homosexuality to the authorities, then it may be reasonably practicable for them to make a claim some time after arrival, as we recognise the extremely difficult process of coming to terms with one’s own sexuality.”

If an asylum seeker has experienced what we know in some countries people experience because of their sexuality, I do not think that “coming to terms with one’s own sexuality” begins to describe it. That is why these amendments are needed.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will very briefly speak to Amendment 30 and say that I very strongly agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, who I thought said some very valuable things.

I would like to say and make it clear that I am actually in favour of asylum. I believe that it is absolutely right in principle but I find in this debate and more generally that there is something of an assumption that all asylum seekers are genuine and, frankly, they are not. Indeed, the very careful process that they go through finds that nearly half of them are not accepted as asylum seekers.

The risk of moving this to 12 months is that some applicants—those who are not genuine, of course—would have an incentive to spin out their cases until they reach the six-month point, which would not be too difficult, and then they are here and that is it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, hit the nail on the head. First, what we must avoid is the possibility of work before acceptance as a genuine refugee. Secondly, that points to the need to speed up the process, which is what is causing all this difficulty. If we could get the cases resolved in a reasonable time, those who really deserve it would get it—and good on them—and those who do not would be in a queue to be removed.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

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

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak in this debate but, rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, I was prompted to by some of the interventions from behind the Front Bench, so as a non-politician I will speak briefly about the political context used to justify some of this rather egregious legislation.

I have the privilege of being the only non-political member of the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe is nothing to do with the EU. It is the foremost human rights organisation in our continent, with 47 countries until Friday, when we ejected Russia, so we are now down to 46.

Although I am independent, and I am not a politician, to function there you have to be part of a political grouping, so I sit with what happens to be the political grouping of the Government of the United Kingdom of today: the Conservative Party. The political grouping it is in is called the European Conservatives Group and Democratic Alliance. The group that we—all the Conservative MPs and Peers and I—sit in when we are in Strasbourg contains some of the political parties that the noble Lord, Lord Horam, referred to by name, saying we did not want to go that way.

In Strasbourg, the Conservative Party sits with the AfD, the laughingly named Sweden Democrats, who are effectively neo-fascists, and, from my wife’s native Italy, the Fratelli d’Italia, who are the direct descents of Mussolini, and the Lega Nord, led by the wonderful Mr Salvini, usually seen on the beach. These are not good bedfellows. Some of the comments that I hear from politicians, particularly from another place but also from some members of the Cabinet, are remarkably similar to some of the views I hear in the meeting room in Strasbourg when some of these individuals are speaking—views which most of us would find pretty horrendous but one steels oneself to listen to because, I suspect, they are probably reflecting pretty accurately the views of the people who voted them into office.

I will briefly refer to being in office. My great-grandfather, who was Prime Minister three times, said, “You are not elected into power; you are elected into office. You are elected into office as much to represent those who didn’t vote for you, or who didn’t vote at all, as those who did vote for you”. What we are hearing is a sort of “I’m all right, Jack” view of the world.

My wife’s native country of Italy is a contiguous country, in the way referred to by my noble friend Lord Kerr. Italy’s citizens did not want or vote for a large migration from north Africa to come. They may not like it, but they have accepted it; they really do not have any choice. Part of the reason that they are having a lot of problems and they are quite cross with countries such as ours is that we have completely and utterly refused, as have most other EU countries, to share the burden equally. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and I have been to Jordan, another contiguous country. We went to Zaatari, the largest refugee camp for Syrians, in northern Jordan, where some 80,000 men, women and many children are huddled in reasonable conditions, thanks to the UNHCR. In Lebanon and Turkey no citizen voted for this, but that is what they have ended up with. We are a very long way from being contiguous but we are behaving in a way which, frankly, I find shameful.

The great-grandfather I referred to earlier was involved in raising the equivalent of about £34 million in 1939 after the Kristallnacht in Germany, which enabled a great many Kindertransport children to come to this country—that is what the money was used for. He would be ashamed by what is going on in this Chamber tonight.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will just say a word in support of what the noble Lord, Lord Horam, said, about public opinion. We have to be careful here. A substantial slice of public opinion is concerned about the scale and nature of the inflow of people claiming to be refugees, and the shambles in the channel at the moment is no help. We need to bear that in mind in all our discussions. I do not think that the policy itself will work, and I do not think that the division into this or the other class of refugee will help. But let us not, for goodness’ sake, get carried away by our own righteousness and forget that there are a lot of people in this country who are not in situations as comfortable as ours who look to us to make sure that, in so far as there is an input of refugees, they are genuine.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I would not want that to be quite the last word. The speech made by my noble friend Lord Kerr was not merely powerful, it was compelling and irrefutable. As a matter of law, I have spoken on this before in Committee. I am not going to repeat all that, but do we really believe that the inhabitants of Blackpool, Doncaster or the deprived towns spoken of by the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and reflected in the contribution of my noble friend Lord Green, are so much less understanding, less sympathetic or less kind than the Poles, who are welcoming these vast hordes of people? We are not going to be asked to take that sort of number.

