Immigration Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and put on record how impressed I have been with all the other speeches so far in support of the amendment. I will focus my remarks on looking in a little more detail at the court case that the noble Lord briefly mentioned.

On 18 January, the Upper Tribunal ruled that three unaccompanied minors and a vulnerable young man with mental health problems from the camp in Calais had a bona fide case to be allowed to join relatives already resident in the UK. This case is important because it follows a legal challenge co-ordinated by Citizens UK, which cited a little-known provision in the Dublin III regulations that allows an asylum seeker to join their relative in Britain if they have already applied for asylum in France. The Upper Tribunal ruled that the Home Office should immediately allow the three children and one adult to join their families.

Although the Government had argued until then that, under Dublin III, applications for asylum must be made and processed in France, the court accepted that the reality is very different and that the French system is, indeed, broken. Applications from asylum seekers with family already resident in the UK are not being processed and passed on to the UK. In effect, the safe and legal route has been denied to asylum seekers who have done all that has been asked of them.

In this ground-breaking ruling, the court accepted that evidence of a written claim to asylum in France was sufficient to prove that the children had initially sought safety there. Therefore, the court subsequently ruled that, instead of waiting for the French Government to ask, the British Government must act. It will now be up to Britain to examine the claims of these specific cases under the Dublin regulations. This changes the nature of the debate: the Government can no longer hide behind what can be described only as a broken system. Or can they? Will the Minister confirm whether the Government are planning to, or have already, appealed this decision? If so, why?

With the release of the dreadful figures from Europol citing 10,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children having gone missing, probably into the hands of human traffickers, surely the Government should now capitulate and accept the moral and legal case for accepting the relatively small number of the 3,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children into Britain that we, the Liberal Democrats, other politicians of a variety of different parties and numerous NGOs have been asking for. Citizens UK has identified several hundred children in Calais and Dunkirk alone who have a bone fide case for being brought to Britain. I saw some of them when I was in Dunkirk this Sunday, just as Storm Imogen was gathering pace. There is little justification for leaving anyone to suffer those conditions, let alone the young people who have every legal right to come to Britain. Surely the time has come to get on with it. The unaccompanied children we are talking about have relatives already resident in Britain, so there would be no burden on any of the local authorities.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to inject a note of caution into the debate, which has been a little one-sided. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is right in suggesting that there is widespread support for refugees, and especially children. Nobody is more qualified to say that than he is. The question is how to do it, and that needs a little bit of thought. The proposal is to relocate 3,000 unaccompanied children from Europe, and that is entirely understandable. It is entirely right to offer refuge where that is in the best interests of the children. However, I think I have a slight difficulty over the suggestion that these children should be selected from those already in Europe. The reason for that is this: there is some risk that it would encourage families to send their children in advance in the hope that that would later open the door, as it were, for the rest of the family to claim asylum.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, did not seem to think that there was very much in that, but there is some evidence from Sweden that that has been the case, and we have had some experience with Albania, when a very large number of families got the idea that, if the children went first, they could follow. We need to be careful of that, and conscious that this could become a selling point for people smugglers in the camps around Syria itself.

Let us take orphan children, by all means, but I rather think it might be better to take them from the camps around Syria and to do so on UNHCR advice. We are doing that already with families, and I do not see why we should not extend that—indeed, I believe we should extend it—to orphan children in those camps. The UNHCR could provide an objective account of those children’s circumstances and take a view as to whether there was perhaps a better solution involving the child’s extended family. Remember, extended families in Syria are very close, very strong and very important. I suggest that we would do better to reinforce our work with the UNHCR. By all means increase the numbers, but let us be quite sure that we do it in a way that does not have a downside attached to it.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, am I to understand from what the noble Lord said that his concern is about where the children may be coming from rather than the numbers? It would be encouraging to hear him say that he thinks that 3,000 is not wrong.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My concern is that, if we are not careful about this, we might encourage families to send children on ahead. We need to look at that very carefully because those children would be at exactly the same risk as those already in Europe now. It is a very difficult and sensitive area. There are almost instant communications between child refugees and the adults in their families. If you open a door and give the impression that, “Get your kids as far as Rome and the Brits will have them”, then the risk is that we will make a bad situation worse, if that were possible.

[Lord Judd]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I thought the noble Lord put his view very morally and I do not believe that it can be dismissed out of hand. However, the question I want to put to him is what would he do about the children who are already in Europe? That is the point: they are already there. As my noble friend said, we are where we are. Although there may be intellectual logic and force in his argument, we have a real situation.

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[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, eventually I will be allowed to sit down. There are some very serious points here. There is a large number of destitute children in Europe. The issue is how we suggest our Government respond to that. Suppose we take 3,000 children in the UK as part as what I think has been described as our share. So 30,000 or 40,000 children are taken into care in Europe. Do we seriously think that none of the families who are refugees from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan will deduce from that that the best way forward, particularly as the borders close and the Turks get more difficult and so on, is to send a child ahead? I think that they might well. I cannot be definitive about this—we need the evidence and we need to think about it very carefully. But there has to be a risk that if you say, “Right, we’ll have the kids”, other family members will follow and we simply make the situation continue and possibly even get worse. Whatever we do, there is a dreadful situation. Let us be really careful that we do not make it any worse.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, we could probably spend four hours going backwards and forwards on this obviously important subject, but it might be useful, given that we have a number of things to get through, to hear the views of the Front Benches.

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[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

The noble Lord, Lord Green, spoke earlier. Is he a grandfather or a father? Has he children? Would he trust his children to leave Syria to walk across Europe to reach the temptations of Italy and Greece and to meet the deprivations on the way? Would he really think that his child could manage unaccompanied? Is it not really a fantasy to think that these kids are not going to suffer in this way? I would not have thought of putting my children or grandchildren on that trek, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Green, would not either.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I am a father and a grandfather and of course I would do nothing of the kind, but then I am not in the situation of families in Syria. It is almost unimaginable to do that, but the question is whether there is a serious risk that it could happen. There is some evidence that that is exactly what has happened in relation to Sweden and Albania—Albania is different because that is a peaceful country. I raise the question. We need to be careful. If it was done through the UNHCR, we would be saving the same number of children, but we would not run the risk of encouraging further children to get into serious difficulty.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

Before I address the remarks relating to this amendment, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, to the chair. I understand it is her first Committee outing as a Deputy Chairman. As an alumnus of that role, I know the fear and intimidation of being faced with the Marshalled List in a very difficult Committee. I am sure all members of the Committee will be very sympathetic to her on her first day.

No one can be unmoved by the quality of the contributions to this debate—I declare myself a father and a grandfather. We identify absolutely with the pain and suffering which people are feeling at this time. I agree with the UN Secretary-General that this particular migration crisis is one of the greatest since the formation of the United Nations. He was right in talking about the scale of the problem.

It might help the Committee if I set out the rationale behind the Government’s current approach and set that in context of the fact that we are dealing with a very fast-moving situation. There is quite a lot of pressure which, rightly, comes from people who are trying to nail the Government down and ask, “Where are you with this particular Statement?” It is very fast moving. A significant number of discussions took place on the margins of the Supporting Syria conference a week last Thursday. Some 35 countries were there discussing these issues. On Thursday, James Brokenshire will be hosting a round table with Save the Children, UNHCR and UNICEF to discuss the specific statements on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children made by the Government on 28 January. This issue was raised by Save the Children and underscored by the DfID Select Committee. There is also the ongoing International Syria Support Group meeting in Munich on Thursday which will be attended by the Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary. I am trying to set this in context: it is very fast moving.

If I was standing here in this capacity last year, I would have been facing questions—I was standing here last year and I did face questions—from noble Lords who asked me repeatedly to tell them how many people had currently arrived. Officials would tell me to avoid putting a number on it, because it was not very impressive. It was fewer than 100, then 120 and 130: complaints came that it was derisory. Then came the Prime Minister’s announcement in September that it would be 20,000 over the period of this Parliament. So far, 50% of those have now arrived. He said it would be 1,000 before Christmas and I then got repeated questions asking whether they would all be here by Christmas. More than 1,000 arrived by Christmas. That process is continuing. Last year we might have talked about £500 million of aid committed to the region, particularly to help Syrian refugees. That figure went up to £1.1 billion and last week it was doubled to £2.3 billion.

It is right that we are moved by the terrible situation which people are facing but, outside this Committee, it would be unfair to present a picture to the many organisations who are doing incredible work in this area that the Government, and particularly the Prime Minister, are unmoved by this. He is deeply moved by it and the Government are trying to work their way through.

