Refugee Family Reunion Rules

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

I add to the small but impressive list of right hon. and hon. Members today who have said what a pleasure it is, as ever, to serve under your jurisdiction, Mr Bone. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate.

My history in the legal profession often feels inadequate in Parliament, but particularly so today. I do not compare in any way to former practising solicitors nor to someone as eminent as the shadow Minister of Doughty Street Chambers and the great office he achieved afterwards. As a mere holder of a law degree, and not a very good one, I have not looked at a law textbook since 1979, but I will do my best.

Family reunification is a serious subject that is easy to paint in terms of good and bad, black and white or evil and nice, and I thank the speakers today for not doing so—it is an easy and very cheap way to attack any Government. With that in mind, I will try to answer the points that I can answer with the same level of constructiveness. Anyone would agree that family unity is an important principle. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned it in terms of his own family, and I have two boys of a very similar age to his, as does the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). To the many of us who come from a background of people fleeing from abroad, although it was not in our generation—it was several generations ago—it is something that is passed down. When I took up my office in the Government, I did not do so lightly.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael]

That goes to the heart of the debate. It is about how we regard refuge. What does it mean to be a refugee? As a country, what are we offering when we offer people refuge? Surely it has to be more than residence. Surely it has to be some sort of security and stability. How do people get that when their family is split across countries?

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

I would find it hard to disagree with that point. I feel, and I hope that most right hon. and hon. Members agree, that this country has a very good reputation for accepting refugees not just historically but in the present day. Although I am sure that no one would suggest that our asylum system is perfect, it has certainly become speedier, allowing people not to live in such lengthy periods of limbo by making determinations comparatively quickly. I agree that those periods can still be shortened, and I hope they will be shortened. I hope that the financial package offered by the Government for the Syrian resettlement programme and other resettlement programmes shows that the Government are committed to enabling people to live proper and decent lives once they arrive here. When refugees arrive here, I agree that hopefully it is job done on human safety, but on their leading fulfilled and proper lives it is the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning—it is not for me to quote Churchill, or to mess it up, but I hope right hon. and hon. Members will know what I mean. It is the beginning of a process, as the Government have realised in, for example, the funding of the five-year resettlement programme. I hope that many of those refugees and their families will not need the funding, because I hope they will be able to work and get the benefits of life generally, but the Government realise that it is important that that funding is available.

I apologise to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland; the point that I wanted to make about family reunion was that the Syrian resettlement programme is predominantly for families. More than 50% are children, but within family groups. The Government are not completely oblivious to the issue. However, I return to his specific points about family reunion. His first ask was simple compared with the others: would I meet the Red Cross and the Refugee Council? I am happy to meet them, but I do anyway. I am happy to meet them on any occasion; in fact, I would have met most of them this morning, except that I could not have got to east London and back in time for this debate.

If the right hon. Gentleman would like to facilitate further meetings, I am happy to go to them, but I assure him that the Red Cross and the Refugee Council are partners of ours in many things. I know that the Minister for Immigration met the Red Cross to discuss many of these issues today, but I am happy to do so as well.

As part of the latest review of the family reunion policy, we have listened carefully to many arguments in favour of widening the criteria and effectively creating another resettlement programme for family reunion alone. The debates in both Houses during the passage of the recent Bill, and in the wider community—including representations received for this debate—demonstrate the level of compassion felt about the issue. Unquestionably, right hon. and hon. Members have made eloquent and forcible arguments in this debate for doing so.

We recognise that families may be separated by conflict and persecution. It happens quickly, and the speed and manner of it is often not controlled. The motivation of most people is unquestionably just to get to their family in the UK. However, it is easy in discussions like these not to stress that we already do a lot of family reunification. In the last five years, there have been about 22,000 successful cases of family reunification. It is often not mentioned that in our programme for Syrian resettlement, family reunification is a criterion in its own right, quite apart from the other vulnerability criteria for acceptance.

The reunification system takes into account some of the points made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. It does not involve visiting a British embassy abroad; the point has been made about how difficult and dangerous that can be. It involves registering with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and going through an interview process with the UNHCR, which I have witnessed. It is lengthy, but it is not dissimilar to the type of interview that might happen at Lunar House in Croydon or other centres in the UK. Family reunification is one of the five criteria, even without the other matters. People are then brought here on one of our charter flights and resettled with their family, with an immediate right to work on a humanitarian protection visa. That is often not mentioned in the context of family reunion, but such people are coming through the Syrian system now.

At this juncture, I would like to say in the presence of the erudite and eloquent Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who came to join us today, that the comment that the Government would probably not make its target of 20,000 during this Parliament is not correct. We are well on track, and we have recently added to the target the up to 3,000 children at risk whom we are taking under the—

[Keith Vaz]

rose—

[Richard Harrington]

The right hon. Gentleman is hoping to intervene, and of course he will, but I will just finish my sentence—or page, or paragraph, in the hope that we run out of time. Excuse my humour, Mr Bone. That is an additional 3,000 children, not just from Syria and the countries around Syria; it is from the middle east and north Africa as well, and it can include non-Syrians.

[Keith Vaz]

The Minister does not need to carry on talking, because I am rising to praise him. Universally, all those who have dealt with him have pointed out that he has done a great job as Minister for Syrian refugees. Our concern is that speculation about the target is not helped by the Government’s refusal to publish figures monthly. The Minister will know that from his last appearance before the Committee. He keeps telling us that the figures will be published in the quarterly results. However, because he is doing a brilliant job, it would help his case if he published those figures more readily so people knew of the good work that is being done.

[Richard Harrington]

I must compose myself after that intervention. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said. It is true that the Home Office publishes the targets on a quarterly basis, but the resettlement targets are broken down—

[Keith Vaz]

They are not targets; they are results.

[Richard Harrington]

I beg your pardon; yes. I meant “results”. The right hon. Gentleman makes me nervous, Mr Bone. I do not know why, because he is a very nice chap and I respect him a lot. The results are published quarterly, and are now broken down by local authority region. That is significantly more information than he felt was previously available.

[Keir Starmer]

I myself have said regularly how good the Syrian refugee proposal is and how well it is working. I agree that the Minister is doing a good job there, and I have said that before. The concern is the other refugees. A Syrian child who came here alone would suffer, not being able to bring their parents here. I am increasingly concerned about that sense of a two-tier approach.

[Richard Harrington]

I have every sympathy with what the hon. and learned Gentleman says. It is a feeling that a lot of emphasis has gone into one programme but not into others. I hope to convince him—if not now, then at other times as the process proceeds—that that is not the case, but it is a perfectly reasonable point to make.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The key question to which we would like an answer is whether the Minister will at least take away the suggestion that the current approach, in which a child at 17 can apply for reunification but there is an arbitrary cut-off at 18—is sensible. We should consider their circumstances. Did they live with that family beforehand? Are they wholly dependent on the family? Will he at least take that away and work with others to implement a more sensible rule?

[Richard Harrington]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I point out—I was going to mention this a little further on—that there will be revised guidance on immigration rules, and many of the points mentioned in this debate will be taken into consideration. If he bears with me, I hope to satisfy him, if not in content then by showing that I am trying to answer some of the questions raised. However, I must make the point that there are already several ways for families to be reunited and the resettlement schemes are part of that.

Our family reunion policy allows immediate family members of those granted protection here or who were part of the family before the sponsor fled their country to reunite in the UK. It reflects our obligations under the refugee convention. As I have said, we work closely with the UNHCR to include the most vulnerable people in the Syrian resettlement scheme.

The Immigration Act 2016, which passed very recently, announced our intention to resettle from Europe a number of unaccompanied refugee children, mentioned extensively by all right hon. and hon. Members here, particularly the shadow Minister. Under that initiative, we will prioritise family links in the UK. A point has been made about the speed at which family reunification takes place. It has been described as far too slow, and we should do what we can to ensure that the Dublin process works far more quickly for the sake of such children, some of whom the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland has seen on his visits to Calais, Dunkirk and elsewhere. Again, that is not a point that we completely ignore.

At the moment, we are meeting many of the organisations that have been mentioned today and other member states to find ways to make this process much quicker. The Immigration Minister has been in Greece and senior officials have been to Italy and France to discuss how it is done. There is no question about it—we agree that the system has to be speeded up. That is why earlier in the year we sent a UK expert to France and why we now have a permanent secondee in the Italian Dublin unit. Shortly, we will be seconding further people to Greece. We have already offered 75 asylum and immigration experts to assist Greece in operating the hotspots; 18 have already been deployed and are working there and the rest are in the process of being deployed.

We are really looking at entry clearance timetables, including with the Red Cross, which the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) mentioned. It is open to applicants to tell us when they want the visa to take effect—we are not going slowly. Sometimes there is the implication that we are trying to make the process go slowly to stop people from wanting family reunification.

This is a difficult field. The shadow Minister and the right hon. Member for Leicester East, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, mentioned people traffickers. There is not a single member of this House who could disagree with anything that has been said about people traffickers. However, family reunification is vulnerable to people traffickers.

For example, we have heard—I accept that this is just the sort of thing that people hear, but it has been heard by people on the ground—that there were 50 people on the Bosnian-Macedonian border who claimed to have the same uncle in a village in Sweden. The people traffickers actually tell people to say that they have family in different countries, even down to individuals. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members would not think that that means that I think “Oh, we shouldn’t have family reunification, because some people try to exploit it”, but it does mean that officialdom has to try to verify carefully that these are genuine family reunification cases.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank the Minister for giving way to me a second time. However, that is the problem with the Turkey deal. The deal—the €6 billion that has been given to Turkey—is a reward for Turkey receiving illegal migrants back into Turkey. Actually, the resources should be directed at ensuring that we deal with the people traffickers. We are still not able to get into Libyan waters in order to deal with the boats in the middle of the Mediterranean. Surely the essence should be to stop people being given false hope and to stop people leaving in the first place by helping the countries that are the sources of these difficulties.

[Richard Harrington]

I agree totally with the right hon. Gentleman. In one of his interventions, he mentioned children in Calais and I will concentrate my remarks on that for the moment. The simple question that he put and that was also put by the shadow Minister is, “Should children be allowed in from Calais where a link can be established?” The answer is, “Obviously, yes.”

The impression given in the media—although not by the speakers today; there is no intention to mislead Parliament—is that we are seeing children in Calais and thinking, “How can we stop them from coming to the UK?” That is not the case. That is why the Government have invested a lot of time and effort working with France. Our officials regularly meet French officials and there are discussions at all levels about how to make this quick. There is now a permanent official contact committee. Since one of our officials was seconded to the French interior ministry, the speed has grown significantly—there is no question about it. The numbers may appear small—

[Stuart C. McDonald]

rose—

[Richard Harrington]

I will just finish my sentence and then I will happily accept the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

More than 30 children were accepted between January and April. Many people say that that is totally inadequate and that things are moving at a snail’s pace, but they are speeding up; there is absolutely no question about that. There are many cases now in train and transfers can happen within weeks; there is often an implication that it is months, or even longer.