It is a dismaying thought that we really believe that our fellow countrymen, at this crisis in world events, would turn their backs, which is, in effect, what is being suggested. Are we really going to condemn, as Clause 11 is designed to do, rafts of asylum seekers—genuine refugees—to the loneliness, isolation, desperation, destitution and failure to be able to bring their families that it is suggested we now must to stop people crossing the channel, or to appease those in our deprived areas who do not want vast numbers of more refugees? I fervently suggest not. I would have hoped that, in this ghastly moment of history, the Minister would say, “This is not a moment to promote a Bill like this. We must withdraw it and think again”. No doubt, that is above his pay grade: indeed, considering that he is unpaid, that is not a very high bar. However, I really urge those responsible for this grotesque piece of legislation not to try to persist in it at this juncture.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, if those seeking asylum in the UK are genuine seekers of sanctuary from war and persecution, they are entitled to all the rights afforded to refugees under the refugee convention. Even if they are eventually found not to be genuine refugees, they are entitled to have their claim considered and their welfare safeguarded while it is being considered. A number of noble Lords have talked about public opinion. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, who appears to think that this is all about people crossing the channel, Clause 11 would make Ukrainian refugees who made it to Poland and then flew to the UK second-class refugees. If—I say “if”; I am not saying that this is the case—there is concern in public opinion, it is a concern about immigration, not a concern about refugees.

This is a very generous nation. If you speak to people in the towns and cities that the noble Lord, Lord Horam, has mentioned, the vast majority will say, “Of course we want to help those people fleeing the war in Ukraine”. They are concerned about being overwhelmed by immigrants, but only 6% of immigration in recent years has been by asylum seekers. That is why Clause 11 is not right and not necessary. Once asylum seekers have presented themselves and their claim in the UK, they are entitled to have their claim considered without fear or favour, regardless of where they came from and how they got here. They should not be treated differently on that basis. We should take Clause 11 out of the Bill and, when the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, tests the opinion of the House, we will be voting with him.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Before the noble Lord sits down—

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, under the rules of Report stage, one is allowed to speak only once during the debate.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very strong case, but I rise to strongly support Amendment 174, to which I have added my name. I am grateful to my friend Professor Fiona Williams, an important researcher on this issue, and Kalayaan, to whom I pay tribute for all their work on behalf of migrant domestic workers and for their briefings.

As we have already heard, it is clear that the 2016 reforms are not working. Rather than listening to overseas domestic workers and reinstating the original ODW visa, the 2016 changes ignore the need for workers to be able to exercise their rights before exploitation escalates. Support organisations such as Kalayaan and Voice of Domestic Workers report the bind in which the current situation leaves many such workers. Do they risk leaving before abuse escalates? If this abuse does not equate to trafficking, they could be left destitute, without a reasonable prospect of finding work and without access to public funds or legal aid to challenge mistreatment. The desperate need to remit money to one’s family and pay off debts means that workers may not feel able to risk leaving exploitative labour situations.

Professor Williams argues that key to understanding the problems faced has been the shift from placing ODW protection within an employment and immigration rights frame to a trafficking frame. The problem with the latter is that it puts the onus on the worker to prove that they have been trafficked when their exploitation may come from daily infringements of what should be their rights as workers. It leaves them more vulnerable to these infringements, not less.

Kalayaan has given me a recent case study that exemplifies the problem. I will go into some detail because it makes the case rather well. Jenny—not her real name—is from the Philippines. She comes from a poor family but, having won a scholarship to train as a teacher, she was unable to finish her training for various reasons. She later married and gave birth to a daughter who caught an aggressive form of pneumonia, which needed specialist costly private treatment. Jenny and her husband had to borrow money to pay for it. Their joint income could not cover the loan repayments, which prompted Jenny to look for work abroad.

Jenny moved to Lebanon to work as a cleaner. Her employer gave birth to a third child; Jenny was instructed to look after the baby as well as continue her cleaning duties, which was not in her contract. She worked longer hours than expected and was on the go and on call for much of the day. She had wanted to return home at the end of her first contract but was persuaded to stay when the family relocated to London. She was offered shorter working hours and pay at the national minimum wage.

Jenny arrived in the UK last year on a visa. In contravention of UK published policy, she was issued no information on her rights as a worker in the UK, either during the visa application process or on arrival. She worked the same long hours as before and, although she was paid a little more than in Lebanon, her hourly rate was less than half the national minimum wage. Her employer told her that she would be arrested if she left. Nevertheless, she did leave because she was exhausted from her long working hours for pay less than she had been promised.

Jenny approached Kalayaan when her visa had two weeks before it expired, having only just heard of the organisation. Kalayaan explained to her that her visa was non-renewable and that while she had permission to work in the UK, it would only be while her visa remained valid—for the next two weeks—after which she would be subject to the UK’s hostile/compliant environment for migrants. On the basis of Kalayaan’s assessment, it did not consider Jenny to be a victim of trafficking or slavery, so could not refer her to the NRM.

It is worth noting here that even cases that Kalayaan has judged appropriate for NRM referral are frequently turned down on the grounds that, while the working conditions may have breached employment terms, they do not constitute trafficking or slavery. Yet calls for the reinstatement of the original ODW visa are repeatedly met with the response that workers who have suffered abuse can avail themselves of the NRM.

Despite experiencing labour law violations, Jenny’s right to change employer was in practice of no use to her, given that she was not allowed to renew her visa. Had she entered the UK on the original kind of ODW visa, she would have remained visible to the authorities by renewing her visa annually, while contributing in taxes and visa renewal fees. Jenny’s case underlines how unhelpful it is to require maltreated migrant domestic workers to fit themselves into the slavery or trafficking frame, and how their rights would be better protected through the restoration of the original ODW visa.