As to the approach we are taking, the crisis we identified was that people were undertaking a perilous journey. I understand the arguments made about “we are where we are” or “they are where they are”, but that was the context in which we began this policy. The European Union’s policy at that point was relocation: in other words, people arrive and then you simply move them around different countries. We felt that simply having the same policy was not the right approach. The total number it aspired to move around was 160,000; currently some 340 have actually been moved. I do not want to start from the premise that we have somehow just plucked this approach from the air and that it has been proved to be fundamentally wrong.

We said that we needed to stop them undertaking that journey, because we knew that they would then immediately fall prey to the criminal gangs—we know the figure of 90%. These gangs are making vast fortunes from trafficking individuals. In fact there was one particular gang which was broken up by the National Crime Agency, working with Europol on 2 December, when 23 people were arrested. This one gang was responsible for 100 Syrian migrants a day coming into Greece and was making estimated earnings of €10 million in the process. This is a very lucrative business. Our first principle is to say that everything we need to do is to stop people making that journey. You then say, “How do you stop them making that journey if you are just giving them humanitarian aid?” They need some hope that they can potentially get out of that area through a safe route—and therefore the Syria Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme was expanded. We worked with the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR to identify the most deserving people, based on established international UNHCR criteria—namely, those who had been victims of torture or persecution; women and girls at risk of violence; and those in acute medical need. Those were the priorities. When they were identified, they could be brought out not as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children but in family units. They are put on a plane with papers; they come to Glasgow, London or wherever it is, and they have a house. They have social workers around them; the children have a place in a school prepared for them when they arrive, they are able to work immediately when they arrive, and they get language support.

So while noble Lords say that we are not doing enough, it is perhaps wrong to say that there is no logic underpinning our approach. In fact, all the way through this process, we have worked very closely with the UNHCR, which believes that it is best to keep families together, particularly for children. That is why we have been following that approach. Of course, there are many more things that need to be done. In terms of how the amendment is worded, to come to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, it talks about unaccompanied asylum-seeking children without designating a specific country. That is one of the things that we have discovered is a real issue. Under humanitarian law, to designate the specific country is very difficult, because you are then differentiating between people on the basis of geography rather than need. So the wording of the amendment is correct.

In the year to September 2015, 1,570 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arrived in the UK, and 61% of those children were 16 or over. Only 7% were 14 and under. I have to say that those figures surprised me when I read them, because when I thought of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children I thought of my grandson, who is five or six. As we have discussed in Questions before, a large number of that particular group come from certain areas such as Eritrea, which is not to say that Eritrea is not a country that people would want to leave because of their conscription and national service in an open-ended way. They also come from Albania and other countries. At the moment, Albania forms 632 while Eritrea forms 460 of the total unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, while Afghanistan forms 179 and Syria 118. I present that as simply an expansion on the designation and the general term of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. In other words, are we actually helping those whom we want to help the most?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

On that very point, is the Minister aware that something like 40% of these unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are involved in an age dispute? Quite often, those who claim to be 16 are found to be 18. The point is that many of them are older than one might think.

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[Lord Dubs]

I am enormously grateful to all Members of the Committee who have spoken. With two exceptions, the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Green, they have all been in support of the amendment, and I am grateful for that. Even the noble Lord, Lord Green, and the Minister qualified their opposition by making sympathetic and reasonably supportive comments.

Briefly, I will say one or two things in reply to the debate. First of all, of course we all welcome the government money that is going into the refugee camps in the region and of course we welcome the vulnerable persons relocation scheme—it has a lot of merit. I think some of us think that the numbers are very small in relation to the number of people in the camps in the region, but we all think that it is a good scheme. We also think that the principle of keeping families together is desirable. The difficulty is that, if there were only people in the camps, and not a million or so more in various European countries, the principle would be easier to apply and we could persuade other EU countries to do the same as we are and take in the vulnerable families. The trouble is that that is not the situation as it is.

We are dealing with a very large number of people who have fled the region—and victims of people trafficking certainly—and are now scattered across many EU countries. It is from among those people that we have identified that there are 24,000 or so unaccompanied children, who are in a particularly desperate situation. In the camps, at least there is support from the various agencies and the United Nations to enable them to live in not wonderful conditions but at least to get food, water and some shelter. But for some of those in Europe, heaven knows whether they have any safety at all. That is the point of the amendment.

Three thousand is a very small number. The Minister talked about the Dublin convention and I wonder whether he is seeking refuge behind that when other EU countries are not necessarily adhering to it either. That may be for another day.

We have an urgent problem. I understand that there is a concern that some of this might provide pull factors for the families. However, as far as we know, these children are, at the moment, on their own. Honestly, if a handful of them had been pushed out of the region in order to attract family members, it would not be a large number and I am pretty convinced that the majority of these unaccompanied children have not been pushed out as a way of enabling their families to follow them. These are children who are vulnerable in their own right.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I am not suggesting that any significant proportion of those now in Europe have been sent ahead. It is the future that I am concerned about: that taking 20,000 or 30,000 might in future lead to children being sent ahead.

[Lord Dubs]

That is a situation that we would have to consider if and when it happened. At the moment, we are talking about a group of very vulnerable children. For all the caveats that have been expressed, I think it right that the Government should do something clear and positive by supporting this amendment.

I think that we have covered all the arguments. There was one quote—I forget which Member of the Committee said it—that I wrote down: “The least we can do”. Whoever said it, I welcome the phrase. It summarises the feeling of the Committee. Yes, there may be other children in the future, but let us for the moment deal with the problem as we see it in various European countries. Let us say that this is the least we can do and that we have a moral responsibility to do it. We have had a good debate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I say with some confidence that Report beckons.

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[Lord Rosser]

We have an amendment in this group that calls for the Secretary of State to undertake a review of border security. Part of that review would be to consider the adequacy of resources currently available at all points of entry to the United Kingdom; it also provides for the review to be laid before both Houses of Parliament within one year of the passing of this Act. I do not want to make many points, since concerns about border security have been expressed already, but I do not think that the Government know how many people are coming in and out of our country and who they are. They do not, for example, have any idea what the net migration figure will be each year. It seems to come as much a surprise to the Government as to anyone else.

We really have got to the stage when we have to get a grip on our borders. After all, it was only recently—it may have been last month—that a terror suspect on bail departed at a major sea port. We have also had an instance of a terror suspect from the continent coming in through the same route. It would appear that some of those whom we regard as extremists perceive the ferry borders to be a weak link—and it looks as though they have some reason and justification for feeling that way, unfortunately. The Home Secretary really must conduct an urgent review of border security at ferry and other terminals and provide urgent reassurance that passports are properly checked on exit and arrival in the UK.

I think that it is the case that more than two years ago the Government were warned by the National Audit Office that there were worrying gaps in the new Border Force. A recent report from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration suggests that those gaps are still there and that potential terrorists can also enter our country unchecked—for example, as has already been mentioned, via private planes and boats—as well as there being some evidence that they can come in and out of the country through major ports. Even if the Government do not feel inclined to accept my amendment—naturally, I hope that they will—I hope that we will hear in the Minister’s response that some steps are being taken to tighten up on our borders so that we know who is coming and going, not only the numbers but who they are. I hope that it will be an end to reports, whether from the National Audit Office or from the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, that there are gaps, and quite serious ones, that need plugging.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, I support Amendment 240. The sheer scale of immigration is a major public concern. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that we need to get a grip, and part of that is a matter of reorganisation, which I think is at hand. Another part is to have a legal framework, and we are doing that today. But none of that is any use at all unless it is enforced. I am increasingly of the view that the lack of resources is becoming a serious constraint; it really does need to be looked at, and the Government should explain how they think they can achieve their objectives on the resources that they have so allocated.

Lastly, I offer qualified support to Amendment 241A. Illegal immigration is a very important subject that is often ducked. We have looked at this, and it is very difficult to get beyond merely ballpark estimates, but it is worth having a shot at and I think that the Government should do it—not annually, because there is just not enough information for that, but it should be done and it would be worth doing.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I shall be brief if I can, because—if I can make a pitch wearing my Whip’s hat—we have six more groups of amendments to debate.

It may help if I speak first to government Amendment 239C, which I hope will be uncontroversial. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for his support on this amendment. This makes a minor change to extend the maritime powers in the Bill to Northern Ireland port police by altering the definition of “Northern Ireland constable” in new Section 28Q of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, as inserted by paragraph 7 of Schedule 11 to the Bill.