However, under Dublin, the children need to apply for asylum in France. There is a French NGO that the Government work closely with, called Terre d’Asile; my French is appalling, Mr Bone, for which I apologise. It is funded by the French Government, with our help, to help us to do this. No one child or adult need remain in those camps, but it is impossible to know how many children there are who fall within this. Whether there are 50, 100 or 150, the numbers do not matter to us, because we want to get them processed quickly.

There is lots of speculation about numbers; it is very easy for very good organisations and very well-meaning organisations to come up with numbers. There have been surveys and there has been sampling. However, it is our job to ensure that those children who do qualify understand the process and that the process is explained by people who can speak to them in their own language and in a simple manner. I understand that there is a lot of fear among the children about the French authorities and other authorities. In the countries that these children come from, people do not think of authorities in the way that people think of authorities in this country. So there is work to be done. However, the British Government are doing a lot to work with the French authorities. We must remember that they are in France; we are operating overseas and our officials are still UK officials. They are not French officials and we cannot ignore the fact that they are in France.

I apologise to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East; I will give way to him now.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He has given welcome reassurances that the process of taking children from Calais and Dunkirk has been speeding up. Other Ministers—including, indeed, the Home Secretary—have given such assurances as well. However, when Members submit written questions that ask for hard numbers and processing times, we keep getting answers that say those cannot be provided. An excellent report from the Home Affairs Committee has asked for that sort of information to be made available. Will the Minister encourage his colleagues to ensure that it is made available, so that we can check that these assurances are worth listening to?

[Richard Harrington]

The hon. Gentleman is asking, “Will I encourage my colleagues to disclose as much information as they possibly can?” I think the answer is, “Absolutely. Yes, I will.” I hope that the right hon. Member for Leicester East would agree that more numbers are forthcoming than was traditional under previous Governments, when there was significantly less information on the subject.

Over the last five years, the rate of family reunification has been 4,000 to 5,000 per year, but I see that increasing with the different schemes that are happening. It is for our Government to help the other Governments in mainland Europe to provide the machinery, so that we can resettle those people more quickly.

One could argue that the Governments of mainland Europe have been so overwhelmed by the numbers that they have not been able to process the unaccompanied children for family reunification. Again, I do not think that that is down to lack of will. I just think that the numbers have completely overwhelmed them. From our end, it is important that we do everything that we can to help them to catch up.

I will go on to the points that have been made about the immigration rules, which enable British citizens and people settled in the UK to sponsor their spouse or partner and children under 18 to join them here. Obviously, they have to make the appropriate entry clearance application and meet the relevant criteria. That is our international obligation. The rules allow those with refugee leave or humanitarian protection status to sponsor a spouse or partner with whom they have formed a relationship after they fled their country of origin. The rules are wider than many would think, but I accept that they are not as wide as many would want. They were strengthened in the previous Parliament. The Government do not accept that the rules are unfair. We believe that they have the right impact and help to restore public confidence in this country in the immigration system.

An important point that was raised several times this afternoon—

[Mr Alistair Carmichael]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Harrington]

I will just finish this sentence; it may answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question. An important point was raised not about the immigration rules but about those cases outside the rules. The argument has been put forward that, although it is legally within the discretion of officials to go outside the rules, they have not been exercising that discretion. That point has been made several times; my English probably made it sound more cumbersome than I expected it to. Just to reiterate, the point is that there is a power to go outside the immigration rules, but it has not been used a lot. That point was made several times this afternoon. In the next few weeks, the Government will publish a clarification of the immigration rules. I hope that the points where discretion can be and is applied are made clearer. That will help applicants, as well as officials dealing with this.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael]

I understand why the Minister made reference to restoring public confidence in the immigration system, but to pick up the point that the shadow Minister made, conflating refugee and asylum issues with the wider immigration system is not a helpful way of proceeding and does not help public understanding. I understand exactly why the Minister said what he said, but it was a good illustration of the shadow Minister’s point.

[Richard Harrington]

I understand the argument that when immigration figures are published, they should exclude refugees and asylum seekers. It is an arguable case, but those people should surely be included within the net number of people coming into the country. For whatever reason those people come, they are still people coming into the country. In my opinion, that does not in any way take away from the validity of us taking people from the situations they find themselves in abroad.

[Keir Starmer]

It is not just about the inclusion of these people in the number; it is also about having a policy driven by one thing—driving that net migration number down. That is wrong when it comes to refugees, and that is why they should be taken out and looked at separately. The number is self-defining; it is the number of people crossing the border. That is the deeper concern here.

[Richard Harrington]

I understood the point that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland was making. I see the argument to separate the two figures. Those who read the detail of the migration figures—it is a small number of people, and unfortunately most of them are not publishers or editors of national newspapers—see the breakdown beneath. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman and other Members interested in the subject read that breakdown. The point is valid, but however the figures are printed or published, I am afraid the media and so, one has to accept, the general population who get their information from the media will take the number in the round. It is others who accept the breakdown.

So many things in Government are a balance. Most of us who go into Parliament, Government and public service do things with exactly the right intention. That is certainly what I have found in my comparatively short period of involvement. I do not think anyone would become a Member of Parliament or, I specifically hope, a Minister in this field if they did not have a lot of compassion for people desperately wanting to come into this country and others. Everything in Government is a balance, however, whether that is financial or in terms of having some form of policy—not everything can be an exception to that policy, but the policy has to try to allow some exceptions. I believe that the number of people coming in under family reunification from the various sources will increase significantly, but in a proper, measured way. There is flexibility within Dublin and the immigration rules to facilitate that.

I thank right hon. and hon. Members, particularly the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, for bringing these issues before us. I am happy to meet with them or anyone else to discuss this matter.

draft Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) order 2016

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2016.

It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey, and I welcome other Committee members. The Leader of the Opposition is currently making his contribution to the debate on the 90th birthday of Her Majesty the Queen in the main Chamber. I shall endeavour to keep my remarks as brief as possible so that right hon. and hon. Members might also be able to enjoy his comments.

The UK welcomes record numbers of visitors who come to see our historic sights, sample our vibrant culture and attend business conferences and events. In the year to June 2015, 9 million non-European economic area visitors came to the UK—an increase of half a million compared with 2014. Some 1.9 million visit visas were issued in 2015, which was a 2% increase on the previous year. The Government are keen that the UK continues to attract business and leisure travellers who will help our economy to grow further.

In April 2015, we simplified the immigration system for people visiting the UK. We streamlined the routes by reducing their number from 15 to four, and created more flexibilities so that visitors could undertake a wider range of activities. For example, a visitor with a standard visit visa is now allowed to come to the UK for a holiday, take part in a sporting event, attend meetings and visit family, without having to apply for separate visas. The UK’s visa service is one of the most flexible and comprehensive on offer, but remains one of the safest and most secure in the world, reassuring customers of the value that the Government place on security in the UK.

The order’s provisions are of a technical nature and have two basic purposes. First, they will update provisions in the Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) Order 2000 that relate to the extent to which entry clearance will have effect as leave to enter, to the categories of persons who may be granted leave to enter automatically, and to who can be granted or refused leave orally. Secondly, the order makes provision for leave not to lapse.

The order extends the period for which entry clearance takes effect as leave to enter for certain categories of visitor who may exceptionally be granted a visa for a period longer than the usual six months. For example, private medical treatment visitors may be granted a visa for up to 11 months and academic visitors may be granted a visa for up to 12 months. With the simplification of the visitor routes of entry, two routes—those for visitors coming to study for a short period and for parents coming to stay with their children at school in the UK—are no longer treated as visitors. That was done to make their purpose clearer.

The order makes a change to ensure that short-term students and parents of tier 4 child students are included in the categories of persons to whom leave may be given or refused orally. It also makes changes to update the categories of person who may, provided they are a registered traveller, be granted leave to enter automatically if they enter via an e-gate. A registered traveller is a low-risk frequent traveller of a specified nationality who can benefit from quicker processing at the border by entering via an e-passport gate. Such gates are available at most UK airports.

Finally, the order makes a change to ensure that leave granted to partners and children of certain British or settled Crown servants and British Council employees does not lapse after two years when they are accompanying their partner or parents on an overseas posting. The change also means that those granted leave under the family provisions of the immigration rules can complete their probationary period outside the UK before they apply for indefinite leave.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

Unfortunately, we have missed our window of opportunity to hear the Leader of the Opposition speak in the Chamber today—I see that my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) is already on his feet.

I will endeavour to answer the hon. Lady’s questions, although they are not specifically relevant, before I return to the order itself. The e-gate scheme has spread quite a lot since it started. We now have a second variety of e-gate, which is a lot more linked up with different database systems than the first. I understand that, since 2010, 141 e-gates have been installed at 18 airport terminals. Without doubt, they improve the detection of forgery and imposters and free up Border Force officers for other security and intelligence work. I hope that those hon. Members—including you, Mr Bailey —whose onerous duties allow them time for the occasional trip overseas will agree that it seems a very efficient system, both logistically, for people trying to get through, and electronically. The links to the necessary security information have hugely increased, which means that passengers aged 12 to 17 who have electronically chipped passports and are accompanied by an adult can use the e-gates. Quite a lot of things have improved since the system started; the Government believe strongly that convenience and extra security are hugely enhanced under it.

On the hon. Lady’s second question, I am afraid I cannot assist her directly, but I will write to her on that issue, if I may. Her final question was to do with issues raised by the shadow Home Secretary in his urgent question on the Border Force budget yesterday. I was present for that, as were all other Home Office Ministers, because we take these things very seriously. The Home Secretary’s announcement included the Border Force budget for the years to come. I can assure the hon. Lady that the Government believe strongly that the Border Force has improved dramatically over the last few years since its inception and will be an important part of our security.

When I opened the debate, I said that the order had two purposes. First, following changes made to the routes of entry for visitors, it updates provisions in the 2000 order relating to the extent to which entry clearance will have effect as leave to enter, provisions setting out the category of person who may be granted leave to enter automatically via an e-gate and who can be granted or refused leave orally. Secondly, it ensures that partners and children of Crown servants and others, when accompanying their partner or parent on an overseas posting, can complete their probationary period before they apply for settlement in the UK. The order means that they will not have to return here to do that; it ensures their leave will not lapse.

This is an administrative measure. I thank the hon. Lady for her very sensible support for it. We judge that the provisions in this order that are technical in nature will not deter visitors who make a valuable contribution to UK’s growth from coming to the UK. Indeed, in the year to September 2015, after the visa routes were simplified to give more flexibility, 2% more visitor visas were issued.