Professor Williams also argues that the issue should be seen in an international context, where there have been very important advances in employment rights for domestic workers. In particular, ILO Convention 189 on domestic workers has been ratified by 35 countries—but not the UK. Ironically, when the convention was voted on, the UK Government abstained on the grounds that the UK already had a progressive policy—the OWD visa—which they then went on to withdraw. Will the Government therefore now rethink their position and restore the ODW visa without further delay?

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 183 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, which I am cosponsoring along with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I do not always agree with the Lib Dems, but I think the noble Lord’s arguments were very powerful and need to be listened to. The effect of this route is to sell permanent residence in the UK, and later even citizenship, to anyone who turns up with a couple of million to spare, with no questions asked about where that money came from. It is an extraordinary outcome. I can see why one might have thought this was a good idea initially, but it has turned into a nonsense.

As the Committee may know, this route is for individuals able to make an investment of £2 million. The applicant does not need a job offer or sponsor, and the visa includes all immediate family members. The tier 1 investor visa is initially granted for three years and four months and can then be extended for another two years by providing evidence of an investment of the required amount. The funds must be invested in UK gilts, bonds and equities only—of course, the money can be taken out of those afterwards, so it is a very convenient little entry for your money.

Currently, if you invest—so called—£2 million, you will get your permanent residence in five years; if you have £5 million to spare, it is three years; and if you have £10 million in your pockets, it is two years. The whole thing is just absolutely absurd, frankly. Indeed, between 2008 and 2020 it has led to a total of more than 12,000 such visas being issued. There is not even any economic benefit to the UK in this. According to Sir David Metcalf, a former chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, in 2014,

“the main beneficiaries are the migrants. Investors benefit from, for example, rule of law, property rights and access to efficient markets. Second, at present, the investment is a loan, not a gift.”

A MAC report from 2015 noted that the main proponents of this type of visas are—guess what—law firms, accountants and consultancies that help organise the affairs of such extraordinarily wealthy investors. There are also speculative concerns around whether this investor visa is being used by criminals. In an October 2015 report, Transparency International UK argued that it was highly likely that substantial amounts of corrupt wealth stolen in China and Russia had been laundered into the UK via this visa programme.

It is not clear what will happen to the tier 1 investor visa under the new points-based system—at least, it is not clear to me—but it seems that it will remain in place. I suggest that a thorough review is in order and, meanwhile, the route should be closed, as set out in this amendment.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am happy to join the noble Lords, Lord Green and Lord Wallace, and others who have brought this amendment. I may not agree with all that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, says, but I share with him a passion for the rule of law and a real concern for our reputation for protecting the rule of law. It is a real irony that our reputation for protecting the rule of law is one of the things that attracts people who have very little regard for the rule of law themselves and come from countries which ignore it almost altogether. I am afraid that this Government and their predecessor have a very inadequate record in responding to the threat of corruption of all sorts, and of course I support the proposals in this amendment.

In 2016, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron made a seminal speech about the importance of stamping out corruption. The Minister will remember the Criminal Finances Act 2017 and what a nuisance I was during its passage. I found it inadequate in a number of respects, including unexplained wealth orders, which I did not consider were nearly tough enough. I also put down amendments to try to persuade the Government to establish a register of overseas entities’ property, in order to try to reveal a great deal more about who actually owns vast parts of London. The noble Baroness was emollient and responded that as soon as parliamentary time allowed, there would be an appropriate response. I was slightly reassured by that. I continued to harry the Government. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Young, when he was a Minister, about the progress of matters. He was reassuring—none more reassuring than he—and said good progress was being made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am not going to look at it again but I will perhaps explore it further and see why what is happening is happening. That is probably fair enough.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Is the Minister aware that, in some countries, applicants choose those families that come to London regularly in the summer, with a view to leaving them after a month or two and settling, legally or otherwise, in the UK? The system needs to be fairly tight to avoid trouble on that front.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Between what the noble Lord has just outlined and what the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has just said, that probably explains both ends of the system in different ways.

On visa extensions, although I fully support the noble Baroness’s determination to improve protections for migrant domestic workers, rewinding the clock and reinstating the features of a route that were deliberately removed almost a decade ago is not the answer—probably, in part, for some of the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, outlines.

The overseas domestic worker visa caters specifically for groups of visitors who by definition stay for short periods. That visa allows private domestic staff to accompany their employer where that employer enters the UK as a visitor and where they intend to leave together. Approximately 20,000 visas are issued every year on that basis, and the vast majority leave well within the validity of their visa.

The amendment seeks to reintroduce features of the route which were removed for good reason. We must not forget that abuse existed before 2012 and be mindful that allowing overseas domestic workers to stay could inadvertently create a fresh cohort of recruits for traffickers. We must avoid a route that could be used by criminals to entice victims to come to the UK.

Noble Lords have referred to the report, commissioned by the Government, by James Ewins QC, which, crucially, did not establish a direct link between the length of stay and the likelihood of exploitation. Years later, this picture remains. There is no greater risk if a domestic worker is here for two weeks or 12 months, so increasing the length of time that they can stay will not afford them greater protection from being exploited.

I think that the noble Baroness and I share the same objective of the delivery of a safe and appropriate system for a very vulnerable category of workers. However, for all the reasons that I have given, we do not agree on the means of achieving it.