The two harbour police forces in Northern Ireland, the Belfast Harbour Police and Larne Harbour Police, were not initially included in the Bill as the categories of officers listed are modelled on the maritime powers in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. However, we have listened to points made by Northern Irish Members in another place and agree that a consistent approach should be taken across the UK with the enforcement of immigration control. Therefore, this amendment aligns the position of port police forces in Northern Ireland with those port police forces elsewhere in the UK which are already included in the Bill. It will be a matter for individual port police forces to consider whether they wish to use the powers or rely on the relevant territorial force—for example, the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Amendment 239BA would extend our penalties for misdirected passengers to general aviation sites, private landing strips and helipads. It is the Government’s intention to operate the misdirected flights penalties only at sites where there is a designated control zone to which arriving passengers must be directed for border checks by the Border Force. I shall come on to the points that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, made in a moment. Given the large number of general aviation sites, landing strips and helipads in the UK that do not have a permanent Border Force presence, this amendment is unnecessary and unworkable. It would place a disproportionate burden on those sites. Border Force officers attend such sites only when they need to check specific arrivals.

On what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, was saying about the potential loophole, I should quickly mention how border authorities handle general aviation flights. The Border Force and police take an intelligence-led approach to general aviation, which strikes a balance between securing our borders and best managing resources. Flights are risk-assessed in advance and, when appropriate, border authorities will physically examine crew, passengers and goods. There are in excess of 3,000 private air fields nationwide, and it would be unfeasible for the Border Force and police routinely to meet all arriving flights. It was noted by the independent inspection report published in January that the Border Force has made a number of significant recent interventions in the general aviation environment. I confirm that all those travelling via general aviation are subject to the same immigration and visa requirements as those using scheduled services. The noble Lord asks whether we are doing something about it. The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 includes enabling provisions for a stronger legislative framework for advanced notification for general aviation. Regulations will bring greater clarity to what is needed from the sector but also provide for appropriate sanctions to enforce compliance by the small minority that do not provide advanced notification under the current arrangements.

Amendment 240 seeks to include provision for a statutory review of border security in the United Kingdom. The Border Force operates a control regime which is predicated on checking 100% of scheduled arrivals. Our collection of advanced passenger information from carriers enables us to identify known subjects of interest to law enforcement agencies before they travel, allowing us to intervene and direct airlines and ferry companies not to carry certain passengers so that they never even set foot in the UK. The Border Force adopts an intelligence-led approach in combination with its partners to identify and intercept contraband goods which have the potential to cause harm to the public. Our visa regime provides another vital way by which we are able to manage the threats from crime, terrorism, illegal migration, and espionage.

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration regularly reviews Home Office immigration functions, including our management of border security. Most significantly, following the independent chief inspector’s critical review of the then UK Border Agency, Border Force was established as a separate law enforcement body. The Home Office also works with a range of other partners, including port operators, carriers and road hauliers. This allows us to review processes and security interventions to make border security work efficiently, and to work together to intercept threats while keeping the flow of law-abiding passengers and freight moving as smoothly as possible. I assure the Committee that the Government keep the UK’s border security arrangements under constant review and these arrangements are subject to rigorous scrutiny by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration—as I have said—and by the Home Affairs Select Committee. The reports and publications of both of these are laid before Parliament. On this basis, we do not consider there is any need to introduce a further statutory review process.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord must clearly be too young to remember who abolished exit controls. It was indeed Margaret Thatcher, when Prime Minister, as an economy measure. She thought that they were unnecessary and cut the number of people employed by the border service. That was some time ago.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Perhaps I may correct the noble Lord. Exit checks to Europe were abolished by the Conservative Government in 1994 and exit checks to the rest of the world were abolished by the Labour Government in 1998. Both decisions were wrong.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

They were amended by this Government.

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[Lord Swinfen (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of Lord Marlesford. I have relatives with dual Australian and British citizenship. Going in and out of Australia, they use their Australian passports; going in and out of Britain, they use their British ones. Even when flying from one to the other, they change their passports over because it is much quicker for them to get through immigration in both countries by using the passport of the country in which they land. However, there is then no record of the journey in the other passport. The passports of both countries should have a note that they have dual citizenship and, possibly, give the passport number of the other country. My noble friend’s suggestion is eminently sensible.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Will the Minister ask his officials whether this apparent gap makes nonsense of the net migration figures? It could confuse them.

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[Lord Green of Deddington]

I think the important word is “essential”—operationally essential. If you ask that question, you will get the answer that you would hope for. But would it be operationally valuable? Were they asked that question and, if so, what was the answer?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I shall turn the question round. If you ask any law enforcement agency if it would like some information, it will always say yes. The question is whether it is nice to have something or it is an essential tool, and that is the advice that we have received at the moment.

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[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, in relation to skills, I draw the Committee’s attention to the report by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, on training in the private sector. Her report found that there had been a substantial fall in what she described as “serious” training—that is off-site training—since 2008. It is clearly necessary that action should be taken and encouragement should be provided by the Government to tackle that. That said, I do not think I have any comment on this. I listened with interest to the introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace.

[Lord Rosser]

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has made some very interesting points on this issue. I wait with interest to see what the Minister has to say in response. I would be grateful if he would respond on the point that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raised about consultation on the implications for the public sector.

He mentioned the health service and universities. It will obviously be no secret that representations have been received from universities and health service organisations about the implications of this proposal. Indeed, I understand that some universities have taken it up directly with government. Will the Minister set out the extent to which the consultation covered public sector organisations and say what responses were received? Clearly, their line is over the additional costs it is likely to cause the service in question. Indeed, universities will say that it is causing additional costs which might lead to them not necessarily being able to recruit the best people, and obviously part of the role of a university is to train people and increase their skills through higher education. It would seem a bit distorted if the purpose of the levy was to enable money to be provided for apprenticeships but, in so doing, it managed to weaken the ability of universities to provide the best people to provide the education which in itself is raising the skills of people who will be needed in the labour market in the future.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for proposing this new clause. I am a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption. Like the noble Lord, I have had the opportunity to examine the statistics in the report from Transparency International UK which he mentioned. I find them extremely concerning.

It would appear that, under the tier 1 investment visa scheme, we are operating a charter for money laundering. An individual is required to invest only £2 million in government bonds, or the share or loan capital of a business trading in the United Kingdom, and after five years they can have indefinite right to remain. As the noble Lord mentioned, there is a tariff on this. If they are happy to invest £5 million over three years or £10 million over two years they get a faster track to the right to remain. It is a pretty cheap ticket for them to come in. Large amounts of money have been brought in— £3.15 billion since 2006—by this route. I am advised that golden investor visa approvals have risen from 153 in 2009 to 1,173 in 2014. The largest number are Chinese, followed by the Russians. At the same time, the Chinese and Russian authorities are telling the world that they are very alarmed about the export of corruptly gained capital from their countries. The Government inveigh against corruption across the world. They propose themselves as international leaders in campaigning against corruption, yet it would appear that the right of potentially corrupt individuals—and there is good reason to think they are actually corrupt—to come, take up residence and remain in this country can be bought remarkably cheaply.

I have some questions for the Minister. Will he advise the Committee what precautions the Government are taking to ensure that those who benefit from these tier 1 visas are not corrupt? What investigations are undertaken? What requirements are there on people to declare their wealth and the sources of their wealth? What due diligence is pursued to ensure that those answers are honest, accurate and comprehensive? Do the Government maintain a list of those who are suspected by police authorities or intelligence sources internationally to be criminals or money launderers? Do they ensure that people who are on that list do not obtain visas? What proportion of applications for tier 1 visas is turned down? Do the Government intend to undertake any retrospective scrutiny of individuals who have already been granted visas under this scheme?

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, referred to things that have been said by the chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee, Professor Sir David Metcalf. Those of us who know him know that he is a man of very great experience and wisdom. He told the Home Affairs Select Committee that the tier 1 scheme is,

“absolutely not fit for purpose”.

Indeed, that could be said to be an understatement. It is worse than unfit for purpose if it pollutes our national life. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, alluded to the effects on the housing market. That alone must be a matter of very great concern. There is a cascade of misery that derives from the ability of wealthy individuals to force up prices of houses and apartments in London, and if they are doing that through the use of ill-gotten money, it is even more intolerable, as I am sure the Committee would agree. If this is a scheme to enable people who may be participants in organised crime or actively investing in it, it runs absolutely counter to what should be the main strategic purpose of the Home Office in any case.