I reiterate that the security of the UK’s border is a key priority for this Government. It is the role of Border Force to ensure that the UK is protected from potential threats while facilitating the smooth passage of legitimate travellers. As we have heard, the changes in the order do nothing to detract from that approach. We will still check 100% of scheduled passengers arriving at the border—we could do so automatically for those using e-gates—and exit checks will remain in place across almost all scheduled commercial services departing from the UK and from international railway stations. Exit check data already provide the police and security services with information to help track the movements of known criminals and terrorists. Border Force also checks and risk-assesses all unscheduled flights and maritime arrivals in advance and physically examines the majority of flights and vessels and their passengers and goods.

The Government have completely reformed the immigration system, cutting abuse and focusing on attracting the brightest and best. As I have explained, the order deals with a small and administrative part of the system, and is a significant but non-controversial measure. I hope that the Committee will be minded to support it.

Question put and agreed to.

UNHCR: Admission Pathways for Syrian Refugees

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I commend the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for bringing about the debate and everyone for their contributions. I appreciate the compliments about what the Government have done, and I listened to every single item said about what more the Government should do.

Those hon. Members who know me will know that, since I took on this job last September, we have been trying carefully to listen to everybody. Clearly, there is not a person in the country, let alone in the House, who could not fail to be moved by the plight of Syrians, both those trapped in the appalling conditions there and those who have been forced to leave home. That is not just clichés and platitudes; that is so obvious. For those of us involved in politics, if that is not part of why we are involved, we should not be in it.

I am proud of what the Government have done. In the same spirit as the comments were made, which was not negative, I will criticise hon. Members’ comments that the Government have done all of this stuff reluctantly because we were forced to. I will say, as everyone would expect, that that is not the case. I also stress that this cannot be viewed in any way other than in the round. Hon. Members have said, “It is one thing giving money—fine, thank you very much and well done UK Government—but there is a lot more to it than that: it is what we do here.”

Hon. Members talk about camps, but comparatively few people are in camps. The point has been made that people are in everything from what I would describe as the top-end, which are basically large corrugated iron buildings, down to tents in fields and crammed into rooms in apartments and houses. They are registered with UNHCR, which is how we make our distinction rather than the accommodation.

It is not just a question of giving money and the UK has done a lot more than that. We see a number of British non-governmental organisations working there, and young people who in their civil service careers probably could have chosen a comfortable job sitting in Whitehall are there, living in very difficult situations and doing a great job. The commitment of the Government and of the British people is very much more than just the financial side.

The resettlement bit—the narrowest part of the programme—for the most vulnerable families is important and I would not underestimate it. It is important, but it must be viewed as just part of the whole programme. Local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been excellent. That is a good example of us working with the Scottish Government, the Home Office and Scottish local authorities—no one is playing political games. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Stuart Blair Donaldson) made a good point. His area is a good example, but so are Brighton, Sheffield and all of the other places. The Government have done a lot of work on the voluntary scheme to try to persuade local authorities, some of which do not have the experience of those places of taking refugees, to take them. Many communities are doing it for the first time.

I will try to make progress—I realise I have little time—and try to answer some of the specific questions raised. My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) talked about the Yazidis. In answer to the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), I will be happy to meet with Salwa Khalaf Rasho—I hope she will excuse my pronunciation of the name and of the Welsh. However, I would like to put on record and make it clear that the UK has not done nothing about the Yazidis. Our aid has been reaching a lot of vulnerable women and girls across Iraq, including many Yazidis. For example, we funded the establishment of three centres in the Kurdistan region of Iraq that provide psychosocial and legal support for Yazidis and, through the Iraq humanitarian pooled fund, of which we are leaders, we are providing life-saving healthcare for women and children, child protection services and specialist support for those victims of Daesh terror. I will be happy to meet with Members to go into detail on that, but I did not want them to think that we were doing absolutely nothing. The Yazidi community are internally displaced people, so, unlike all the other refugees we are involved with, that work is not through UNHCR.

As far as the Christian and other minority communities are concerned, I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden that I have spoken to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Durham, the Catholic bishop and the Coptic bishop. We want examples. I have asked them and I will ask hon. Members to come to us with examples of communities that UNHCR cannot reach, because we will fund the UNHCR to go out to those people. I made that point to the Bishop of Durham last week. There is a lot of talk of stories that I am sure are valid, but we need to find those people. I would however like to say that Patrick Lynch, the representative of the Catholic community in this field, noted recently that there has been some improvement in the amount of registration of Christians in Jordan.

[Mrs Spelman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Harrington]

I am very sorry but I cannot because I have a very short period and lots to say. I will be happy to discuss this at any time, as my right hon. Friend knows.

I will move on to points made about unaccompanied children. The Government made a statement through the Minister for Immigration on 28 January that we are considering how best to provide protection for them. We have asked UNHCR for a comprehensive report on that. As far as UNHCR is concerned, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who is not in his place, said that, from his experience it was under-resourced. We are making it our business to ensure that it is not under-resourced for this project—I hope that things have moved on since his time. We have had roundtables with the Refugee Council and others, but we cannot have a knee-jerk reaction on these children. As hon. Members have mentioned, UNHCR’s main policy is to resettle unaccompanied children in the region with greater families, because it feels that that is better for them.

The Government are providing further resources to the European Asylum Support Office at border hotspots to help to identify and register children at risk when they first come into the EU. Kevin Hyland, the Children’s Commissioner, is going on behalf of the Home Secretary to investigate the position.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Richard Harrington]

I am so sorry but I cannot. I have only two minutes to go and I have things I would like to cover. Again, I am very happy to discuss that on any other occasion.

On the children in France who have been spoken about, there have been many representations to the Government to expand the family reunification scheme. Children can be resettled here under family reunification in different ways. The UNHCR vulnerability criteria, which are one of the seven parts of the Syrian resettlement scheme, are one such way.

The Dublin convention allows for children to be given asylum. The example of France was given, and we are shortening the time between children getting advice on and applying for asylum and coming here under family reunification. I was advised by officials yesterday that that is down to four weeks—four weeks from registering in France, with proof of family reunion, they can come here. Things are happening on that.

I accept that many valid points were made and the Government are always looking at ways of improving the situation. What we cannot do is provide a vehicle for the people smugglers and traffickers to get children as far as France, then into this country as unaccompanied children and then produce parents. The people who produce those children are ruthless, and the refugees are vulnerable and desperate. I am sure hon. Members will agree that we cannot allow children to be used as a way of getting families here when we do have good schemes in place to get families over here.

Community sponsorship has been mentioned and we are finalising the details of that. The Government are focused on providing a wide response. We know that there are people who cannot be supported sufficiently in the region and it is those vulnerable people whom we are bringing to the UK.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the UNHCR and pathways for admission of Syrian refugees.

Non-EU Citizens: Income Threshold

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

I would like to say, and I am sure that all of us agree, what an honour it is to be at this debate under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. That is not the usual platitude that MPs use; I really mean it. I hope that you agree, as we all do, that it has been an interesting debate. I thank the Committee, represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), for securing it.

The Government welcome the opportunity to explain our reforms. My hon. Friend made balanced comments, stressing the important point that the £35,000 threshold applies only to settlement applications in tier 2, the route for skilled workers at graduate level. It does not apply to other routes, such as those for students or charity workers. Of course the Government believe that immigration can bring considerable economic benefits and has enriched our culture. I speak as a member of a family only two or three generations away from immigration, and as a Member for a constituency with a large number of immigrants. I have seen the benefit that immigration can bring to this country. However, the sustained high levels of net migration in recent years make it difficult to maintain social cohesion and put pressure on public services, and they can drive down wages for people on low incomes.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

What about the impact on social cohesion of oligarchs who come into the city of London, buy up council housing and exclude the working class from the city? Would the Minister like to exclude that type of people as well?

[Richard Harrington]

I have not seen any examples of oligarchs buying properties in my constituency of Watford, so I cannot comment on something that I do not know about. I do not think that comment is very relevant. If some oligarchs have done that, I am sure that compared to the total amount of accommodation in the country, it is a comparatively small amount. I must say that I would not know an oligarch if I saw one.

I will return to the debate, as I am sure you would expect me to do, Ms Vaz, or I will be ruled out of order. The case that immigration is somehow mixed up with the European Union renegotiation has been made by my hon. Friends the Members for Sutton and Cheam and for Wycombe (Mr Baker), who is no longer in his place. Obviously, in many debates in the Chamber and here in Westminster Hall, Europe seems to come into the matter, and people have different views on it. The Government’s view, as we know, is to remain, and the Prime Minister’s renegotiation, which has led to an emergency brake on benefits and other things, is relevant, but most of the comments made by hon. Members in their contributions have not involved the European side of the issue. Rather conveniently, I will return to the overall—[Interruption.] Excuse me, Ms Vaz. My voice is disappearing somewhat.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Does the Minister agree that the UK has greatly benefited economically and culturally from the free movement of workers from other EU countries, and that in the event of a vote to leave the European Union, the income threshold will have serious ramifications for labour markets in the UK?

[Richard Harrington]

I agree that this country has benefited significantly from immigration, in labour markets and in every other aspect of life. It is true that a significant level of net migration comes from the EU —172,000 people in the year ending September 2015. However, what is often not said—I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe is not in his place at the moment, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam will pass this on—is that an even larger amount, 191,000, is the result of non-EU net migration. The Office for National Statistics estimated that there were 67,000 non-EU long-term immigrants for work, an increase of 2% compared with the previous 12 months.

[Paul Scully]

Just as a full stop on the European point, we have talked a little about the fact that the threshold may apply to European citizens. If we left the EU, the threshold might not apply in quite the same way, because we would have greater flexibility within our immigration policy.

[Richard Harrington]

I do not think anyone could dispute that we would certainly have greater flexibility if we were not in the EU, but many of us would argue that the benefits of being in the EU are so significant that that would be a small point. For the record, that includes me; I totally agree with that view.

It should also be placed on record that numbers of those using tier 2, the skilled work route, have increased by 35% since 2010. Even if we were not experiencing high levels of migration from the EU, I argue that we would still need to reform the rules leading to such large population flows into the UK. I have dealt as much as I can in this debate with the EU issue. I have certainly given the Government’s view, which—luckily for me —coincides with my personal view on these matters.

In the past, it has been too easy for some employers to choose to bring in workers from overseas rather than invest in training for our existing workforce. On average, employers in the UK underinvest in training compared with those in other countries, with a marked decline over the past 20 years. In an increasingly global economy, it is not surprising that many skilled workers come to the UK for a short time to fill a temporary skills gap, or perhaps to experience work in another country, but—this is an important point—reducing migration is not just about reducing the numbers coming here. It is also about being more selective in who we allow to settle permanently. In 2015, some 44%, or nearly half, of all migrants granted settlement in the UK—

[Patrick Grady]

How does the Minister answer the point that other countries with skill shortages are actively encouraging people to come? Moreover, what kind of message does he think this policy sends to other countries to which UK citizens might want to travel or emigrate?