I am aware of comparisons that have been made between those employed in the healthcare sector who are exempt from the health charge and those who come to the UK as volunteers. However, there are very clear and important distinctions between workers and volunteers on the charity worker visa. The route should not be used to fill gaps in the labour market, even on a temporary basis. To answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, yes, we have been engaging with charities. The Government think that appropriate immigration concessions are already in place, which support volunteers on this route. The charity worker visa offers a low fee, compared to other work routes, and sponsors pay a lower licence fee, in recognition of their charitable status. While the charity worker route is the main route for volunteers, it is not the only way in which volunteers can be recruited to support the work of charities.

I note the concern of the noble Lord, Lord German, that the immigration health charge might deter volunteers from coming to the UK. Published figures indicate that, for the years immediately preceding the pandemic—clearly the years after that are very unusual—the number of charity visas granted remained broadly consistent. This indicates that volunteers are not being deterred by having to pay the health charge.

The NHS must continue to be properly funded and the immigration health charge plays an important role in that. It has generated almost £2 billion for the NHS since its inception, and it ensures that temporary migrants who come to the UK for more than six months make a direct contribution to the comprehensive range of NHS services available to them during their stay. Those who pay the charge can, from their point of arrival in the UK, use the NHS in broadly the same way as a permanent resident, without having to make any prior tax or national insurance contributions. For those reasons, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord German, will not press his amendment.

On Amendment 183, I hear noble Lords loud and clear. I recall the debate that my noble friend Lord Faulks and I had during the Criminal Finances Bill. I also completely acknowledge the point about those relying on funds that have been illegitimately acquired. It is because of those concerns that we have committed to a review of visas issued under the route between 2008 and 2015. We are finalising the review, if noble Lords can be patient, and we will publish it in due course—I knew there would be a sigh from behind me and in front of me when I said that.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

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

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group and I ask the Minister to address in her response a couple of issues, particularly in relation to Amendments 57 and 61, about restricting the placing of vulnerable people in accommodation centres—military barracks. When a similar amendment to Amendment 57 was tabled in Committee in the other place, the Home Office Minister, Tom Pursglove, said it was

“unnecessary because there are no plans to place those with children in accommodation centres”.—[Official Report, Commons, Nationality and Borders Bill Committee, 21/10/21; col. 295.]

If the Home Office has no such plans, which is a welcome commitment, why will it not accept a statutory shield against placing at least children in those centres?

Wider than that, I am grateful to the British Red Cross, which has reminded us that there is a Home Office policy document, of which the latest update was in May 2021, called Allocation of Accommodation Policy. It has a section on “Asylum seekers considered unsuitable for Napier”, which starts with the statement:

“Women and dependent children are not suitable to be accommodated at Napier”,


before listing further cases, including potential survivors of modern slavery, people with a disability and those with complex health needs. The tablers of Amendment 57, which I support, say the list should be longer and should include those under Amendment 61. If the Home Office has these policy commitments, it is my contention that it ought to accept the amendments restricting the types of people who would be sent to these accommodation centres. I would be very pleased to hear the Minister agree and therefore accept at least Amendments 57 and 61.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, noble Lords will not be surprised if I strike a somewhat different note; none the less, it is a note that needs to be heard. I think we need to stand back before addressing this group of amendments. We cannot and should not assume that everyone who claims asylum in this country has a case and is a genuine asylum seeker. The Home Secretary said recently that of those crossing the channel, 70% were more likely to be, and were in fact, economic migrants rather than genuine refugees. A historical view, I think, gives a figure of something like 50% of asylum seekers whose cases were rejected after very careful legal procedure. So, I think we have to stand back and not simply assume that all applicants have two wings and a halo.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but, according to the Refugee Council, which did a very careful analysis of those coming over on boats—and this was an analysis, not just throwing out statistics in the way the Home Secretary did, perhaps—the great majority would be expected to receive refugee status. So, yes, of course, there are always going to be some people who are not “genuine” asylum seekers, but surely the assumption should be that they are until proved otherwise, rather than that they are not until it is proved that they are. The noble Lord seems to be assuming that they are not genuine asylum seekers and there is no evidence to support that.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I think we need to be careful not to make an assumption in either direction. I was quoting the Home Secretary in the expectation that she has information to back that up. Even without that, and the noble Baroness did not address this point, the historical record is that 50% over the last 10 years have had their cases refused. I leave it at that. My point is clear on that matter.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Does my noble friend agree that it would be helpful to the Committee if, when the Minister comes to reply, she provides two specific facts? One is about the number of people, said to be 125,000, awaiting decisions on their asylum claim; and the other is the average length of time it is now taking to expedite those decisions. This returns to the point made by the right reverend Prelate earlier about the pressure that would be taken off accommodation if those matters were attended to in a much more efficient way.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Yes, 125,000 is correct, and I think that many—most—are waiting for more than a year. But if I may continue with my point—which does not address that; what I am addressing is the way this discussion has gone—the issue of scale is an important one. I have some sympathy with the Home Office: it is having to deal with a very large problem that is extraordinarily difficult to deal with. It is clear that the situation in the channel is a shambles. It is also clear that it is going to get worse. The number who arrived last year was 30,000 just on the channel, with another 10,000 elsewhere. We could, this year, have something like 60,000 arriving and claiming asylum. That is a massive logistical task and we should have that well in mind in making recommendations to the Home Office.