Sir David said that the scheme brings “absolutely no gain” to the United Kingdom. It may be that the Government disagree, in which case the Minister will tell us, but it seems a reasonable proposition. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will tell us that he will accept the new clause that has been tabled, but if he intends to keep tier 1 visas, what is he going to do to ensure that there is not the abuse that Transparency International and many others believe there is in consequence of the availability of this scheme?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, I speak in firm support of this amendment. We have had two very powerful contributions, and I will not repeat what was said. Listening to them and looking at the study, this is bizarre. It is really quite extraordinary. You can see why it is attractive. There is no need for a job offer or a sponsor, and the visa applies not just to the main applicant but to all his immediate family members. There are no language requirements and, since 2011, the residence requirement has been only 180 days. Talk about an offer. What do we get? We get nothing because these sums of a few million, which are evidently nothing to these applicants, are given back to them after a few years. They can put them in gilts and get their money back. It is absolutely bizarre. I suppose it is intended to give the impression that Britain is open to investors, and investors are a good thing, but we really should not give the impression that we are really quite as naive and foolish as that.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has already quoted some very effective remarks from Sir David Metcalf, as has the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, so I shall not repeat them, but coming from someone of his stature, they should certainly be taken into consideration.

It is hardly too cynical to describe this as a scheme for selling British passports to the very wealthy. There is absolutely no justification for that and this scheme needs to be scrubbed, frankly. It may be that it could be replaced by a more effective scheme that actually brought serious investment and jobs to this country. That is for another day but this has got hopelessly out of hand. It is a useless system and should be abolished.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

My speech begins with the line that I have listened carefully to the arguments. I think the arguments have been well made. I will try to set out for the benefit of the Committee the rationale behind this and then answer some of the specific questions. I underline the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the United Kingdom remains an attractive destination for legitimate international investors. The tier 1 investor visa route allows migrants to make a significant financial contribution to the UK, either through the purchase of share or loan capital in UK businesses, or through UK government bonds. The route does not recognise the purchase of property as a qualifying investment.

The proposed amendment would not only result in the immediate loss of millions of pounds of capital inflow, but deliver a powerful global message that foreign investors are no longer welcome in the UK. This is a message the Government have no desire to send. The Government are clear in their commitment to ensuring that the investor route delivers benefits to UK taxpayers and it remains an important component of the UK’s visa offer for high value migrants.

Acting on an independent Migration Advisory Committee review of the tier 1 investor category, the Government introduced a package of reforms in November 2014. These included taking additional powers to refuse applications where the funds have been obtained unlawfully, where the applicant is not in control of the funds and where the granting of the application would not be conducive to the public good. The Government also raised the investment threshold from £1 million to £2 million and removed a provision which allowed investments to be funded through a loan. Since April last year the immigration rules have also required that prospective tier 1 applicants must open a UK bank account before their application for a visa is allowed. This ensures they have undergone financial due diligence checks before they are granted an investor visa.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for raising his concerns that visas of this nature have no place in a sovereign nation and that this may be the preserve of tax havens. It would be correct to observe that some so-called tax havens operate citizenship-by-investment schemes, whereby wealthy individuals may be able to effectively purchase a second nationality in return for a sizeable donation, often paid directly to the host Government. I make it absolutely clear that the UK’s tier 1 investor visa is not such a scheme. The UK’s investor visa offers no guarantee of an extension, beyond the initial two or three-year term, let alone settlement, or citizenship. At each of these points, applicants must not only demonstrate that they have continued to hold the appropriate qualifying investments, but are also subjected to further robust checks.

Let me deal with some of the points that have been raised and provide a bit of additional information. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, asked about precautions. I think my answer addressed some of the points he raised about due diligence, which is carried out in the process of securing the bank account. Also, the United Kingdom maintains some of the toughest anti-money laundering laws in the world and is respected as such. The general grounds for refusal in immigration rules enable the Government to refuse investor visas where the applicant’s presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good, which means that we carry out checks on their criminal background. Under a pilot scheme, investor visa applicants are required to provide criminal record checks from their country of residence as a condition of applying for the visa.

As a result of all the changes that we have introduced, and which significantly toughen up the approach—this may speak to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raised—in the last quarter for which figures are available we granted only 46 such visas compared to 274 in the corresponding period in the previous year. That is a reduction of 83%. Before the noble Lord, Lord Green, gets to his feet, let me say that some of that may have something to do with the general economic situation in some of the key countries from which people would normally apply for these visas. However, it might also reflect that the toughening of the rules is having the desired effect.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Exactly so. The collapse in the numbers is very good news. It illustrates just how bad the scheme has been. Is it not the case that if you invest £10 million, you get indefinite leave to remain after two years?

[Lord Bates]

That is the case.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

After that, it is only a matter of time before you get your passport. This is, in effect, selling passports, as the Minister has just acknowledged, and, sometimes, in cases where it may not have been entirely advantageous. But they can also take their money out of gilts. Are we really persuading people to invest in a serious and useful manner in Britain by a scheme like this? I rather doubt it.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord, Lord Green, makes some very good points. I was looking behind me for some inspiration that would enable me to provide a brilliant argument as to why that is not the case. In fact, there were just nods, as if to say, “Yes, that is about right”. This is something that we need to keep under very careful review, and we do. When we get advice from the Migration Advisory Committee that there are problems with the scheme, we have, in the past, shown that we will take action.

On some of the points that were raised about property, there is no suggestion from anyone that people would not be able to own property in any part of the world. The housing issues that were raised are not linked to the scheme. Under the coalition Government, we significantly raised the stamp duty to about 12% on larger homes at that level. In a similar vein, the Chancellor announced in the Autumn Statement that there would be a further levy of an additional 3% for people coming in and purchasing a home in the UK as a second home. That was on top of the increase to 12%. Significant things are happening, but it is about how we maintain an offering on the international stage which ensures that we can attract people with exceptional talent, people who want to come and invest here, and people who want to study, visit or work here so that they can contribute to the public good of this country. We need to keep that under review. That is something that the Government continue to do. I am sure that we will want to take note of the comments made in the course of the debate ahead of Report. I am sure we will revisit it then, but until that point I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment, temporarily.

Immigration Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, I had not intended to come in on these amendments, but I will mention what has happened in a north Wales town in the past month. An eminent Syrian doctor works there and contributes very much to our community. His wife and two younger children are there, but there is one daughter left in Damascus. She just could not get a visa. The mayor of Bangor and others—sorry, I should not have told you where it was—have been pulling out all the stops they can to try to bring this daughter over. She is alone, or she was. I rang the Home Office, trying to get this through and getting refused. I thought, “We’ll keep on at this”, until a fortnight ago I had a telephone call from one of our people in Bangor. She said that this girl is dead. Was it a bomb at Damascus University, or something else? I do not know. It is just that the whole system needs to have such a reform to have a bit of heart in it.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I am afraid that we are not quite of one mind in this House. I take all the points that have been made and I entirely understand the sympathy that has been expressed for individual cases. However, we have to look at this in a wider context. This, after all, is not the 1930s. We face a refugee crisis in Europe which is absolutely without precedent.

As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, explained, Amendment 231 refers to an EU directive which the UK opted into in 2013 before the refugee crisis erupted in southern Europe. However, its provisions are not exactly as described in the amendment before us. Article 8 requires that, in the case of asylum applications from third-country minors, the determining member state should be the state in which a family member legally resides, where that is in the best interests of the child. That is fair enough.

Article 9 goes further in stating that, if an applicant has a family member—unspecified—in another state who is a beneficiary of international protection, that member state should consider the application. That is fair enough.

Article 10 goes further still, stating that where an applicant has a family member in a member state where a first application is pending, then that state is responsible for the applicant’s application. We signed up to that and that is what would happen if people in Europe applied for asylum in Europe and asked for their case to be transferred to the UK. Noble Lords will be aware that a recent court case has underlined that possibility.

However, the suggestions in Amendment 231 go well beyond that EU directive. In paragraph (b) of proposed new subsection (2) the review is widened to consider all British citizens, not just those already granted asylum, and they would all have the right to sponsor family members. In paragraph (c) of proposed new subsection (2) the reviews suggested would consider extending the criteria to a potentially enormous number of relatives of those who have already been granted asylum in the UK. I think it is quite well known that in the last 10 years about 87,000 applicants have been granted asylum or humanitarian protection in Britain. We have every right to be proud of that. However, if each of those had five or six relatives, we would be deciding to admit more than half a million people who would be granted the right to join those who have already been given protection here. Even that is a very conservative estimate. It does not include those granted asylum in earlier years and does not take account of the fact that in some countries families are even bigger than that.