[Richard Harrington]

I answer that by restating that the consensus is that this country has a significant skill shortage, and that it is easier—this is a question of fact, whatever values one adds to it—to get people with skills from abroad rather than train staff oneself.

[Keir Starmer]

How does the policy, under which an employer could simply sponsor in another person earning under £35,000 to fill the job that has just been vacated by the person leaving, help the skill shortage in this country?

[Richard Harrington]

If employers want long-term employees, they will have to concentrate on training them here. In the short term, the hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right.

The Government consulted on reforming the rules for settlement in 2011, as we do not believe that there should be an automatic link between coming to the UK to work temporarily and staying permanently. That is common in most countries: there is a difference between temporary work and permanent settlement rights.

The minimum earnings threshold was set following advice from the Migration Advisory Committee. The main purpose of the tier 2 category is to support the UK economy, not to provide migrants with a route to settlement. While the MAC considered a number of alternative criteria, such as age or qualifications, it advised—this is where some hon. Members would have disagreed with it—that the strongest indicator of economic value is salary, and those migrants earning more than a given amount are more likely to make the biggest contributions to the UK economy in future. There may be exceptions to that, but fundamentally I believe that in the majority of situations, that is the case.

Tier 2 is reserved for those filling graduate-level jobs; that is what it is for. The figure of £35,000 a year was not invented by politicians from nowhere; it was worked out professionally by the MAC to be equivalent to the median UK pay in skilled jobs that qualified for tier 2 at the time of the MAC’s consultation in 2011. Hon. Members should be aware that the most recent research that the MAC has carried out means that the equivalent figure today would be £39,000.

The MAC has also identified evidence of a wage premium for migrant workers with specialist skills that are in short supply. On average, tier 2 migrants—that is, general migrants—earn an extra £3,000 per annum compared with UK workers with similar characteristics.

However, the Government recognise that salary is not always the strongest measure of the importance of a job, a point made very strongly by many Scottish National party Members who have spoken today. I thank all the SNP Members who are here for coming to this debate, because without them there would be comparatively few Members here. The hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) made the point that this debate unfortunately coincides with a Second Reading debate on the Policing and Crime Bill, but I still thank the SNP Members for coming to this debate.

Within tier 2, there are exemptions for migrants working in a PhD-level occupation, for example, university researchers, and for those working in recognised shortage occupations. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) gave the example of a university researcher in the field of clean water technology and said that she would have to leave her job. As I say, there are exemptions for PhD-level occupations—

[Tommy Sheppard]

After the PhD.

[Richard Harrington]

Yes—after-PhD-level occupations. Therefore, that person would be exempt.

I mention that to show hon. Members that the £35,000 figure is not just an arbitrary amount; there are proper exemptions. The shortage occupation list includes nurses, as has been said, several healthcare professional categories, many engineers, many roles in the creative sector and some teachers.

The exemption extends to those in jobs that have been on the shortage occupation list at any time in the preceding six years. That guards against occupations being returned to shortage and provides reassurance to workers in those occupations against future changes to the list.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I am sorry that I have come to the debate relatively late. I am sure the point has already been made about nurses, but can the Minister give us some explicit reassurance about nurses? A constituent of mine, Siân Marvelley, is very worried that the threshold is going to affect her and require her to stop working.

[Richard Harrington]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that point and he correctly said that nurses have been mentioned several times already. So I shall respond to his point and the points made by several other hon. Members about the same subject. Basically, they were worried that an occupation’s position in the list was temporary and it could be withdrawn from the list at any time, which does not give people any certainty—the very points that the right hon. Gentleman just made.

The MAC, which Members should remember is not a political committee but an independent committee that operates very analytically with skilled staff who study data from the Office for National Statistics and any other data that are available, has just conducted a review of nursing, and the Government will consider that report carefully. We do not know what it says yet, because the MAC has not published its review. There was an interim measure and the change took effect in time for the December 2015 allocation of the certificates of sponsorship, which means that applications for nursing posts are prioritised.

In its latest investment plan, which was published at the end of last year, Health Education England—I am afraid that I do not have the relevant statistics for Scotland—proposed further increases in the number of nursing training places in 2016-17. So there is a lot of forecasting on this subject—the number arrived at is not just an arbitrary one—and there has been a full report.

At this juncture, I feel that I should consider the point about the regional salary thresholds, which hon. Members from Scotland discussed very eloquently. In its November 2011 report on the settlement threshold, the MAC could not see a clear case for differentiation on a regional basis. Its argument, and therefore the Government’s argument, as we have adopted it, was that having a single threshold provides clarity and simplicity for applicants and sponsors. The minimum salary requirements for occupations in tier 2 are for the most part set using annual surveys of hours and earnings. The data generated are very sophisticated and UK-wide, and therefore take account of salary levels throughout the regions.

[Kirsten Oswald]

Although I understand what the Minister is saying, does he not accept that this averaging does not take account of the needs of Scotland? Scotland needs an immigration policy that welcomes world-class talent from abroad, but in this case this ideological policy is doing more harm than good to our business sector.

[Richard Harrington]

I clearly disagree with the hon. Lady about that, and I have just said that the way the statistics are worked out includes all the regional variations, so the MAC is not just taking numbers that suit London and the south-east, as was the implication of many hon. Members’ contributions.

The Government clearly agree that those who have helped to fill vital skill shortages in the UK should be able to do so. The subject of skills and skill shortages was mentioned—particularly eloquently, if I may say so—by the shadow Minister. He said that upskilling was very important, because why would employers need to bring workers in from abroad if there are people here with the relevant skills? I think that we would all agree about that.

The Government have done a lot about skills. My previous Government role was as the Prime Minister’s apprenticeship adviser.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

The Minister says the Government have done so much on this issue since 2010. However, does not the fact that they have to set the type of limit that we are discussing today show that their skills policy is an unmitigated disaster and failure?

[Richard Harrington]

I disagree very much with the hon. Gentleman on that point; I do not think that the Government’s skills policy has been a failure at all. The number of apprentices is increasing significantly, and with the new apprenticeship levy, whereby larger companies have to pay a percentage of their payroll to fund training programmes, we will see a very significant upskilling of the workforce. I have seen many, many examples of this type of training going on in all parts of the country. Nevertheless, as usual the shadow Minister made a very considered point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam gave the curry industry as an example of an industry with skills shortages. Both he and I have been involved in our constituencies with the owners of curry restaurants; it is probably fair to say that my hon. Friend is more of an expert on the hotter variations of curry in those restaurants than I am. The curry industry has lobbied Government very extensively on the fact that it cannot bring in chefs from Bangladesh or other places in the Indian subcontinent, saying that it is a problem.

However, there is beginning to be a significant amount of training for such chefs, and so I think that we will see, as time goes on, exactly the point that we have been making today—namely, that the answer is making the industry, and people who want to be in it, put the resources, the effort, the money and the skills into training people to fulfil these roles. That is of benefit to everyone, particularly the industry itself. All of us realise the contribution of the curry industry to the country as a whole, and, from my personal experience I know that that is true from the north of Scotland down to the south-west of England.

[Kirsten Oswald]

My point is not about curry. Although the Minister says that he sees things improving, last year the skills shortage in Britain worsened for a fourth consecutive year—Britain was one of the most severely affected countries in Europe—so his arguments do not stack up. We still have people who should be able to work here being sent away.

[Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]

[Richard Harrington]

I agree that a lot of work needs to be done on the skills shortage. The Government set a target of, I think, 3 million new apprentices for this Parliament. The courses are good and the standards high. The effect of the apprenticeship levy will, in the end, come through and companies will start to employ people from here rather than having to get skilled people from abroad.

Just to finish on curry, the industry has had access to numerous transitional immigration routes in the past—the key worker scheme in the 1990s and the sector-based scheme in the early 2000s—but I argue that a flow of lower-skilled migrant labour militates against the industry taking action itself. I am sure that the curry industry, which is a bastion of small enterprise in the whole of the United Kingdom, will rise to the challenge, in a short period, of training its own staff. I think it has a rosy future.

In the end, the curry business is a good example. We want to nurture more home-grown talent and encourage young people in this country who want to pursue a skilled career, and that means the restaurant sector offering training to attract and recruit resident workers to meet its staffing needs.

I would like to make an additional point, if I may, Ms Vaz—

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

Ms Vaz is no longer in the Chair.

[Richard Harrington]

I do apologise, Mr Rosindell. I was so preoccupied with speaking that I failed to see you take the Chair. I am sure that you will continue to chair the debate with the spirit and discipline with which Ms Vaz started it.

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

I intend to. Thank you, Mr Harrington.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

I welcome you to the Chair, and I apologise. No offence was meant when I called you Ms Vaz.

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

Please continue.

[Richard Harrington]

I would like briefly to respond to the points about the notice period. The view was expressed that it was unfair that people who had come here to work believing that it would lead to settlement had no idea about the changes that were going through. The Government made it clear that new rules would apply to migrants who entered tier 2 from 6 April 2011, and employers have had time to prepare for the possibility that their workers might not meet the required salary threshold for remaining in the UK. Workers who cannot meet the threshold may extend their stay in tier 2 for up to six years and may, during that period, apply to switch into any other immigration route for which they are eligible. It is not on or off, black or white; there is a transitional period.

I know that hon. Members recognise the importance of sustainable immigration. We must ensure that the UK economy can thrive while also reducing pressures on schools, hospitals, accommodation, transport and social services. We believe that the minimum earnings threshold for settlement under tier 2 ensures that the tier 2 route plays its part in the Government’s overall strategy to control net migration and that settlement is reserved for those who provide the greatest economic benefit to the UK.

[Keir Starmer]

I do not think that the Minister has touched on the impact on net migration. I am reading from the impact assessment, signed off by the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green):

“We estimate that these restrictions on settlement will lead to some reductions in net migration of between 0 and 4,000 per year”.

Does the Minister accept that the policy could have no impact on net migration? That must be inferred from the impact assessment.

[Richard Harrington]

As the hon. and learned Gentleman would expect, I do not accept that. That impact assessment was from the previous Immigration Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green). I would like hon. Members to look at the policy in two years’ time and see its effects.

In part based on my many years’ experience as an employer—I am proud to have had many employees from all sorts of backgrounds—I think that the policy will make a significant difference to the number of skilled UK residents being employed here while, at the same time, because of the significant exemptions regarding qualifications and shortages, allowing reasonable numbers of skilled and qualified people to come here. I do not agree with the shadow Minister’s view and I think that, in time, the policy will be seen to be sensible, reasonable and measured.

Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Friday 4th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

It is always difficult to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), and before I get to the Bill, I will reply to her initial remarks about those Friday mornings that she will remember until the day that she becomes old and grey. On some Fridays that I have been here, that has actually happened during the morning itself, but she is—and looks—a lot younger than me.