It is clear that the system is already buckling under the strain. One major problem is, of course, accommodation. Provision of accommodation in four-star hotels does nobody any good: it does the Government no good, it does the cause of refugees no good and it should not be taking place. That, presumably, is why the Government are now legislating in connection with accommodation centres, but the response to that legislation is to propose eight amendments that, taken together, would make it unworkable, given the scale of applications that we can expect. For a start, if we limited it to 100 for each accommodation centre, we would have to build something like 100 centres. If we get to the higher end of what I have just been describing, it would be 200. We have to be realistic and recognise what the Home Office has to deal with. I have not always been its great friend, but I think it has a problem and we should be conscious of that.

To conclude, I advocate a rather different approach. I think we should set up accommodation centres, we should establish them and mark their boundaries, we should provide medical assistance and legal advice, but we should simply make it the case that if applicants leave that accommodation without permission, their application is refused.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[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.

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There is a problem with accommodation and housing generally in the UK. However, asylum seekers need to be accommodated in buildings that seek to avoid all the drawbacks that noble Lords have outlined and in accommodation centres that promote recovery from trauma, dignity of the individual and integration into the community—for the benefit of not just asylum seekers but society as a whole, of which most of those accommodated will eventually become members. The sort of accommodation we are talking about is along the lines described by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, in his amendment. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee put it to me, accommodation centres should promote the welfare of asylum seekers.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

The noble Lord mentioned that most applicants will become refugees. I have the Home Office figures here: 49% of the 450,000 asylum applications between 2004 and 2020 were withdrawn or rejected, including those that went to appeal. Those are the basic stats from the Home Office; they should surely underline the whole debate.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I am very grateful for the historic information that the noble Lord has provided. My understanding is that, as the years have gone on, the number of successful appeals has increased and the number of first-time decisions to reject application from refugees has gone down. While I do not deny that those might be the overall numbers going back to 2004, in saying that most applicants for refugee status are successful, we are basing it on the last few years—the current trend rather than the historic numbers the noble Lord refers to.

I am reminded of heavy-handed policing of football supporters in the 1980s. I remember a football fan saying to me, “If you treat us like animals, we’ll behave like animals”. Warehousing asylum seekers may be a short-term gain, but it is likely to create long-term problems.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I too express my appreciation to my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett for the determination and commitment she has shown in pursuing not only this but so many other key issues about which she rightly feels very strongly. I repeat what the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, said: this clause and these amendments are about asylum seekers. In the Bill—a government document—Clause 12 is titled “Accommodation for asylum-seekers etc”. We are talking about asylum seekers, not illegal immigration, although I accept that there are those who make no distinction between the two. The other point I make at this stage is about the quite interesting exchange between my noble friend Lord Dubs and the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington. I think there was rough agreement—if not I am sure I will stand corrected—that the kind of numbers coming over in the back of a lorry are very similar to those coming over in small boats across the channel.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

To get the timescale on this, I say that 10 years ago it was 40,000 asylum seekers a year. That is roughly the number now—30,000 on the channel and 10,000 by other means. The difference, as I mentioned, is the potential in the channel for the numbers to go up very fast and make it even more difficult for the Home Office and local government.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

The potential is, of course, a matter of speculation. I note the point the noble Lord makes, but up to now there is agreement between him and my noble friend Lord Dubs that the numbers have been roughly the same.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank Committee Members for their kind words and, more importantly, those who made strong contributions in support of these amendments. It is not appropriate to cover them all in detail, but what is important is that the case was made for decent accommodation for asylum seekers that promotes their welfare and is based on a recognition of their common humanity.

While to an extent it is true that, as the noble Lord, Lord Horam, said, I am not opposed to accommodation centres in principle, I am opposed to what I think is envisaged. I am sorry if I did not make that clear. It is one thing to have small, homely centres; it is another to have things based on military barracks or their equivalent.

I will refer to what two noble Lords said before turning to the Minister. First, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, asked me a specific question about why 100 residents. To be honest, I do not know the answer. The British Red Cross suggested 100 and I have great respect for its work in this area, but the specific number is not important. What is important is that people at such a centre can feel that it is their home for a while. That point was made powerfully by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. There is a real danger that big centres—this is what HOPE not hate is afraid of—will attract the kind of hostility that residents of Napier have faced. The noble Lord made the point that it would be easier to accommodate families, but the Minister herself said that this is not the intention; these are not appropriate for families. I have not come up with an actual answer, but the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, also had the grace to acknowledge that his argument was based on anecdote that people might prefer to be in larger groups. But I have been using the evidence from both research and organisations working on the ground.

I also want to pick out what the right reverend Prelate said, partly because he made an important point at the outset about how, not in all but in many cases, we are talking about future citizens. He made a wonderful remark: he said that we should treat them as

“a gift to us rather than a problem”.

Too much of this debate has been based on the assumption that these people are problems. Please bear in mind what the right reverend Prelate said.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Does the noble Baroness agree that there should be a distinction between those who have had their cases examined and are refugees and those whose cases have not yet been examined? That is all I am asking for.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

No, I am sorry; I do not, because they are all people. We should start by accepting their common humanity, and then we can see how people fare in the system. That is my working assumption and I think it is the right reverend Prelate’s too.