The fact that you have to apply in Europe in order to take advantage of the Dublin convention is a strong argument for saying that this is not the way that we should go. The main effect of going down this road would be to widen Dublin III and massively increase the flow of people into the EU in the hope of benefiting from these changes. That is a very unwise step to take at this time. If there are thoroughly deserving cases—I am sure there are many—they should be considered on an individual basis outside the rules and let us be as just and sympathetic as we can be. But simply to go down the road of widening Dublin III seems not only unwise but extremely untimely.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

We are asking only for a review at this stage—that is all Amendment 231 asks for.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Yes, I understand that. I am really pointing to what some Members are seeking as the result of that review—and even that would not be the best step to take at this point.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I am aware of the calls from the Refugee Council and the arguments cited in favour of widening the family reunion criteria. I have also listened carefully to the arguments put forward today, and in particular to the personal stories that bring to life the statistics that we are considering.

We recognise that families may become fragmented due to conflict and persecution, and the speed and manner in which asylum seekers often flee their country of origin. Our policy already allows immediate family members of those with refugee leave or humanitarian protection who formed part of the family unit before the sponsor fled their country to reunite with them in the UK. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that the minimum income threshold of at least £18,600 would not apply where a refugee is sponsoring their pre-flight spouse or partner to join them here.

British citizens are also able to sponsor their spouse or partner and children under 18 to join them under the family rules, providing they make the appropriate entry clearance application and meet the relevant criteria. The rules have been in place since July 2012 and reflect our obligations under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Where an application fails under family reunion provisions, our policy also requires consideration of exceptional or compassionate reasons for granting a visa outside the rules. This caters not only for extended family members of refugees where there are exceptional circumstances but for family members of British citizens who are unable to meet the financial requirement rules.

Our policy is more generous than our international obligations require. Some EU countries require up to two years’ lawful residence before a sponsor becomes eligible and impose time restrictions on how quickly family members must apply. Additionally, there are specific provisions in the Dublin regulations, which the noble Lord, Lord Green, referred to, to unite unaccompanied children who claim asylum in another member state with their parents or other relatives, where they can take care of the child and it is in the child’s best interests to bring them together. We granted more than 21,000 family reunion visas between 2010 and 2014. Numbers are likely to increase in line with the numbers of recognised refugees in the UK.

Our policy prevents children with refugee status in the UK sponsoring their parents to join them. This is a considered position designed to avoid perverse incentives for children to be encouraged or even forced to leave their country and undertake a hazardous journey to the UK. As Save the Children pointed out, many children are feared to have fallen victim to people traffickers. Allowing children to sponsor their parents would play right into the hands of traffickers and criminal gangs and go against our safeguarding responsibilities.

I know that this point has been raised; we frequently discuss unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We also know that one of the key concerns of the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR, our partners in the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme, is that the best interests of the child are often served by keeping the family unit together in the region rather than providing an incentive for them to undertake a hazardous journey. It is also the reason why the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme takes family units from the region. That is the specific intent: bringing families together to the UK.

We have talked about this country’s great generosity. Many of the wonderful stories in the media have been of families from Syria arriving together. They have been pre-cleared and immediately have access to welfare and the right to work. Accommodation has been provided for them. It is an outstanding scheme, which we can all be very proud of. We do not believe that widening the criteria to include so many additional categories of people is practical or sustainable. We must be very careful not to inadvertently create a situation which encourages people to undertake the hazardous journey.

With regard to the British Red Cross, with which we work very closely, we have already accepted recommendations it made in its report Not So Straightforward: The Need for Qualified Legal Support in Refugee Family Reunion, published on 9 July, around simplifying the application form and providing consistent, accessible guidance. We are improving our guidance to caseworkers and redesigning the application form to ensure that applicants better understand the process and what is required of them.

Immigration Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, in the interests of speeding things up, I shall be very brief in putting a question to the Minister about absconding. There is an overlap again between these groups of amendments. The relationship between support and appeals is very critical, and I do not believe that the Government have quite got it right; they are trying hard but not succeeding. We are discussing asylum seekers facing genuine obstacles to leaving the UK; the Government want to remove their right of appeal against decisions to withhold or discontinue support. Does not that relate to Section 9 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004? My understanding of the Section 9 pilot is that nearly one-third of the families disappeared to avoid being returned to their country of origin. The rate of absconding was 39% for those in the Section 9 pilot but only 21% in the comparable controlled group, who remained supported. Can the Minister comment on those figures, because they would appear to lend credence to the amendment?

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps it is time for a different point of view on this subject. I have no difficulty with Amendment 227, which of course concerns children, but I would like to speak in favour of Clause 34 in respect of cases that do not involve children. In such cases, the aim should be to confine the application of the clause to vexatious appeals, which would help to speed up the process, as the noble Lord, Lord Horam, pointed out.

Much of the discussion in this Committee has focused on the rights of applicants at various stages of the process. That is entirely understandable, but should not we also have regard to the need for a swift and effective asylum system? That would surely be in the interests of genuine asylum seekers, who make up about 50% of those who apply, and in the interests of maintaining public support for the whole system. This clause is germane in that context. It is in effect the extension of a procedure that has already been applied to foreign national offenders, as has been mentioned already. I entirely accept that the people whom we are talking about are not offenders and are not usually of the same character, but I believe that the extension of the removal of non-asylum cases should be seen in this wider context. It is essential that we should break the link for those who are in reality economic migrants between setting foot in the UK and remaining indefinitely.

At present, removals of immigration offenders—not foreign national offenders—are running at a very low level, of only about 5,000 a year. That has to be tackled if we are to break this link, which I think is increasingly understood as you look at southern Europe and so on. We have to find ways of giving protection to those who deserve it and of removing those who do not. This clause is a step in that direction.

Population Increase: Migration

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Green of Deddington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the projected increase in population of the United Kingdom between mid-2015 and mid-2030, if net migration were reduced to 265,000 per year, the high-migration assumption in the latest official population projections.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates)]

My Lords, the projections do not attempt to predict the impact of future government policies, economic circumstances or other factors. The Government recognise that uncontrolled mass immigration can increase population pressures. That is why we remain committed to cutting net migration to sustainable levels. We continue to work across government to reduce net migration from outside the EU, and seek reform of Europe to reduce the pull factors behind EU migration.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and for the policy he has outlined. We all recognise the benefits of controlled immigration, but is he aware that the total population increase projected is the equivalent of the combined populations of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, Edinburgh and Bristol, plus eight other cities the size of Cardiff, Leicester or Aberdeen? Two-thirds of that increase will be down to future immigrants and their future children, and all that will happen in 15 years if immigration is brought down by 75,000 from present levels. Do the Government believe that a population increase on such a scale is feasible or desirable?

[Lord Bates]

I said in my Answer to the initial Question that we believe that immigration was too high and that it needed to be reduced to a sustainable level. We recognise that this country gets huge benefits from the people who come here to study and to work, who are very welcome. We want to make sure that our immigration system continues to attract the brightest and the best, but that we have firm controls and restrictions on those who do not come here to contribute to our society.

Immigration Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have my name to the first of this pair of amendments, but I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on picking up some specifics from the report and spelling them out in his Amendment 134B. We must all thank James Ewins, who was promoted in my speech at Second Reading, according to the Official Report, to coming from the UN rather than Ewins—not an inappropriate promotion. We must also thank the organisations which gave evidence, which have worked so hard for so long and provided so much support to this group of workers.

I was not entirely clear from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, whether he and his party are behind the Ewins recommendations. His tone was certainly warm and supportive, but it may be that when I read his speech I will detect whether they would like them implemented in whole or in part. The Liberal Democrats regard the report and its recommendations as clear, considered, compassionate and to be implemented.

I will not repeat the arguments that have been made, with which I agree very much, but it is telling that Mr Ewins says that,

“this review has not taken such previous proposals as a starting point”,

but,

“has deliberately gone back to first principles and applied those principles to the evidence currently available. The fact that the conclusions accord to a considerable extent”—

not completely—

“with previous recommendations adds further weight to the argument in favour of the changes proposed”.