On a more serious note, I agree almost entirely with the first part of the hon. Lady’s speech, because while we perfectly understand the intentions behind the Bill, it hugely oversimplifies a complex situation. I will try my best to answer some of the questions that she and other hon. Members have raised—I note that after midday on a Friday the ageing process happens more quickly than beforehand.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has introduced a similar Bill on three occasions, and he recently sought to table new clauses to the Immigration Bill on Report. He will not be surprised to know that part of my response today will be along similar lines to the reply given on that occasion by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, but the Bill does raise important issues about migration, and specifically illegal migration.

I recognise—I think we all do—that legal migrants make an important contribution to our society. It is only right that those who are here illegally and do not have valid leave to be in the country should return home. If they do not do so, it is vital that they can be removed quickly and easily. Illegal migration remains a key priority for the Government. I believe we have taken significant steps to strengthen the border immigration system, including in respect of who is allowed to enter the United Kingdom and who is allowed to remain here. The Prime Minister said, so it must be right—I cannot say it is a good career move, but I will quote him anyway:

“That starts with making Britain a less attractive place to come and work illegally…The truth is that it has been too easy to work illegally and to employ illegal workers here.”

I commend the intention behind the Bill, but I do not believe that the measures it contains are necessary. I agree that it sounds like a simple and superficially attractive solution to the problem, but it is the Government’s contention that the issue is much more complicated.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) used the expression “like a child’s game” to describe what happens now with illegal immigrants. He gave the impression that it is a sport, whereby people find their way into the country and are not deported or do not face criminal sanctions because they give themselves up. They are not treated as he would like them to be. Anyone who has seen these people and their plight, however, would not think it is a game at all. I contend that for all the reasons that would stop them coming here, the possibility of being arrested and receiving a £5,000 fine and six months in prison would not in any way be a deterrent. Where would they be deported to? Deportation sounds easy and a common-sense thing to do. Some may want to make use of the hon. Member for West Ham’s top-flight magic circle lawyer and send illegal migrants back to whatever country they came from. The truth, however, is that most have no place to be deported to. I accept that under the Dublin convention they can be deported to the country from which they came, but I think most would accept that that is no answer.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am afraid it is an answer and the Minister needs to address this point. People cannot understand why, when someone has travelled through perfectly safe countries such as Spain, France or Italy to the UK and are caught, they cannot be sent back to France and claim asylum there.

[Richard Harrington]

Without going into the complexities of the Dublin convention, it is just not possible in many cases. I will come on to argue that the pull factors that cause people to come here make the threat of deportation, a fine and a few months in prison irrelevant.

[Mr Chope]

Germany is deporting tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers and economic migrants even as we speak. How is it possible for Germany to do it and not us?

[Richard Harrington]

I do not believe that Germany, with the images that people see of migration into Germany, is a very good example for the hon. Gentleman’s case.

The Government have strengthened the legal framework provided by the original Immigration Act 1971 and other legislation. The Immigration Act 2014 put in place a series of fundamental reforms to ensure our immigration system is fairer to British citizens and legitimate migrants, and tougher on those who seek to abuse that system. That is separating the difference between legal, legitimate people and people who are abusing the system. It contains a number of measures that make it significantly harder to live illegally in the United Kingdom. It is no longer a straightforward matter for illegal immigrants to secure a driving licence, for example, and enjoy the privilege of being able to drive and the advantage it brings in securing a settled lifestyle. Applicants have to demonstrate that they are in the UK lawfully, and the same can be said for access to financial services, which can be denied if it is known that the people are in the UK unlawfully. A bank account can be very important for living, working and being paid illegally just as it is for those things legally.

[Mr Chope]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Harrington]

I would really like to make some progress because time is moving on.

Landlords are liable to a civil financial penalty if they rent accommodation to an illegal migrant without making the checks. I realise that these particular points can be criticised: some people think they are marginal; some people think they will not be enforced or that the onus will be put on the wrong people. I have heard an argument in this Chamber about whether landlords should be police officers. The point is that these issues are all part of the measures that are being rolled out to make it more difficult for illegal migrants to rent property.

These issues are all pull factors. People come here because they think they can live a better life, as has been said and accepted, or a safer life, as has been said and accepted. Through the different programmes sponsored by the Government, all those things are accepted.

One of my ministerial responsibilities is for our Syrian refugee programme, and I would like to thank Members of all parties for supporting it. Some people have lobbied us to take more, while a few argue that we should not take as many. Most people recognise the Government’s policy of treating the refugees that we do take in an honourable and decent way, allowing them to work straightaway, for example, and all the other things that go with it. What we are talking about here are illegal migrants.

A particularly relevant point to the arguments relating to today’s Bill concerns the Immigration Act 2014, which also streamlines the removal process for people who are unlawfully in the UK. It does so significantly by reducing and restructuring the migrant’s right of appeal.

[Bob Stewart]

If we are streamlining things, why is it that only just over 12,000 people were deported from this country last year, which seems an extremely low figure?

[Richard Harrington]

Given the date of the Immigration Act 2014 and the points I have made, it is too early to tell. Things are being rolled out only this year because of the process of having to get the Act into law, consulting on issues and all the things that go with it. There is no question, however, but that the process for removing people, reducing and restructuring the migrant’s right of appeal and the new powers to investigate suspected sham marriages and civil powers, together with extended powers for information sharing, will make a significant difference.

The current Immigration Bill is going through the other place at the moment and it builds on the foundations in the 2014 Act. Its purpose is to tackle illegal immigration by making it harder to live and work in the UK, and it specifically makes working and driving as an illegal immigrant a criminal offence. So criminal sanctions are relevant to some parts of the process. The Government do not deny that; it is logical. That does not mean, however, that the Government should support the simple and brief Bill before us. I commend the sponsors for its brevity, but because of some provisions relating to criminal offences, it does not support the overall principle claimed for it.

The Government are clear that the ability to work is the real driver for illegal migrants coming to the UK. I have spoken to many of the Syrian refugees and I know that all they want to do is work. This is not a benefits culture; most of the people who come here—certainly the Syrians I have spoken to—regard benefits as a form of begging in the street, and it is the last thing they want to do. Nevertheless, as the hon. Member for West Ham argued, illegal working undercuts legitimate business; it undercuts minimum wage legislation; and it breaks all sorts of workplace regulations, for which people have fought here for more than 100 years. I truly believe that illegal migration is bad for people in this country; there is no question about that from an employment point of view. It can deprive British citizens and lawful migrants of jobs that should be theirs.

[Mr Chope]

I once moved a motion in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe suggesting that asylum seekers in European countries should be allowed to work. We do not currently allow them to work in this country ab initio. Surely, if we allowed them to work, we would give people an incentive to apply for asylum immediately, and if their claims were refused, we would be able to require them to leave.

[Richard Harrington]

My hon. Friend is right: our policy is not to allow asylum seekers to work until their legal status has been decided, but we have tried to shorten the intervening time. I should make clear that those who are covered by our humanitarian protection programme are allowed to work with no interregnum, because their status was sorted out when they were given their visas in the first place. However, I think we would all agree that, whether their applications are successful or not, the period during which asylum seekers do not know where they stand is too long. Given that they are also a burden on the United Kingdom taxpayer because they receive significant assistance from the state—although some might argue that it is not enough—it is in everyone’s interests to ensure that their status is determined very quickly.

We are taking further steps to limit the factors that draw illegal migrants to the United Kingdom. We have, for example, created a role for a director of labour market enforcement, which extends the powers that are currently available to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. We are also amending the criminal sanction for employing people unlawfully in the United Kingdom, which will make it easier to bring prosecutions. For the first time, rogue businesses will face a real possibility of imprisonment for repeated or serious breaches of labour market legislation. At present, many such breaches are punishable through a fine, which the businesses involved regard as merely a cost of working, almost as we regard paying tax or any of the other normal working expenses. That is outrageous, because they are committing a criminal offence.

We are improving immigration enforcement by imposing tougher conditions on illegal migrants, denying them further access to services including housing and banking, and giving more powers to immigration officers conducting enforcement operations. The Immigration Bill will enable landlords to obtain possession of their property when their tenants no longer have a right to rent. We are also creating four new criminal offences to target rogue landlords and agents who deliberately and repeatedly fail to comply with the right to rent scheme, or fail to evict individuals who they know—or have reasonable cause to believe—are disqualified from renting as a result of their immigration status.

We are dealing with rogue employers, just as we are dealing with rogue landlords and driving by illegal immigrants. Many people have been taking advantage of the present system, but they will no longer be allowed to do so, and will face criminal sanctions. It will be possible, for instance, to close business premises for up to 48 hours when an employer has already incurred a civil penalty, or has been prosecuted for employing illegal workers. We are attacking the infrastructure that currently surrounds illegal immigrants: we are attacking every aspect of their lives that is illegal. More important, we are attacking those who actually perpetrate the illegality. For example, the Bill makes illegal working a criminal offence in its own right, because we think that that is sensible.

[Mr Nuttall]

Will the Minister now answer the question that I asked earlier? In January 2014, he said that these provisions were not necessary because they were in the Immigration Act. If someone who is in the country illegally can already be dealt with under the Act, what is the point of creating a specific offence?

[Richard Harrington]

I did answer my hon. Friend’s earlier question, and I will answer this question in the same way. We are talking about the combination of an existing Act and a Bill that is going through Parliament. As I have just said, the Immigration Bill will make illegal working a criminal offence in its own right, and that will cover self-employed as well as employed people. Moreover, it will be possible for wages paid to illegal workers to be seized as the proceeds of crime, through the activation of powers conferred by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

There seems to be an argument that we need this Bill because the Government are doing nothing, and because there is complete anarchy relating to illegal immigration. The European Union referendum came up quite a lot in the earlier part of the debate, and I accept that that discussion would have been stopped if we had been under your supervision, Mr Deputy Speaker. Your predecessor in the Chair—Mr Speaker himself—was perhaps more tolerant on this issue. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I did not mean the issue of whether we should remain in the European Union; I meant the issue of whether this debate should be expanded to cover that subject.

I always listen very carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. He centred a lot of his speech on Europe and on the consequences of leaving the EU that French Ministers have been mentioning recently. I do not think that that is relevant to this debate. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) who said that if we were not in the EU, we would have to have different relations with France anyway and everything would need to be renegotiated. So I am slightly confused about this. What does my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough think an illegal immigrant is? No one could possibly say that all the people from Europe who are here at the moment, including the Polish people who have been mentioned, are illegal immigrants. Would they become illegal immigrants? It has been made very clear that they are all coming here to work.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The Minister must not try to put words in our mouths, because this is a really important subject. Nobody in the leave campaign is suggesting that people from Europe who are already legally resident here should in any way become illegal immigrants. There is no suggestion of that at all.

[Richard Harrington]

I can assure my hon. Friend, out of personal respect for him, that I would not suggest that. He has accepted, however, that all these Polish people come here to work. If they came here to work in the future, would they suddenly become illegal immigrants? I am not sure, and I do not think it does the Bill any good to confuse the issues.