It was helpful that this debate was postponed, because it was originally supposed to have been while the right reverend Prelate was at Napier. In fact, I am supposed to be at Napier today with the APPG. I was struck by what he said and that there have been improvements. That is welcome and we should acknowledge it. However, he said that—I am paraphrasing—despite the improvements, he could not help getting the impression of a prison camp rather than a place of safety. We should be creating places of safety, not prison camps. That is my other working assumption.

I am very grateful to the Minister. She was on her feet responding for nearly an hour and I appreciate how she has really tried to address many of the points made. All noble Lords appreciate that. It is very difficult with so many amendments and so many questions. I am still very worried about children because, despite being pressed, the Minister said that there could be circumstances when children would be accommodated. My fear is that this would open the door, but she said that she would take this away and look at it. We will have to come back to lots of these aspects on Report, that one in particular. If the amendment about children’s education is unnecessary and there is no intention for these centres to provide education, I do not understand why the prior information notice included how they should be able to provide education facilities. I am not asking the Minister to respond now, but perhaps she could look at that.

Despite the Minister’s valiant attempts to answer them, a number of questions went unanswered. I will not push them now, but perhaps she could write one of her famous letters—and make sure that it actually gets sent. I have been asking the Library about one of them and it knew nothing about it, but I am glad it has been sent now. I am also worried about the emphasis on individual assessment, because that is supposed to happen now yet we find that many people in vulnerable circumstances end up in places like Napier. She might want to look at that and we might want to come back to it.

I am conscious that we have spent a lot of time on this and rightly so, because it is such an important issue. I am very grateful to every noble Lord who contributed and to the Minister for her engagement on the issues, even if I am left dissatisfied, because I am not sure we have moved on much further than the Commons in answering the questions asked—even though she tried very hard to do so. I suspect we will come back to at least some aspects of the accommodation centres on Report. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, this is a rare treat: a group with only two amendments. I will speak both to Amendment 64 in my name and to Amendment 65. I am reminded of the phrase “lies, damned lies, and statistics”, but apparently, according to the figures that I have—perhaps we need a Hansard fact-checker, like the BBC has—every year from 2012 to 2019 the majority of asylum seekers in the UK were successful.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Yes, indeed, and 49% were not.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

There is agreement. In 2019, it was 65%. To prevent such a large proportion of asylum seekers working while their claim is resolved is demoralising, debilitating and expensive—increasingly so as the time taken to process applications continues to increase. The latest Home Office data shows 76% of applications taking more than six months to resolve. The Minister did not have the average figures, but I appear to have them. Figures published by the Independent suggest that more than 1,200 asylum seekers currently in the system have waited more than five years for a decision and 399 have waited more than a decade. That can result in asylum seekers becoming deskilled, leaving gaps in their work experience and long-lasting demotivation. To be willing and able to work but not be allowed to, for months or even years, must be devastating.

Our amendment, supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti, Lady Meacher and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, simply allows an asylum seeker to ask the Home Office for permission to work if their application has not been resolved after three months, instead of the current 12 months. It is intended to establish the principle that it is better for asylum seekers and for society if they are allowed to work. Amendment 65, in the name of noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, goes into more detail, requiring the Home Office to allow an asylum seeker to work without restriction after six months, rather than the current situation where asylum seekers can apply to work. Currently, however, they will only be given permission to work in the types of employment on the shortage occupation list maintained by the Home Secretary. These jobs are very limited and asylum seekers are unlikely to be qualified for them or have recent experience of them. Moreover, asylum seekers are unlikely to be attractive to potential employers while their claim for asylum is being considered. We are currently facing worker shortages in some sectors. Providing asylum seekers with work means they can start to pay their own way in society through tax and national insurance rather than relying on handouts. They are less likely to disappear if they have a job and a steady income.

In November, a cross-party group of MPs and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham wrote an open letter to the Home Secretary saying it was “nonsensical” that there were people in the UK who wanted to work but were not permitted to do so. They described allowing asylum seekers to work as common sense, fiscally responsible, and enabling those living here to pull themselves and their families out of poverty. The Lift the Ban coalition, which includes businesses, recruitment firms, trade unions and refugee organisations, estimates that removing the ban would save the economy £181 million a year. As I said in the previous group, the key to any successful immigration policy is integration, and allowing people to work is key to their integration into society. It also makes them less likely to be exploited, for example by becoming victims of modern slavery. We support Amendment 65—

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[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, it is quite daunting to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. I very much hope that she will not be driven to writing a book about this, although if she did, maybe we would see some change.

I shall speak to Amendment 65 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, with the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister, Lady Ludford and Lady Prashar. As has been discussed, this aims, quite rightly, to introduce the right to work for asylum seekers who have been in the UK for more than six months.

My noble friend the Minister will know the gist of my argument from my comments on Tuesday. I am grateful for her forbearance then. Suffice it to say, I believe that this amendment is a matter of complete common sense. It is exactly the sort of policy that should underpin global Britain’s new immigration system.

This is a moment when we have to decide who we are as a nation. We want an immigration system that takes back control—one where the British people can see that we are trying to manage our borders and are actually doing so. They can also see that we have compassion for those in need when we, as a nation, have so much already.

This is not a niche opinion. I note that all wings of the Conservative and Labour Parties, the Liberal Democrats, other Cross-Benchers and the Deputy Prime Minister support the extension of the right to work for asylum seekers.

The arguments for this right to work are overwhelming. I will restate a couple of them. I hope that it will be helpful to hear them from these Benches. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, the latest figures show that 125,000 people are waiting for asylum decisions. Every study shows that the net benefit to the state would be in the tens or even hundreds of millions of pounds a year in increased tax take if this measure were enacted.