I, too, look forward to hearing how the changes he proposes are to be implemented.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I share the condemnation of domestic slavery, which I am sure is shared by all Members of this House, and I strongly support those organisations that seek to help such workers. In doing so, I speak with some experience on the ground. I was the consul in Abu Dhabi and the consul-general in Saudi Arabia, which is where 50% of these applications come from.

Let me start, then, by welcoming the Modern Slavery Act, which seeks to tackle the worst cases of abuse, providing advice and support for those who seek to escape. However, what is now proposed goes well beyond that. The independent reviewer seems to be suggesting that any domestic servant who is not satisfied with his or her conditions will be able to change employer and then remain in the UK working legally for, I think he says, two years—others say without time limit. At the end of that period, he supposes, I think, that they would simply pack up and go home to their impoverished home country. That seems a very unlikely outcome. It is far more likely that they will continue to work here—illegally, if necessary—so that they can continue to send money home. In many respects, that is understandable, but we must recognise that if that situation were to develop, word would spread very quickly among domestic workers in a number of source countries and it would not be very long before we had a significant loophole in the immigration system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

First, I shall clarify the figure that the noble Lord asked about. It is the figure quoted in the Kalayaan report of people that it had interviewed over the course of two years—120 people. The case that I have advanced today is based not entirely on what I regard as the excellent report of James Ewins. I wonder whether the noble Lord has had a chance to read the recommendation of the Joint Committee on the draft Modern Slavery Bill, which looked at this issue and concluded:

“In the case of the domestic worker’s visa, policy changes have unintentionally strengthened the hand of the slave master against the victim of slavery. The moral case for revisiting this issue is urgent and overwhelming”.

It recommended that the Home Office reverse the changes to the overseas domestic workers visa. That was also a view that the Joint Committee on Human Rights took; in 2014, it said:

“We regard the removal of the right of an Overseas Domestic Worker to change employer as a backward step”,

and urged its reversal. So this is not just Mr Ewins—there is a substantial amount of evidence from highly regarded committees of this House and Joint Committees, which have looked at this matter in detail and come to the same conclusions as Mr Ewins.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Yes, I quite see that. I would expect the people whom the noble Lord quoted to say what they said. There is clearly some force in that, and there clearly is a problem. We are not in doubt that there is a problem over the treatment of domestic servants who are brought to the UK; that is entirely understood and not in question. What is in question is the balance between trying to ensure that that problem is alleviated—it will never be removed; we will always have rogue employers—and the needs of the immigration system, which would be considerable because these numbers would go up very fast indeed. If people knew that they had only to get here with one employer and they were here for ever, of course they would come in their thousands. So there must be a balance. That is really my point.

[Lord Hylton]

But does the noble Lord agree that they cannot come without visas?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I do not think that I understand the noble Lord’s point.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I think that my question to the noble Lord may be the same as that asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. The noble Lord said that he knows that currently employers bring in domestic servants but lose them because they go on to other employment. If they come in on a tied visa, how can that be?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Well, they come in on a tied visa and then they do a runner and go and work for somebody else. The employer then goes back to his home country and puts in a visa next year for a new servant; he will claim, no doubt, that the servant has been working for a year, because that is one of the requirements, and come with his next servant. So the numbers will certainly increase. If you produce a loophole in these matters, they will increase very fast.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope that we are not moving from waiting for Ewins to looking for loopholes. I was a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights at the time of the legislative scrutiny of the 2014 Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton said, this is a matter of human rights. Not only did we say that the removal of the right of overseas domestic workers was a backwards step but we noted that the 2012 regime had been cited internationally as good practice.

I am not going to make a great speech, because I think the case has already been made admirably by other noble Lords. But my noble friend Lord Rosser pointed out that the Minister in the Commons towards the end of the last Government, but a member of today’s governing party, said as a statement of intent that whoever was in government would implement the review’s recommendations. I simply do not understand why this very important report, which we were all waiting for and for which everything had to be suspended to see what it said, was presented to the Government nearly three months ago with a sense of urgency to it, yet we do not yet have the Government’s response to it, even though we have started Committee stage of this highly relevant Bill. Why do we not yet know the Government’s response and how quickly will we know it—and will it be in the spirit of the statement made by Karen Bradley in the Commons last March?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, I think that I may find myself in a small minority in this Committee, although, I have to say, certainly not in the country. The first point to make is a very general one: it is a mistake to generalise about asylum seekers. Roughly 50% of them claim only when they are discovered. Therefore, it would appear that they come, at least initially, as economic migrants. Of those who then do claim, half are refused, but only half of those who are refused are removed. That is why I suggest that we need to be a bit more discerning about people who are referred to simply as asylum seekers.

As for the amendment, the Committee will be aware—indeed, it has already been mentioned—that the most recent EU directive, No. 33 of 2013, requires that asylum seekers should have access to the labour market after nine months if the asylum claim is still pending. The UK, Ireland and Denmark have, of course, opted out. Nevertheless, the amendment proposes a time limit of six months. It would also remove the current requirement for the job to be on the shortage occupation list, despite the fact that the EU directive provides for such provisions. Therefore, in these two respects, the amendment goes beyond the minimum standards now required by the EU directive, from which we have, as I said, opted out.

Let us be clear that the effect of the amendment would be to make the UK not the most but one of the more generous countries in Europe in terms of access to the labour market, and there is no doubt that that would act as a pull factor for both asylum seekers and economic migrants. The extreme case is Sweden, which until recently allowed asylum seekers to work on arrival. Of course, the numbers went up and up and now it has had to close its borders. So it is absolutely clear that the ability to work is, in that case and more generally, an incentive to people when they choose a country in which to seek asylum.

It is also worth pointing out that people are queueing up in their thousands in Calais—in a country which is perfectly safe. They have every right to seek asylum in France—they would have a slightly less good chance of getting it—but they do not. They want to come here despite the fact that they cannot work for 12 months. I hope that it is the general nature of our society that attracts people, and let us be proud of that, but I come back to the point about balance when it comes to setting up an immigration and asylum system. There has to be a balance between reasonable treatment of people, half of whom are in serious need, and the need not to attract those who may well not be genuine asylum seekers. For goodness’ sake, anyone who has read the newspapers in the last three months will surely understand the need to be very careful on that front.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

The noble Lord referred to the position in most of the European Union where people have to wait for nine months before they can work. Is he saying that he would support a time period of nine months?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

No. I am saying that we should keep it at 12 months in order that we are not more attractive than other countries on that point.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Amendment 134A in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, says that asylum seekers should get permission to work after 12 months as a right. Would the noble Lord support that amendment?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

The short answer is no. We have an asylum system which does not work as fast as people would like, but let us improve the system. The obvious answer is to process the claims more quickly and then this question would not arise. However, I would go back to the original, existing system.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, this is an emotive issue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, these are not new arguments. In fact, I think they were had on the last Immigration Act and possibly in immigration Bills before that. Of course, it is an emotive issue and everyone has sympathy with the plight of some of the people whom we are talking about. It is a difficult line to draw and we have to draw a balance.

I have listened carefully to the arguments in favour of allowing permission to work where an asylum claim is still outstanding after six months, removing the caveat that any delay must not be of the asylum seeker’s own making, and lifting restrictions on the types of employment available. The amendments would radically change existing permission-to-work arrangements for asylum seekers and the Government are not convinced that that is sensible. As a general rule, the Government believe that it is not appropriate to allow asylum seekers to work. It is important that we protect the resident labour market for those lawfully present in the UK.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am not aware of those statistics, but I will take a look at them.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

There are about 600,000 vacancies in the UK, and there always are. It is frictional unemployment. The only way that you can take another job is if a job is vacant.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

Thank you.

Immigration Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Is the noble Earl aware that most illegal immigrants in Britain came legally and therefore that there is no reason why they should have been detected on arrival? They came legally and have overstayed.

[Earl Cathcart]

No, I am not aware of that.

I understand that previously the Government have said that they want common sense to prevail. However, landlords, fearful of the potential consequences of getting something wrong, need further assurances. A simple amendment to the Bill can rectify this and make it clear that landlords will not commit a criminal offence where they have done everything possible to verify the status of the tenant and are in the process of evicting a tenant whom they have been notified does not have the right to rent within the 28-day window that the Bill permits.

It is important to note that while a prosecution might not be taken out against a landlord seeking to evict a tenant without the right to rent, simply deeming him to have committed a criminal offence can cause extensive difficulties, especially with mortgage lenders and insurers. The fact that no prosecution has been taken does not mean that the landlord has not committed an offence. Most contracts relating to property contain a prohibition on using the property unlawfully.