[Mr Chope]

As the Minister rightly says, this is a Bill about illegal migrants. Can he tell us how many illegal migrants there are in the United Kingdom at the moment?

[Richard Harrington]

Strangely enough, I cannot say exactly—[Laughter.] This is the serious answer to a question my hon. Friend tabled asking the Home Office to produce more recent estimates of the numbers of illegal immigrants. I believe that he quoted a report from 2005. I was going to answer that question by not answering the question exactly, but by explaining that there are no official estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the UK because, by definition, the clandestine nature of their presence makes that very hard to estimate.

So what are we doing about this? We have taken action in the Immigration Act 2014 to collect exit data, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) mentioned earlier. Such data have not been collected in the past. Collecting data on those leaving the country will give us a clearer picture of the number of those who enter legally but overstay their visa. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will accept that partial answer to his question, even though it is not the full answer that he wanted. In fact, he already knew the answer to his question. Like all good barristers, he knows that you should never ask a question to which you do not know the answer. He was still right to ask it, but he knew the answer in advance.

I am slightly confused by the points that were made about the Calais situation. It is perfectly legitimate to discuss that situation in the context of illegal immigrants, but I do not accept that the clauses in the Bill would prevent migrants from gathering in Calais in an attempt to reach the UK. I do not accept that basic premise. I accept the fact that people have a perception of this country as El Dorado, but they would not say to themselves, “I can come in illegally and do everything that I want but, oh, I might get a £5,000 fine and six months in prison so I won’t do it.” I do not accept that.

We are working closely with the French authorities to strengthen security at the French ports, and we are taking firm action to try to reduce the pull factors that make the UK attractive to these illegal immigrants. I cannot accept the premise that putting more and more people in prison would suddenly make people stop coming here. We would need some pretty big prisons. However, I agree that getting rid of the incentives and the factors that make people think they can come here illegally and have a sort of permanent life outside the system is a pretty big intention.

I am conscious of the fact that time is moving on. I have gone through many of the points in the Bill, including the extra powers that an immigration officer will have.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough asked about the carriers’ liability and whether it applies to the channel tunnel. As he knew already, it does not currently apply to train operators in the channel tunnel.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Why not?

[Richard Harrington]

Well, we are keeping the policy under active review. [Interruption.] Members may mock, but in a democracy one reviews and assesses a problem before taking action. Perhaps, before these people even get on a train or are deported, we could consider a six-month prison sentence, or a £5,000 fine; I do not know. The Government are reviewing the matter to see what action is appropriate. They will take action where the threats of illegal immigration justify it. Having seen what happens every night in Calais, I do not think—forgetting the merits of the situation—that putting these people into prison, fining them and saying that they will be deported will prevent them from what they are doing. None the less, our arrangements with France are beginning to work, and the French authorities have been extremely co-operative.

In addition to the changes in the laws, we are ramping up the whole of Government’s approach to controlling immigration. We are trying to deal with the fact that Government activities have been compartmentalised. My own appointment in relation to Syrian refugees covers three Departments. If I ever was a tiny footnote in history—one may very well argue that I will not be—it could be that I am the first Minister in history to cover three Departments. I am sure that we would all support greater co-ordination across agencies in Government to ensure that, where we identify illegal working, we extend our enforcement reach and apply the full range of sanctions available against illegal migrants and rogue employers.

We have shown that we will create additional criminal offences when we perceive there to be a need. However, I believe that adequate criminal sanctions and removal and deportation powers to deal with illegal migrants are already in place in the existing immigration legislation and the legislation that is going through Parliament. We are talking about serious criminal offences, and they will be dealt with through the criminal system. I could go through them at length, but my hon. Friends know them, as they took part in proceedings on the Immigration Bill and other such measures.

There are many different criminal offences, which, in the past, were treated as civil matters, the sanctions for which were so light that they did not have any effect at all. That is where there is a fundamental difference now.

The Bill proposes a power of deportation. The deportation would be mandatory, whatever the circumstances, unless the Secretary of State, who, I can assure Members, is pretty busy, intervened to say that deportation was not in the public interest. I must explain that deportation is a power that is reserved for those who have been convicted of a crime in this country and for those, such as those involved in terrorist cases, whose presence in the country is not considered to be conducive to the public good.

The Immigration Act 1971 sets out the power for the Secretary of State to deport an individual where it is deemed to be conducive to the public good, or where there is a court recommendation for deportation. The UK Borders Act 2007 further sets out that, subject to exceptions, when a person is sentenced to at least 12 months’ imprisonment the Secretary of State must make a deportation order against the criminal. That means that neither people entering the UK illegally nor those remaining in the country without leave are persons who are liable to deportation. The Bill would seek to remedy that, but it does not take into account the fact that immigration legislation provides for adequate removal powers for illegal entrants and overstayers without requiring a costly prosecution first, for what are minor offences in the overall scheme of immigration offences. We have always preferred migrants to depart voluntarily as it is better for the migrant, allowing them to leave on their own terms, and much more cost-effective for the Home Office. We will pursue enforcement action against those who are not prepared to leave voluntarily, but we do have human rights obligations.

[Bob Stewart]

From the public’s point of view, someone who comes into this country illegally has committed an offence and should be deported forthwith. The Government do not seem to have the drive to do it, judging from the Minister’s reply.

[Richard Harrington]

The Government certainly, to use my hon. Friend’s words, do not “have the drive” to have a unilateral and automatic policy and power of deportation in criminal action whatever the circumstances; that is true.

I do not believe, therefore, that the measures proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch are necessary for the prevention and punishment of illegal migration, and for the reasons I have outlined the Government cannot support the Bill.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Harrington]

I have finished.

Refugees: UK Government Policy

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

Thank you very much, Mrs Main, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairladyship.

I do not have time to go through everything; I would have liked to go through all hon. Members’ speeches. Obviously, I congratulate the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) on securing the debate. Unfortunately, Mrs Main, every time you said, “Richard”, I jumped up. So, the hon. Gentleman and I have something in common.

In fact, I think we have more than that in common, and I pay tribute to the partnership between the Scottish Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Home Office. This is one of the things that we can say that we have all really worked together on, and I commend the Scottish people for what they have done for the refugees through the resettlement programme.

I apologise for not mentioning every single speech by every hon. Member but it really is because of time and not because I do not want to. I could probably have taken up the whole hour of the debate myself, as hon. Members can imagine.

I will try to cut out a lot of the general stuff, but I will put something on the record. I have been doing this job since the middle of September and I do not see the cold lack of a humanitarian attitude of the Government towards refugees. Those people who know me know that I am not the most partisan of people; this job is not the most partisan of jobs. However, I genuinely do not see this complete lack of humanitarianism. If anybody would like to discuss that separately, I would be very happy to do so. I am not saying that I take offence at comments about a lack of humanitarianism, but I genuinely do not see such an attitude.

The UK has a proud reputation for giving asylum to people. I myself am only two generations away from refugees and if this country had not taken my family—well, there certainly would have been another Member of Parliament for Watford, which would probably please quite a few people in this room.

It is obvious, as many hon. Members have said, that the sufferings of the Syrian people are a stain on humanity. When I think what my father saw in the second world war, and what the generation before him saw in the first world war, not to mention the movement of people after the second world war, it seems that we have all learnt nothing if this can happen in our time—really.

However, in the time I have left I must return to what the UK has done. Since the war started in Syria, we have granted asylum to more than 5,000 Syrians in Britain. We have the resettlement scheme, and I very much commend and personally thank those hon. Members who mentioned what has happened since the beginning of September, when we started the scheme.

Several SNP Members were really saying that the Government should do more, and not only in terms of the number of refugees. I agree that the number is arguable; anybody can have their views on that and it is very easy in these debates to come up with numbers. However, I can say that we have had the sort of partnership that hon. Members said has not existed. I spend my whole time with local authorities and talking to them, and the Government have included so many different groups under the strategic migration partnership—the SMP. We have always had the SNP but now we have the SMP. In every area of the UK, we have an SMP and it includes the local authority, the Home Office and nearly all the NGOs involved in this field. I will point that out.

The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway secured this debate. Personally, in my experience, I agree with what he said about people not coming here for benefits. Certainly with the Syrian refugees I have met, I think it has been the last thing on their minds. Unfortunately, however, I reject what he said about the Syrian bombing campaign—that it is simply something the British Government are doing to keep their “pals” happy. I would also argue that our response to what has happened in Syria has not been inadequate.

The hon. Gentleman and several other speakers wanted me to avoid going on about the camps. In fact, there are very few camps, but people can see in the areas around Syria quite what this country has done. With the exception of the United States, our humanitarian programme is by far the most significant, and it can be seen everywhere —in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

Everything we do is through the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UNHCR policy is to settle people in the countries around Syria, and particularly to try to relocate children to extended families in that area. The UNHCR says that the vast majority of them—up to nine out of 10 of them, as far as we are aware—are resettled within the area that is called “the camps”, but actually it is just the area around Syria with extended families. I believe that that is the right policy, because obviously they all hope that they are going to go back to Syria. That does not mean that there are not unaccompanied minors, and the Government made a statement on that, as the shadow Minister said, the week before last. Tomorrow, the Immigration Minister and I are holding a roundtable discussion with most of the non-governmental organisations involved, including the UNCHR, to discuss where we go from here.

The Government are not doing nothing about children in Europe. Only last week, a further £10 million was announced. We are talking not just about money. There are many attempts to sort out what children are there and exactly where they are from, as well as to verify their identity and provide safe places for them to go within Europe. I am pleased to say that our Government, through the Department for International Development, are very much at the forefront of that. That is unusual for DFID, because in normal circumstances France, Germany and so on are not lower-income countries, but we are doing our bit. I know it is not what Members want, but I would not like to allow the assumption that we are doing nothing in mainland Europe to pass by, because that really is not true.

The main point that I would like to make is on numbers. It was mentioned that some economists wrote to the Government and that the bishops approached the Government. Lots of people write to the Prime Minister with numbers, and we have been both complimented and criticised about what we are doing with the 20,000 people. It is quite normal that people have their views and that they lobby. The shadow Minister said that what the Government have done is because of pressure from the Opposition and other groups, but to some extent that is how Governments work. The Government get criticised for not listening to what the Opposition and lobby groups say, or it is regarded as weakness if they do listen.

I feel that this is probably the least politically contentious part of Government. There is general cross-party consensus, perhaps not on extent, but on substance. In my life as a Minister in this field, I speak to so many groups and conferences—I am going to the east midlands tomorrow. Perhaps this is the last thing one should to a group of politicians, but I do not even know who is Labour or Conservative or Scottish National party, because that does not enter into it. The SNP Members made a political point about a fear of UKIP, but I have not seen it, and I am happy to go on the record on that. It is the last thing on our mind, and I hope that the Labour and SNP council leaders whom I have spoken to would agree with that sentiment.

