Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill

Debate between Lord Harrington of Watford and Christopher Chope

Friday 4th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[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.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.