The UK economy is recovering after Covid. A lot of jobs have been created but this has, in turn, created labour shortages. It makes no sense whatever for asylum seekers who can drive HGVs or serve in the NHS to be forced to sit around doing nothing for over a year while they await a decision from the Home Office. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, made that point very powerfully.

Secondly, there is very persuasive evidence that the right to work has a large, positive impact on the integration of asylum seekers who successfully settle. As other noble Lords have already mentioned, the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee recently underlined that shorter waiting times have a large, positive impact on long-term employment outcomes for asylum seekers.

As noble Lords have noted, these measures have overwhelming public support. I will mention one niche statistic. According to recent polling, 73% of red wall voters questioned support a right to work. As others have mentioned, business leaders back the easing of the ban on the right to work.

There is a basic human dignity argument for this policy. I believe that every individual should be able to support themselves and their family. I would go further and say that, as Conservatives, we believe that every family has a personal responsibility to do so where they can. I have often made the argument that work is the best route out of poverty. The aim and intention of this amendment are to do precisely that: let people support themselves and create their own pathway from poverty to prosperity while they wait for the decision.

The lack of the right to work leaves people vulnerable to exploitation, declining mental health, poverty and modern slavery. If the human dignity arguments do not seal the deal, the amendment could also be viewed as purely pragmatic. Reforms to the asylum system proposed through the Nationality and Borders Bill will take time to come into full effect. In the interim, while asylum cases are being processed, the asylum system continues to be under considerable strain. By offering asylum seekers the right to work, the Government would take pressure off themselves.

I anticipate that the Minister and other colleagues might be inclined to respond to this amendment using the pull factors argument, and I know others have addressed it. However, let me address those points from these Benches. First, it is push factors such as war and famine which drive refugees to these shores, not pull factors. If there are any pull factors, they are those which encourage people to come to the UK: our language, culture, rule of law, democracy, historic ties through the Commonwealth, family connections, and liberty, not the welfare payments.

It is worth noting that the UK is currently an outlier in enforcing a 12-month wait period for work and then placing long restrictions on which employment can be taken up. No other nation across Europe, USA, Australia or Canada has such stringent requirements. It is worth asking why they have not considered the right to work to be a pull factor. This view is totally backed by the experts. The Migration Advisory Committee underlined that there is no evidence in academic research that people decide to claim asylum based on these kinds of factors. The Home Office commissioned a study, which others have mentioned, that also shows that there is little evidence of this.

All of this is to say that I believe the Government could quite legitimately, without nervousness and in line with their poverty strategy for families working their way out of poverty, adopt this amendment that allows asylum seekers to work after six months of being in the UK.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, we have heard eight speakers on one side of this debate, and I think a word is in order from the other side. We are back to the same point: should we or should we not assume that all those who come here to seek asylum are genuine? It is, to me, no answer to reply that we are all human. Of course we are, but so are the population of this country and the constituents of those who were MPs.

In the medium and longer term, any asylum system has to have the support of the public. That could be brought into doubt if they saw increasing numbers of mainly young men arriving in this country, as others have mentioned, in a very visible fashion. As for public opinion, that will depend very much on the outcome of the next months and years. If that is a bad outcome from the point of view of numbers—numbers who are not perhaps genuine—that will decide itself.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, and it may be that he was going on to acknowledge this, but the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, quoted actual public opinion surveys which showed big majorities in favour of the right to work for asylum seekers.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Yes, I heard that opinion poll mentioned a couple of times. I would actually like to see the question and the context in what it was put. Any opinion poll needs to be looked at very carefully, but it may well be the case—I do not know, I have not looked at this particular one—if you ask the public that question today, they will say “Okay, sounds sensible”. What I am saying is that, if we set the asylum system in such a manner that the numbers will increase significantly month after month and year after year, that will change. So we need to be careful about what we do with this amendment at this point.

We know that the system is already under considerable pressure; we have talked about that. We know that the present conditions on work are very tight, as other noble Lords have mentioned. They are deliberately tight. The case must have been undecided for 12 months —there are far too many of those now—and the job must be on the official shortage occupation list, which is barely relevant to the qualifications of most asylum seekers.

My argument is that it would be a serious mistake to abolish both these requirements as the amendment proposes. It would make for a very clear incentive to spin out the claims process—not that they need to at the moment, but in the longer term—to get permission to work in any capacity. With the current delays in the system, additional numbers would get permission, thus adding to the pull factors at the channel.

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[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I know that the noble Lord is concerned about asylum seekers who turn out not to be recognised. No doubt he is even more concerned about the smaller proportion of them who may be wicked people in some way. Does he acknowledge that wicked people who are convicted of crimes in this country, even those who go to prison, are allowed to work? Does he consider that a pull factor or an incentive to commit serious crime?

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I do not see the relevance of that question.

Let me conclude, if I may. As we discussed earlier in this debate, the Government’s asylum workload has tripled from 40,000 cases in 2012 to 120,000 cases in 2021. Furthermore, nearly half of all cases awaiting an initial decision have been waiting for 12 months or more. In the present situation, they would in any case get permission to work. However, it is vital for these delays to be tackled. On that point, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and I are agreed. It makes no sense to me to adjust the immigration system to encourage delay. This Bill contains some useful measures designed to speed up the asylum process, and they should be supported.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 64 and 65. Before I specifically speak to them, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Green, that at some point in this Bill we are going to have to have a debate in this Chamber about the idea that this is a debate between those on the side of the public and those of us who are some kind of middle-class liberal elite who do not care about the opinions of the public—who believe that we need a draconian system to try to deal with this—because that is not what this debate is about. It is a caricature of the Government’s position and of those of us who oppose what the Government are doing.