This is a complex issue. I feel personally and professionally that the Government are on the right tracks. We have a long way to go. The resettlement programme alone will run over the course of the Parliament. We have to select who we take over here through the UNHCR. The vulnerability criteria are not subjective.

[Anne McLaughlin]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

I am sorry, but there is not time. Otherwise, I would love to give way. The vulnerability criteria are calculated and worked out in a professional, impartial way. The criteria have expanded from two to seven, so they are wide.

We are determined that those who come here do so with the consent of the people in this country, which generally there has been. I have paid tribute to Scotland, but people have been taken in all over the country. It is not right to say scathingly that some places take one or two or three families. For a small community, that can be pretty good. Other communities, such as Bradford, are very much used to taking in refugees and asylum seekers. They have done that for many years, and they have the set-up to do so.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the effect of the Syrian refugee resettlement programme on the resources required by local authorities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

Resettlement costs for year one are funded by the Department for International Development through the official development assistance budget. At the spending review, we announced a further £129 million towards local authority costs in years two to five. This amount was calculated after consulting the Local Government Association and local authorities with experience in this field on the likely costs that they would incur in being part of our Syrian refugee resettlement programme.

[Karen Lumley]

I am working hard with my council leader, Bill Hartnett, to provide refuge for two Syrian families in Redditch. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that that is the right thing to do, and will he reassure local people that it will not be paid for by local council tax, as there is some concern in my town about that?

[Richard Harrington]

I thank my hon. Friend and the leader of Redditch Borough Council for the part they have played in the joint bid with Worcestershire County Council. As they are aware, we work closely with local authorities to ensure that capacity is identified as suitable for that area, and I again confirm to my hon. Friend that the funding available through the spending review will go a long way towards funding the resettlement of Syrian refugees.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I commend the Minister on being the first Home Office Minister in living memory to set a target for resettlement and meet that target. However, there are still another 19,000 Syrian refugees to be resettled before the next election, and the number of other asylum seekers has risen from 9,000 to 17,000. Where are we going to find that accommodation?

[Richard Harrington]

Mr Speaker, excuse me, but to be complimented by the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs puts one off one’s stride at the Dispatch Box. I remind the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) that the refugee scheme for which I am responsible very much requires the good nature of local authorities. That, together with the asylum programme, is important to us, and I am pleased to say that the demand for places from refugees equals the supply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

T10. Only 94 of 1,600 asylum-seeking children and care leavers in Kent have been taken in by other areas under the voluntary dispersal scheme. With more refugee children coming, how will my hon. Friend’s Department get local authorities across the country to accept their share of the asylum-seeking children who are already here?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

We hope that dispersal arrangements remain voluntary and are working with the Home Office, the Department for Education, the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services on a national dispersal scheme for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Provisions in the Immigration Bill will underpin dispersal arrangements and, if necessary, enforce them.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I know that the Minister for Housing and Planning well understands the extraordinarily high cost of private sector housing in London, but does he understand the impact that the changes to the local housing allowance are having on residents in my constituency? Will he ask his departmental officials to provide data on the impact of those changes?

Child Victims of Human Trafficking (Central Government Responsibility) Bill

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Friday 29th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend has made a good point. Years ago, before I came to this place, I ran a travel business which had an operation in Florida, and I would quite often fly over there with new members of staff who were young girls. So there was a middle-aged man taking two or three young women across to America. Every time we arrived, we were stopped at immigration, and the women were taken away and interviewed to establish whether this was a genuine operation and I was not actually trafficking people. We used to get parents to write letters, and so on. But those immigration authorities did a proper, thorough job.

As for our borders, citizens of the European Union have a right to come here. It was not as though those girls were breaking any immigration rules. This is not about immigration at all. They had an absolute right to come into this country, because they were EU citizens. I have always argued that, in obvious cases like that, we should be much more willing to take people to one side and find out whether the operation is genuine or not. The trouble with this operation, however, was that it looked as though it was genuine because the girls were going to a Belfast restaurant to work.

I think that about 70 young women went through that process, and were locked into the terrace house. I do not want to use the word “rape” lightly but they were, in effect, being raped repeatedly. They were not in a position to escape, they were not giving permission, and there was no question of their earning any money. Eventually, those young women were rescued. In that instance we did something really well, but I am afraid that we are still doing something rather poorly.

When I was a member of Anthony Steen’s group, I discovered that there was a Government-funded centre in London—it was, in fact, funded by the Ministry of Justice—which was run by a left-wing organisation. All the trafficked victims were supposed to be accommodated in 24 beds, which is laughable, because there were so many more victims than 24. There was quite a big row about it at the time, and it is to the Government’s credit that they changed the policy. They took the money away from that organisation and gave it to the Salvation Army. They said, “Work with all sorts of different agencies around the country, religious and non-religious, and they will give you added value. If Newcastle, for instance, already has a hostel that is able to look after trafficked victims, why not give it some money, and then you will have that added value.”

The system worked terrifically well. The money started with £1 million, and despite the huge economic downturn that we have experienced, that amount has increased to, I believe, about £3 million. Adult victims of human trafficking are really well looked after. We must remember that an 18-year-old girl who has gone through this trauma cannot be just put in a house; they have to be looked after. The trauma is enormous and they must overcome that. We do that really well, and the Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, should take great credit for it. The Prime Minister has shown great courage on the human trafficking issue, but the problem comes with how children are looked after; they do not go into that system, and that is what I am trying to solve with this Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

I feel I should say at this stage that Anthony Steen’s operation is based in Watford in my constituency, and I am very familiar with it. I was going to say this as part of my concluding remarks but, time being as it is, I felt I should say now that not just he but all the different umbrella groups in the anti-trafficking field are housed in the building above Watford Junction station, so I see him quite a lot. I know my hon. Friend is part of that, and Sir John Randall introduced me to him in the first place, and I think it is a wonderful organisation.

[Mr Bone]

I am very grateful for the Minister’s intervention, and I am very glad that we have this particular Minister at the Dispatch Box, because I know he has worked with Anthony Steen and John Randall on this issue, and I greatly appreciate that.

The Government have done exceptionally well. John Randall is, of course, one of our ex-colleagues in this House. I remember that in the Corridor upstairs we had what we called an exhibition, but it was a role play about human trafficking and his son played a trafficker—very convincingly, as well—and that brought home to Members just how under the radar this situation is.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) not just for putting forward and speaking for the Bill, but for all the work he has done. As I said when he kindly took an intervention from me, the work that Anthony Steen has done and is still doing is particularly pertinent for me, since it is impossible for anyone to end up at Watford Junction station without seeing his operation there.

I am very short of time, so I will get straight to the point. My hon. Friend’s proposal is that the Government should take over dealing with the trafficking of children by placing it under national control in a national organisation, rather than the current situation of dealing with it locally through local authorities. Our contention is that that is not the best way to deal with it. I am afraid I cannot accept his assertion that children are, to use his expression, treated worse than adults.

We have set a clear expectation on local government in caring for children who are trafficked or unaccompanied by making important revisions to the statutory guidance for local authorities. The guidance is clear that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and child victims of human trafficking are some of the most vulnerable children in the country and that placement decisions

“should take particular account of protecting the child from any continued risk from traffickers, and from a heightened risk of going missing.”

We have also published strengthened statutory guidance on children who run away or go missing from home or care. The guidance clearly sets out the steps that local authorities and their partners should take to prevent children from going missing and to protect them when they do.

The Government have strengthened multi-agency arrangements for co-ordinating and sharing intelligence in relation to vulnerable victims. Such multi-agency safeguarding hubs—or MASHs, as they are called—are being set up across the country and are helping to share information about and to co-ordinate more effectively in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults from harm.

[Mr Bone]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Harrington]

I will give way, but I have very little time.

[Mr Bone]

I am sorry that the Minister does not have more time. What he says is really good news, but as the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said, 60% of such children are re-trafficked. Despite what the Government are doing, local government is therefore failing.

[Richard Harrington]

I am afraid I do not accept what my hon. Friend says about children who go missing. I am happy to discuss that with him separately. [Interruption.] We do not know.

I briefly want to mention one point made by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) in her very thoughtful speech. I agree with her about bringing in officials to be advocates for such children, but the Home Office is being very careful. It has very recently been decided that further trials are needed. That is not the result of prevarication, as though the Government do not want to act, but because of a fear of not getting it right. We have a one-off chance to do this. The Minister for Children and Families, who is very interested in this subject, is in the Chamber, for which I thank him.

A lot of work is under way. It is not as though the Government are oblivious to the issue. It is most important that children at risk of trafficking and those who have been trafficked do not fall outwith the system or are treated separately from adults. We must continue to deliver at this pace, because the Government will not tolerate the exploitation of any child, whether they are from the UK or foreign-born.

The question my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough has asked us is whether we can achieve that aim by transferring responsibility for victims of child trafficking from local to central Government. We believe that that is not the answer, because the work in progress to care for such victims better meets the standards required for vulnerable individuals. We are giving it a lot of resource and doing the work to beef it up—for example, our help for unaccompanied children in Kent—which demonstrates the Government’s commitment. There is a ministerial implementation taskforce to consider child protection, so we are not oblivious to the issue.

I have made a careful note of the very good points made by my hon. Friend, but I am afraid that the Government cannot agree to his Bill becoming law for the reasons I have explained. That does not mean that this debate is a spurious use of time, or that he has not made very interesting and relevant points. I hope he does not find it disrespectful that I have to say, reluctantly, that the Government cannot accept his core proposal. He has been in this House for a long time and will understand that it is not possible for us to do so, but he was right to use this opportunity to air the issue. I am sure that some of the points that he raised will be discussed again in the House and be taken into consideration. For that reason—

Gangs and Youth Violence: London

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Friday 29th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) on securing this important debate. He has had a very long-standing interest in tackling gangs in London and in his constituency. He explained the background in an extremely eloquent manner and in a way we could all understand.

Tackling gangs and serious youth violence, in both London and in other areas around the country, is of course a priority for the Government. I am aware, and everyone in the House is aware, that gang and youth violence has a devastating impact not just on their victims and their families, but on the communities in which they live. We see young lives wasted, or worse.

On Wednesday 13 January the Government published their refreshed approach to tackling gangs, in a paper entitled, “Ending gang violence and exploitation”. The paper sets out how our approach is focused on both reducing violence, including knife crime, and preventing the exploitation of vulnerable individuals by gangs. The refreshed approach builds on the ending gang and youth violence programme, established by the Home Office in 2012. This was based on a small Home Office front-line team working with an extended network of external experts who would visit a local area and produce a report with recommendations for local action to build local resilience. Since 2012, 52 areas have been part of this programme, including 26 London boroughs.