While an amendment would be the clearest way of addressing this issue, in addition, clear guidance should be issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions outlining: first, that prosecutions will not take place where a landlord who has been informed that their tenant does not have the right to rent has done everything possible to check the status of that tenant and is within the 28-day eviction period; secondly, that landlords will not be prosecuted where they have fallen victim to forged documents from a prospective tenant that they could not reasonably have been expected to recognise as false; thirdly, that landlords will not be prosecuted where they were unable to receive a letter from the Secretary of State notifying them that the tenant did not have a right to rent due to hospitalisation or other reasonable measure that might prevent them reading and acting on a notice; and fourthly, how he intends to proceed with the Government’s commitment that landlords will not be prosecuted for a first offence.

This amendment is supported by the Residential Landlords Association, which looks after the interests of more than 40,000 landlords, and by the Association of Residential Letting Agents. Its managing director, David Cox, commented:

“It would be unjust and inequitable for a landlord to be in breach of the law through no fault of their own, irrespective of whether the Government has outlined it will not prosecute in such circumstances. Being in breach of legislation will cause landlords great concern, and therefore, we request these technical amendments be incorporated into the Bill to ensure the spirit of the legislation is reflected in the wording of the Bill”.

I could not have put it better myself.

Immigration Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the opposition to Clause 8 standing part of the Bill and I also support Amendment 63. At Second Reading a number of noble Lords expressed fears about potential exploitation as a result of Clause 8, reflecting the worries of organisations working on the ground. The Minister tried to reassure us that our fears were unfounded, but the range of organisations that are worried about it must give cause for concern. Also a number of organisations, including the Law Society, have stated that the clause is unnecessary. The Law Society argues that,

“the creation of parallel criminal offences is wrong in principle and creates confusion”.

My noble friend Lord Rosser raised the point about the disparity between the defence of reasonableness that is available to employers not being available to employees who are accused of illegal working. That was a point which was raised in the Public Bill Committee by more than one Member, but as far as I can see it was not addressed by the Minister there in his response, so I hope that the Minister here will be able to say something about it today. Why is there no parallel defence for employees?

As well as the risk of exploitation, I am concerned that the state will in effect be exploiting undocumented workers when it seizes their wages. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me as a lay person that there is a distinction to be made between the confiscation of assets that are the proceeds of a crime such as stealing, burglary or fraud and those that are the result of the criminalisation of the sale of one’s labour. In support of my rather basic lay understanding, I pray in aid ILPA’s briefing. It points out, as did my noble friend Lord Rosser, that,

“the Crown Prosecution Service Guidance on the Proceeds of Crime says that it should prioritise recovery of assets from serious organised crime and serious economic crime”.

Surely we are not talking about that here. ILPA continues by stating that:

“A confiscation order must be proportionate to the aim of the legislation, which is to recover the financial benefit that the defendant has obtained from the criminal conduct … The purpose of the legislation is not to further punish the offender by fining them, or to act as a deterrent. If the confiscation order is not proportionate then it will be a violation of the right to peaceful enjoyment of property under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights”.

It would appear that potentially an important human rights issue is being raised here.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to the experience in Italy. Another aspect of that was put by the organisation FLEX in its briefing, which states that evidence from that experience,

“demonstrates the impracticality of attempts to seize undocumented workers’ assets. Under an ‘irregular migration offence’ provided for in the ‘Bossi-Fini Law 2002’ undocumented workers could be fined for working without documents in Italy. This offence was ultimately repealed in 2014, one of the reasons for which was the heavy bureaucracy and limited success associated with gaining financial penalties from undocumented workers”.

On both principled and potentially human rights grounds, as well as practical and pragmatic grounds, I really do believe that the clause should not stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made rather a good case for inserting the words “without reasonable excuse”, and I certainly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about voluntary work. But perhaps I may raise a wider issue. Making illegal working a specific offence will fill a gap, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, pointed out in his helpful letter of 8 January. It means that those who have entered illegally or who have overstayed their visas could now be prosecuted for working in the UK.

When I gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee of the other place, a former DPP said that in practice he had not known of a case where it was necessary to have this law because other provisions could be brought to bear. However, impressions matter. The present situation must be an excellent selling point for anyone who happens to be a people smuggler. Indeed, at this very moment there are literally thousands of young men camped near Calais. They are there because they believe that if they once get into the UK they can work illegally and send home what to them are very substantial sums of money. If detected, they can claim asylum and be here for a considerable period longer.

The fact that working illegally in the UK is not even an offence sends out entirely the wrong message, as the Mayor of Calais never tires of telling us. She is right; we should change the law. This is about deterrence and it is especially important in present circumstances.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I support other noble Lords who have objected to Clause 8 and the introduction of the offence of illegal working.

The noble Lord, Lord Green, said that it sends out a powerful message if there is such a criminal offence, but my fear is that it would send out a message that empty window dressing statute is redundant and that it is not effective law if we end up with no prosecutions and no confiscations. As other noble Lords have mentioned, the guidance from the CPS on proceeds of crime suggests that there will be very few cases when it would be in the public interest to pursue confiscation proceedings. The question has rightly been asked by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. On the question of whether there have been any prosecutions of Romanian, Bulgarian and Croatian workers for working without authorisation, I confess that it was news to me that there were already such criminal offences. I thank ILPA for that fact. We do not know whether there have been prosecutions of employees or whether employers were prosecuted in the same cases. It would help to know whether there has been a displacement of enforcement activity away from employers to employees, or whether we have offences on the statute book that have simply proved inoperative.

That is what would bring the law into disrepute. I have a feeling that if this was coming out of Brussels, it would rightly be criticised as a useless piece of legislation—not least by the present Government. It might be quite right to do so. There can already be prosecutions of people for breaching immigration law in arriving in the country in the first place. I do not know how many prosecutions there are—perhaps the Minister could tell us. The alleged purpose of this offence is to fill the gap that is said to exist whereby the Proceeds of Crime Act cannot be deployed. It seems very unlikely that that would be used because of the disproportionate nature of taking such action. We will end up with something on the statute book that frankly does not add up to a row of beans—all for the sake of window dressing and sending signals to certain parts of the press and the electorate, presumably.

Immigration Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to address the wider context of this Bill. It comes before us at a time when the whole context of immigration is changing very rapidly. We are indeed a compassionate country, I believe, but we expect our Government to control our borders. Immigration has been a major concern for a very long time, as the noble Lords, Lord Horam and Lord Balfe, both pointed out. Indeed, in calling for a significant reduction in net migration, I have been speaking for 70% of the population, including a majority of the ethnic communities. In recent times, that concern has intensified further. Immigration and asylum have for the past six months been the very top issue of public concern. It is not hard to see why. The public are clearly conscious that the European Union has lost control of its southern borders. As a result, a mixture of refugees and others who in reality are economic migrants are arriving in huge numbers which are already overwhelming any orderly system of reception, let alone control. The Commission itself is expecting an additional 3 million migrants by the end of 2017.

Here in Britain, a moderate level of immigration is of course a natural part of an open economy and an open society, and for my part I have always supported that. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that major efforts are needed to improve the training of our own workers so that we do not draw in unmanageable levels of migrants. But unfortunately after some fairly strenuous efforts over the past five years, net migration is now running at a third of a million a year. This mass migration will have a huge effect on our population, on our society and on our environment.

Let me take just population. Even if net migration is brought back to the average of the past 10 years, which is roughly a quarter of a million, our population will grow by 2.5 million in the course of this Parliament. That is about two and a half times the population of Birmingham. Can we really cope with that? Let us look a little further ahead. In the next 15 years, the population of the UK would, at that rate of immigration, grow by 8 million. Numbers mean very little to most people, so let me tell noble Lords what 8 million means. It is the populations of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff, Newcastle upon Tyne, Belfast, Aberdeen, Leicester, Coventry, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent and Portsmouth all added together. Is that remotely sensible, desirable or even feasible?

[Baroness Afshar]

How many people will die during that period in these cities?

[Lord Green of Deddington]

This takes full account of those who will die and those who are born. It brings all three together. Any population projection depends on the birth rate, the death rate and the net migration. Taking all three into account, on 240,000 a year we would get what I have just described. We have to accept that. We have to recognise it and decide whether we will take serious measures to get the numbers down or whether we will build the list of cities that I will not read out again.