We are saying that many of the policies being put forward by this Government to deal with the problem as they see it simply will not work. They go too far sometimes and compromise some of the principles every Member of this House would agree on. That is the clash. At some point we will have a debate about this, although perhaps there are other groups of amendments where it is more appropriate. I say again, there will have to be debate between those who—to be fair to the noble Lord, Lord Green—think they represent public opinion on this, and people like me who think he has got it wrong.

As part of the middle-class liberal intelligentsia—maybe not the intelligentsia, but the elite—let me say that I very much support that. Let me say why. As we stand here now, debating this, there are tens of thousands of asylum seekers who have applied for asylum in this country who have been waiting for a decision for more than a year. There are so many statistics sometimes you drown in them and are not sure which are actually right, so I will quote the Joint Committee on Human Rights, as it is slightly different to my own statistics. It says:

“approximately 65% of asylum applicants awaiting initial decisions had been waiting more than six months and that the average time to make an initial decision is now more than a year”.

That means tens of thousands of asylum seekers are waiting to have their application determined.

It would be interesting to hear from the Minister about the Home Office’s assessment of how long this is. Are there thousands of people waiting two years? When I was a Member of Parliament, people would sometimes come to me whose asylum claim had been neither agreed nor disagreed. They had actually disappeared and were there, and had been there for years and years. Now nobody wants that system. It’s ridiculous; of course nobody wants a situation that works like that. The reason I labour this point is that it goes back to the debates on the last group. The key to this issue is speeding up the process. We cannot have a situation where people are languishing for months and years before a decision is made. To be fair, the Minister believes that what the Government are proposing will speed up the process. I hope that they are right, but I do not think that they are. This is what bedevils the asylum system; it is not fair to the country, the public or the asylum applicants themselves. That is the basis of it.

Then you are left with the question of how you deal with this problem and what you do about it. At the moment, the Government’s position is that you have to wait a year before you can apply to work and then, if you do, you can work in specific occupations and jobs. I go back to the point made by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti—supported I think by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. The problem then becomes the denial of the opportunity for asylum seekers to work unless they have been here for a year. The community cohesion impact of that is enormous. What happens is that people then look at it and say, “What are they doing?” Noble Lords know the things that people say. “They’re not working. They’re not doing anything. They’re living on benefits. It’s about time they got out and did something”. Yet that is exactly what they want to do. Then some of them go out and work illegally, and they undercut the wages of legal workers or are employed in various occupations that we know about. So the whole system is undermined. To be fair, the last Labour Government did it. We introduced it, actually. I say to the Minister that, working in the Home Office, if she ever comes to this side, she will find quoted back to her things that she agreed to. So I accept that, right at the beginning of 2002, I think, we introduced this legislation for the same reason: we were worried about it being a pull factor.

But, if you look at it, where is the evidence? It clearly has not been, because it has not stopped asylum taking place—in fact, it has gone up. I will be fair and honest about it. My noble friend Lord Blunkett has done it once or twice in here, to his credit. Sometimes you introduce a policy with the best intentions—but what do you do if it does not work? Carry on? Do you just blindly say, “Well, it hasn’t worked but we’re going to carry on with it”? In supporting these amendments, we are saying to the Government that we have a policy that undermines community cohesion and does not work.

We then have the ludicrous situation where we have a Statement made by the Minister in the other place where he will not even publish the evidence for why the Government will continue with the current policy. He just refuses to publish it. So the Home Office has a review and does not publish the evidence. Then its own advisory committee says, “You’re wrong—you should do, and the policy is wrong anyway”. So the Government then turn around and say, “That’s ridiculous. We don’t agree with you”. They do not say why—other than that it is the pull factor. But then they do not publish the evidence that says that it is the pull factor.

It is not only that. I looked to see whether there was anybody else and found out that the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner said:

“As the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, I am aware of the harm caused to survivors of modern slavery and human trafficking unable to access training and work opportunities while they face delays in asylum status decisions.”


So the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner is wrong as well.

So, to answer this, I say that the Minister does not want to penalise asylum seekers, but this is ridiculous. We have public policy that is not working and is undermining community cohesion and a government response that simply says, “We don’t agree with all the people who disagree with us but we’re not going to tell you what the evidence is to support that, because it’s the pull factor”—

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I am a bit puzzled. Although the precise numbers vary from year to year, it is quite clear that substantial numbers—30%, 40% or 50%, depending on which year you take—turn out not to have a case for asylum in this country. Surely that should be a factor. Surely the way forward is, as the noble Lord proposed when he first spoke, to speed this situation up so that we can get the answers within the six months, which would be much better for everybody. Surely that should be the centre of their policy.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Can I intervene on an intervention? What is wrong if those people are allowed to work? If it is then determined that they have no right to stay, they would then have to leave—but, in the meantime, they are supporting themselves, perhaps using their skills and contributing tax. If they are then found not to have a legal claim to stay, so be it. I cannot see what the harm is in the meantime.