The programme will end in March, after four years of operation, as the hon. Gentleman said, but it is being replaced by the “Ending gang violence and exploitation” approach, based on what the Government and experts believe is the changing nature of the gang problem. The EGYV programme supports a front-line team of three people and an extended peer review network of more than 80. The peers come from local authorities, the voluntary sector, the police and others with a background in gangs, and are paid to visit local areas and make recommendations. It is then for that area—this brings me to the local point the hon. Gentleman made—to decide how and when to take those forward. As I have said, since 2012, 52 local areas have been visited, reviewed and reported on. Lambeth was subject to one in 2014.

We are now building on that programme. We will not be conducting any Home Office-funded peer reviews, because that has been dealt with, but we have provided the tools for local areas to conduct local assessments based on the same principles. We are committed to keeping peer reviewers, local area leads and other experts together by setting up the ending gang violence and exploitation forum. The forum will meet regularly—two or three times a year—and allow front-line practitioners directly to advise the Home Office officials of the latest issues and challenges; to share best practice with other practitioners; and to help inform the development of the new approach. It will be set out in more detail at the conference the Home Office is convening on 1 March—very soon—and which will be attended by more than 120 people with expertise in gangs.

[Mr Umunna]

I am grateful to the Minister for touching directly on this point I raised, but the disbanding of the network is a retrograde step. It is not the same as what the Government will reinstitute in its place. The nature of how gangs operate and proliferate changes, which is why we need the constant peer review the network provides. From what I understand and the information local partners have been given, it is basically being replaced by a couple of conferences, two civil servants who have added this to their responsibilities, and a mailbox.

[Richard Harrington]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, but I think I have covered it already. The network is ending, but it is being replaced, so I cannot accept his point.

The hon. Gentleman said there should be a joined-up approach. I would point out that there is an interministerial committee on gangs, chaired by the Home Secretary, which brings together all the Departments. He made a good point, but one that is being dealt with. These interministerial committees, which I have dealt with in other fields, are taken very seriously and attended at a senior level.

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Richard Harrington]

I am sorry; I cannot take an intervention, because of the time.

The Government are moving towards a cross-governmental approach on many things. The Government have identified six priorities to support the refreshed “Ending gang violence and exploitation” approach, based on what has been found and what we have been told—it is not a question of the Government saying, “This is what it will be.” Let me briefly go through the six priorities. The first is tackling “county lines”, which is the exploitation of vulnerable people by gang members to sell drugs. This is linked to urban gangs operating in drug markets in more suburban areas or surrounding towns. Our second priority is to protect vulnerable locations, which is linked to gang-related exploitation and refers to places where vulnerable young people can be targeted—for example, pupil referral units and children’s care homes.

Our third priority is reducing violence, including knife crime, which I will return to in a few moments. Better information sharing is a key part of reducing violence. The fourth priority is safeguarding gang-associated women and girls, who are regarded as being particularly vulnerable. Our fifth priority is to promote early intervention, because we know that intervention can stop young people becoming involved in gang and youth violence in the first place. Our sixth priority is to provide meaningful alternatives to gangs, such as education, training and employment.

Let me turn briefly to knife crime. The Government are aware of concerns about knife crime and we continue to work with the police and other partners to tackle it. Police-recorded knife crime is 14% below what it was in 2010, but it has increased by 9% in the 12 months to September 2015. According to the Office for National Statistics, the picture behind the rise is complex and may be the result of improved recording by the police, a genuine rise in knife crime and a more proactive police response. The Government are reviewing what can be done with the Metropolitan police and other agencies. We have co-ordinated a week of action against knives in February, and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), is having a round table with retailers, the police and the National Police Chiefs Council on this issue. I should also stress that there are already strict controls on sales of knives to under-18s and how knives can be marketed.

It is also important that we work with the NHS and the voluntary sector, as many victims of knife crime end up in the NHS in our emergency departments. In London alone, the Home Office has awarded more than £1 million to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime from the police innovation fund to support information sharing between health services and community safety partnerships. The Home Office has a clear policy, and the funding is being used to extend the youth intervention programmes run by Redthread, a voluntary sector organisation, in the four major trauma centres in London, which include St George’s in Tooting. This work is aimed at young people at hospital with knife injuries. Youth workers based in A&E talk to the young people at the “teachable moment” about what brought them there and whether they can be given support to prevent similar incidents from happening again. We are following the project very closely.

To conclude, I should like to repeat my thanks to the hon. Member for Streatham for securing this debate and providing Members with an opportunity to discuss this important issue, which can have such an impact on communities. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government regard gangs and serious youth violence as a continuing priority and, through the new “Ending gang violence and exploitation” approach, we will continue to work with national and local partners to address this issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Syrian Refugees: Resettlement

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

As always, it is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) for securing the debate and for her contribution. The Opposition, in all their forms—Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, the Scottish National party and everyone else—have been very helpful in everything that the Government have done on the Syrian resettlement programme. That does not mean that the Opposition have not been critical, but I think we all realise that we all have exactly the same intention.

However, ladies and gentlemen of the jury—if this were a jury, as in the former profession of the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) —I am a little bit off my normal form, owing to the shock of being complimented by the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). That stopped me concentrating for a moment.

[Helen Whately]

I want to reiterate something that the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said, which I may have overlooked in my comments. During my research for the debate, I heard so many positive things about the Home Office and the Minister’s work. He certainly deserves the praise that he has received.

[Richard Harrington]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. If I could receive such comments during the rest of my political career, I would be fortunate. We have very little time. With permission, I will attempt to answer most of the questions that have been asked, but if by chance I miss anything, I would be happy to discuss it privately with any Member of this House. Quite a few of the questions were grouped together, so I will try to summarise them.

There has been a bit of a misunderstanding about local authorities and the criteria for deciding where refugees should be settled. I have a lot of respect for the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin)—we are both very interested in holocaust affairs and are involved in the Holocaust Educational Trust, of which I am a trustee—and we agree on most things. However, the list of people settled under the asylum programme is fundamentally different from the system that is used in the resettlement programme, and that is the reason for the confusion between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent. Local authorities have come forward to help in many areas, such as Ashford in Kent. I pay tribute to the leader of Ashford Borough Council, who passed around a video to other local authorities saying how welcome refugees are in Ashford. The council has resettled quite a lot of families.

[Ian Austin]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Harrington]

I am sorry, but I really do not have time, because we have only got five minutes and I have got loads of things to say. Participation in the resettlement scheme is voluntary for local authorities. I would like to cover the finance point, because one of the very good contributions from the Scottish Members had a slight mistake in it. It is not just year 1 funding that has been arranged; there is a full programme for years 2 to 5. I am happy to go into detail in writing or to talk to hon. Members about it. Suffice it to say, within the time available, that most local authority leaders are quite satisfied with the funding, because years 2 to 5 are provided for.

As far as local authorities are concerned, the Government are conscious of the fact that settlement requires more than housing. That housing is provided predominantly by private landlords and paid for through local authorities, but with Government funds, deliberately so as not to interfere with the housing stock in those areas. In addition, each area is responsible for programmes to welcome people, introduce them to the local community and ensure that they register with doctors, schools and so on. I mention that because one of the faults of previous such programmes was that people were housed but forgotten about, and we are determined that that will not happen. Those are valid points to raise.

The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee made many erudite points, one of which was to ask what the Government were going to do about all the offers of spare rooms and shelter. He mentioned the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom I was with this morning—

[Keith Vaz]

Oh.

[Richard Harrington]

Indeed, and your name was mentioned—not your name, Mr Gray, but the right hon. Gentleman’s. I apologise for not mentioning your name to the Archbishop, Mr Gray; I know that you know him very well.

On a serious point, we cannot take up the kind offers of spare rooms in people’s houses because we are not interested in providing temporary accommodation to refugees. Our programme is intended to settle people where they will live, if not permanently, for the foreseeable future. However, that does not mean that we are not using all those offers of help. I discussed the matter this morning with the Archbishop. He is, by the way, in touch with Lambeth Council, and I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Leicester East has such a low opinion of Labour councils and their housing departments that he thinks that he would not be treated properly.

Putting that to one side for the moment, we are considering lots of other things through community sponsorship so that those kind offers can be used. One example is mentoring people into jobs, which is being trialled in a scheme in Bradford at the moment. Another is twinning families with other families, who can help by taking them to job interviews and English language lessons, which we are encouraging. We are doing lots of community sponsorship things—I would be happy to go into them on another occasion, but I am conscious of the time—so the good will of those people is absolutely not being turned away.

I will leave the right hon. Gentleman’s running commentary points for the moment, because there may be another occasion to discuss that. He said that it was very important that we include the diaspora of Syrians who already live here. I met all the groups during my first few weeks in office and I asked them to form one umbrella organisation, which they have done. I met some of them yesterday, and I will meet more of them tomorrow, to make sure that they are used in all the areas where they have people. A slight problem is that they are concentrated in certain areas and not present in many areas where refugees are going, but they are being very co-operative.

The point about religious minorities is particularly important, because there has been a general belief that our system of taking people from the UNHCR, using the vulnerability criteria, is all well and good, but that some people—particularly Christians, but also other minorities—have been left out. I am determined that that will not happen. There is one rule on which I think the Government have every right to be inflexible, and that is that people have to register with the UNHCR, because it is the only way in which we can work out the vulnerability points, such as health and all the other things that we deal with. However, I have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Catholic Bishop Patrick Lynch, whom I met last week, and every other body that we work with to give us evidence of places where there are pockets of people who are not registered. The Department for International Development is funding the UNHCR to provide outreach staff to register those people. I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) that on meeting a Catholic bishop who came back from Jordan last week, I was told for the first time that there are green shoots, with more evidence of Christians registering. I want to make it clear that the Government have no policy of discriminating against Christians or anybody else, because what we are interested in is vulnerability.

As far as the contributions from Scottish Members are concerned—I am sorry to group them together, but there is not time to go through their individual contributions—I pay tribute to the way in which the Scottish Government, the Scottish local authorities and the Home Office have worked together. It is a very good model for democracy, because no one cares about who is in which party or about trying to score points off each other, and the end product has been extremely good. I cannot stress that enough, and I can say that because I have experienced it myself.

This is a very complex issue. A lot of people have mentioned the 3,000 children, and have said that 20,000 refugees is not enough. It is certainly true that hundreds of thousands could be picked out. I would like to stress two points in my remaining time. First, hon. and right hon. Members must remember that the 20,000 is a small part of our overall humanitarian policy. Most of our work is in the countries adjoining Syria, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and I think that this country can be proud of that work. One Member mentioned Germany. Germany has a lot of migrants, but compared with Germany, we do a lot of work on the ground on matters such as accommodation and health. It works both ways. There has been a lot of talk about the children, and all I can say in the few seconds I have left is that the Prime Minister is considering the situation, and I believe we can expect an announcement shortly. I am sorry that I cannot give any more information than that, but the points have been very well made.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the resettlement of Syrian refugees.