There is no doubt that immigration is the main driver of this huge population increase. In the medium term, two-thirds of it will be due to future immigrants and their children, and in long term, of course, all population increase will be due to immigration because our birth rate is below the replacement rate. In these circumstances, the public clearly want immigration brought under control, and rightly so. This will require two elements: reducing admissions where possible; and ensuring departures. Let me take them separately.

The Bill bears mainly on the latter. It is concerned largely with discouraging illegal immigration, whether by those who seek to enter clandestinely or those who have overstayed their visas. As for the clandestines, noble Lords might like to ask themselves why thousands of people—mainly young men—are camped near Paris in pretty dreadful conditions in the hope of getting into Britain. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, spoke eloquently about the conditions in which they find themselves.

Surely it has to be recognised they are not there because they are desperate, as the press so often says. They are already in a safe country and are perfectly at liberty to claim asylum in France. It is only because they believe the conditions in Britain are so much more favourable that they will take considerable personal risk to get here. Indeed so, because they know that if they do get here they can work on the black market—an activity that is not even illegal in this country, as the Mayor of Calais never fails to point out. They also know that if they are discovered they can claim asylum. Indeed, about half of all asylum claims made in Britain are made on discovery, not on arrival. If they succeed in their claims, as about half of them do—

[Baroness Ludford]

I apologise for interrupting and thank the noble Lord for giving way. Does he also accept that there are those who maintain, and I think there is force in these suggestions, that some of the reason for coming to the UK has nothing to do with the factors that he has mentioned? It is obviously the English language, which is the number one language learnt around the world. Also, although we are far from perfect in this country on race relations and integration, the atmosphere for integrating people and welcoming diversity is better in this country than in France.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Yes, absolutely. There is a lot that we can be proud of in this country, not just our language, culture, the openness of our society and the rule of law. We can be immensely proud of all these things. They are certainly a part of the reason why very large numbers of people want to come here. They also mean that we have to have pretty effective control or else, even as we have now and as have I pointed out, there would be consequences for many people in this country. It is perfectly clear how the public see all this.

The other main category of illegal immigrants are those who arrived legally but overstay their visas. Ministers regularly point out that we must break the link for those who are in reality economic migrants between setting foot in the UK—and indeed in the EU—and remaining indefinitely. Despite that, enforced removals of immigration offenders are running at only about 5,000 a year, so aspects of this Bill are designed to make the removal process more effective, which is certainly necessary. Other aspects are designed to shift the balance so that future migrants will be deterred from overstaying and others already here will decide to go home.

The Committee stage will be the time for detail. What is clear is that major pull factors are addressed, some of which the noble Baroness referred to. The task must be to reduce the overall scale of net migration to a level that the public can tolerate and, better still, support. We have the opportunity in considering this Bill to contribute to that essential objective.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. Coming rather at the end, I feel that quite a few of the points I would have mentioned have already been well made. In following the noble Lord, Lord Green, I think that the essential thing for us with this Bill is his point about reducing admissions and ensuring departures.

From the speeches that we have heard today, so far we are unconvinced. If we talk about cutting asylum support, we have already heard how desperate it is for so many people. Certainly, in my city, I know many people are living on food bags. They do not get proper advice. Volunteers give them clothes. They cannot get English language lessons. They do not eat properly. That is on the limited support that they get already. If we withdraw that support, it will make these people very much more miserable. It will impact badly on their children. All the evidence that we have says that in thinking about what is best for their families and their children, parents—even people in such desperate situations—do not choose to return. What happens instead is that they go underground. They become destitute. They live on what means they can. We have already heard in the debate that local authorities will have great difficulty carrying out safeguarding duties. We have already heard about all the missing children and the fears that people have about them being part of trafficking schemes.

We have heard stories from individuals on how they have been forced to enter criminality to support themselves and their families, yet they have still not wished to return to their own countries. They have not wished to do so because they are terrified of what they would go back to. There has been great discussion about economic migrants and refugees, and in my view we are still not clear where the line lies. It is easy to talk in terms of economic migrants and people seeking a better life when that hides the fact that people are fleeing war, desperate circumstances, torture and possibly death. On the criteria that we had from the noble Lord, Lord Green, making people more miserable does not apparently cause them to return to their own country. On the figures that we have been given, it apparently does not deter them from wanting to come here although they are in desperate situations at the moment.

Having spoken to people in my city, the words they use about the Bill are destitution—we have heard about that—and division, when they talk about communities. What they mean by that is that all the work that has been done by community groups for many years in trying to bring communities together, so that they understand cultures, value each other and have mutual self-respect, will be undermined if we have these new offences which encourage communities to turn on themselves and encourage people to report on their neighbours and tell the police about what they believe to be offences, which may not be in the end.

It is even an offence to work in the Bill: we are creating a new offence that people may not work. We on this side believe that asylum seekers should be able to work. There are also things like illegal driving. Again, these are criminalised circumstances which not only undermine the well-being of communities but set individuals and groups against each other.

Another point that people make to me about this Bill is on discrimination. Many noble Lords have already referred to the right to rent scheme, which makes it an offence for landlords to rent accommodation to illegal immigrants in this country. All the evidence we have read on the Home Office pilot implies that this will make an acceptable situation of discrimination. Like the noble Lord, Lord Alton, I grew up in Liverpool and can remember the days when we saw signs saying, “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. Yet we are now promoting a situation which will encourage discrimination and play to some people’s very worst instincts.

Everybody should have the chance to experience justice. When people are asked what is great about the British, one thing they mention is the sense of fair play and justice. I do not believe there is anything in the Bill which supports that view.

This Bill will need to be discussed at great length and there will be great disagreement about some of its measures. I accept that the whole issue of immigration, and the circumstances it raises, are considerations of key importance to many people in this country—I do not deny that for one moment. However, if we say there are not enough schools, houses or space in this country, we have to substantiate that. Successive Governments in this country have failed to build affordable houses, so we cannot lay that at the door of migrants. We have cutbacks in local services which mean that local authorities have been unable to expand school places. Again, we cannot lay that at the door of migrants. If the whole issue of space, facilities and accommodation was looked at in a rational way and with a will to provide and expand proper facilities for people, these arguments would not stand up.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Nobody is blaming migrants for the scale of building that is necessary. What has happened is that successive Governments have completely failed to focus on the scale of immigration and the impact that would have on population and housing. That is what has to change and that is why I focus so much on population.

[Baroness Janke]

As a former councillor having faced some of these difficulties, I point out that rises in population are due not just to migration and that local authorities have been unable to respond to them because of the systematic centralisation of government and the cutbacks that have been inflicted on local authorities. If we were to embrace the issue of providing more facilities and better infrastructure and try to answer the needs of our country, some of these arguments would simply not apply. I hope to play a part in considering this Bill as it goes through Committee and thank noble Lords for their attention.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Funding

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. Perhaps I should underline the facts about the good work being done by UKTI. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has helped to deliver some £37.6 billion-worth of business wins for UK industry. We also have the GREAT campaign, which emphasises that this country is a great place to visit, a great place in which to study and a great place to do business in.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords—

Syrian Refugees

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I recognise, of course, that the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right that many people have been touched by the needs of people fleeing the violence in the region. Of course, many of the people that we are particularly looking at have been victims of torture and violence, have acute medical needs and are some of the most vulnerable and the offers that have been made may not be appropriate in those cases. However, Richard Harrington, the Minister with responsibility for Syrian refugees, is working to compile a register of churches, faith groups and charities which want to make that generous offer of assistance. We want to make sure that it is as easy as possible for people to take advantage of that.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the most effective thing that the British Government can do is to help those Syrians in refugee camps around Syria? Much as we would like to have many thousands of refugees here, that is peanuts compared with the number actually suffering. To pick up the point he made earlier about the politics of this, we must work for some kind of solution in Syria. However, does he agree that if the Alawite regime in Damascus were to fall, there would be three dreadful consequences: the first would be the most appalling revenge killings; the second would be a massive increase in refugees; and the third would be a huge boost for ISIL, which is our enemy, which the regime in Damascus is not?

[Lord Bates]

On the first point, about what we are doing to help in the country, of course, that is absolutely right. That is the position which the British Government have taken. We are saying that we do not want people to make this perilous journey across sea and land. We want people to stay in safe places within those countries. That is the reason why we are giving £1.1 billion—more than any other country in cash terms apart from the United States—and why we are urging our European partners to give another €10 billion to help in that area. We want to stop people feeling the need to make that journey and put themselves and their families at risk.