Immigration Bill

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I understand the Government’s wish to reduce net immigration. But they surely need to increase the number of overseas students, particularly outside London, where the pressures are less. The background to the Bill, however, is that after five years of problems, the UK borders authority was abolished in March 2013, the Refugee Legal Centre and the Immigration Advisory Service have both closed and the number of reputable law firms willing to take on immigration and asylum cases has been sharply reduced. Legal aid has been savagely cut and may be cut still further, and fees for documentation are steadily rising while waivers and refunds are hard to obtain. Meanwhile, the director-general of the UK visa and immigration section told the Home Affairs Select Committee in another place that she did not think the organisation was ever going to be fixed.

That situation makes it ever more important that decisions in asylum cases and other immigration matters are got right in the first place. That will save endless trouble later with appeals, judicial reviews and so forth. Will the Government devote their energy to this? Will they ensure that high-quality interpreters are available when needed? Will they see that women are interviewed by women, unless this is against the wishes of the person? Will they always have accurate, up-to-date country information? I and many other noble Lords have been asking these kinds of questions for years without, I am sorry to say, much result.

I now come to children’s issues and follow the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. The Refugee Children’s Consortium, a grouping of more than 40 NGOs which work daily with such children and their parents, estimates that there are 120,000 undocumented children in Britain—and the figure could easily be higher. That is, they have no agreed status and may be subject to deportation. The total is perhaps not surprising, given the backlog of over 30,000 asylum cases, some long outstanding. In addition, there are the children of overstayers and the steady trickle of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

I regret that this Bill will increase the risk of destitution and homelessness for such children and their families. Children and young people will be more at risk of exploitation and abuse. Fears of deportation and new restrictions on access to the National Health Service are likely to spread infectious diseases and increase maternal and infant deaths—as was clearly pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, referred to Doctors of the World, whose practitioners have had a clinic in Bethnal Green for years. They have reported that many migrants are destitute, not registered with surgeries, fearful of arrest and that the children are not getting the immunisations they deserve. Will the Government consult consortium members, for example the Catholic Social Action Network, the Cardinal Hume Centre, the Salvation Army and the Baobab Centre in north London? Will they ensure that the Department of Health and all its local outposts in the health service know of the undertaking given by the former Minister, Mr Harper, on 12 November at col. 310 of Commons Hansard? It concerns both public health and access to treatment.

The Government must surely know their duties under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly Article 2. They must not discriminate against children on grounds of race, nationality or parents’ status. This means that all children are equal in the sight of the law and their best interests must prevail. This is upheld by case law: for example, the judgment in ZH (Tanzania). Will the Minister say how the Secretary of State’s duty under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 will be carried out once this Bill becomes law? She has to safeguard and promote the welfare of children with respect to immigration functions.

I ask also what is being done about appointing guardians for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. This has been debated for a long time. Will legal aid be preserved for unaccompanied children and minors where trafficking is alleged or suspected? I ask the Government to pay particular attention to the recent report from Bail for Immigration Detainees, Fractured Childhoods. It recommends that,

“families should not be separated by immigration detention”,

and that where it is absolutely necessary, detention should be time-limited—as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, asked—and that it should be subject to judicial oversight.

In particular, Immigration Rules 398 and 399 should be revised to reflect legal requirements to consider the child’s best interests. There are many other NGOs longing to make their expertise available. They include Detention Action, the Residential Landlords’ Association, the Royal College of Midwives and Still Human, Still Here, a campaign for destitute refused asylum applicants.

I congratulate the Government on proposing that the Bill be considered by a Committee of the whole House. That will at least allow some issues to be dealt with by votes early on. We know that airline staff and employers have for some years been pressed into service as unofficial immigration officials. I deeply regret that landlords, banks, carriers and port staff, registrars and GPs will all have extra burdens imposed on them. Here, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed. We shall have also to discuss the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8, on the right to privacy and family life.

For those reasons, and for the well-being of innocent children, the Bill should be amended before it leaves this House. I beg Her Majesty’s Government not to let their mind be poisoned by the rantings of some tabloid newspapers. I have given notice of various questions and look forward to helpful answers. I conclude by agreeing most strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Judd, when he said that what we need is a policy that will provide fairness and humanity, especially for children and families, in our immigration system.