Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 17th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I oppose the amendments in this group introduced by their three proposers. I do so for five reasons.

The first is that I believe in putting the traffickers out of business, and studies show that about half of those in the camps in Calais are family reunion cases: they are people wishing to join members of their family here.

The second is that the principal virtue, in my book, of the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is that it deals with the anomaly where we, with the Swiss and Liechtenstein, are the only countries in Europe that do not allow a resident refugee child granted asylum status to sponsor family members to come into the country. Our position is an anomaly, which, in my view, is quite unworthy of us and quite unfitting with our pride in being a sanctuary country.

Thirdly, I oppose the amendments because they are unworkable. I think the intention is probably to make them unworkable, but in practice, they would be unworkable. A good example is Amendment 7, from the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, which would require the Secretary of State to publish in the initial statement and every six months how many people would be expected to come in under the Act and the approximate cost per person. We know the answer, actually. The Refugee Council study established that the numbers would be somewhere in the range of 240 to 750 a year, if we, as every other European country, except Liechtenstein and Switzerland, does, allowed a resident child granted asylum status to bring in family members. The range would be no more than 750—it might be as little as 240—and the cost would be about £1,000 a head.

So we are talking de minimis here on money but constructing extremely elaborate bureaucracy and laying requirements on local government—and central government, because we are talking about the accommodation requirements—to do an immense amount of reporting. This, for Members of this House who oppose overregulation and bureaucracy, is a rather surprising structure. I, of course, was a bureaucrat—a proud bureaucrat. I should be delighted to see many more bureaucrats given entertainment and occupation, but actually I think it is a very bad idea.

My fourth reason is that overspecifying, going into all the detail that this does, is itself a bad thing. I think it is correct that the Immigration Rules lay down the details and primary legislation should not. That is the right way of doing it, and all this heavy detail in here is making this a very peculiar piece of primary legislation and is overlapping with the existing Immigration Rules.

My fifth and last point, which relates to that one, is to ask the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth—because he is a distinguished lawyer and I am neither distinguished nor a lawyer—to think hard a contrario. If we set out such extraordinarily detailed specifications in primary legislation, what about the other Immigration Rules that do not simply copy primary legislation? Will it not be open to individuals to argue in the courts, against the authorities, that, because the specification in the Immigration Rules was not set out in primary legislation, it is in some way defective? I think it is very dangerous to get into a contrario territory, but I bow to the lawyers in this Committee who know more about it than I do.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, for his kindness in giving way. Do I understand his main point to be that real-time, empirical data is inimical to the formulation of good public policy? Is he actually saying that we should not collect data in order to make policy, for the future of our country, in respect of the provision of health services, housing and all the rest? That is a very odd argument to make, if I am perfectly honest.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Of course not.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I regret that I was not here for Second Reading, but my Green Party colleague, my noble friend Lady Bennett, was.

I absolutely oppose all these amendments. I have been at debates on a couple of Bills in this Session where the Conservative Peers have been, I would say, playing games. That does not show respect to your Lordships’ House.

Asylum Support (Prescribed Period) Bill [HL]

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 13th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Come on, my Lords, it is the season of good will, and here we have Wenceslas, down from the snowy wastes of Croydon—I think he deserves a welcome. He has already given us the key point in the Bill: that it is on a temporary basis. “Rien ne dure comme le provisoire”, as the French say—nothing lasts longer than the temporary. I sincerely hope so, because 28 days was absurd, particularly when it took at least seven days for the biometric passport document to turn up and five weeks for access to universal credit to be possible. Of course 56 days rather than 28 days is required, and I strongly support the Bill in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

But we should acknowledge that the reason why there has been such a surge in homelessness, recourse to food banks and rough sleeping—a reason for it—is that the Government have made a determined attempt to cut down the asylum backlog queue, and that to me deserves a very warm welcome from this House. I am not sure we have said it often enough already. So that is two cheers from me: one for 56 days and one for the attack on the queue—only two cheers, though.

My third cheer will come when the Minister can tell us that he has looked at and had changed the absurd rule that those waiting for an asylum decision may not take a job and may not work. It is degrading to the individual; it is economically absurd for the country. It is costly in financial terms; it is costly in economic terms. We really need people who are willing to work. It also leaves the individual exposed to the temptations of the black market and the black economy. It seems to me that what we really need—I very much hope the Minister will look at this sympathetically—is a relaxation of that rule.

Of course, when people like me made that point, under the last Government we heard that the dreaded “pull factor” would come in. Anybody who has been watching the slaughterhouses of Syria open knows that the asylum process has been absolutely correct when it awards asylum status to 99.9% of those coming from Syria and applying. It was not a pull factor: they did not want to work here; they were running away from slaughter in their homeland. The same is true of Sudanese, Eritreans and Iranians, as it is of Syrians. I do hope this Government will drop the “pull factor” as an argument against allowing those here to earn their way. It was always a myth.

In any case, the asylum process itself will test whether there is a well-justified fear of persecution that drove the person to come here. You cannot say these people are economic migrants; that will be tested in the simultaneous asylum process, and if some are found to be economic migrants, they will not be allowed to stay. It seems to me that there is no argument, intellectually or economically, for maintaining the rule that prevents them working, so socially disruptive as it is. I hope the Minister will be able to look at that, and then I will give him my third cheer.

Small Boat Crossings

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I find myself in agreement with the noble Lord. The factors that drive movement are war, poverty and climate change. He will know that the Prime Minister and other Labour Government Ministers have been in Baku this week to try to get further action on climate change. One commitment that this Government have is to ensure that, in our term of office, we deal with this issue because, as the noble Lord rightly says, it will drive movement of people, poverty and potentially even war still further if it is not solved.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Can the Minister look again and think about the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord German? Since the majority of small boat arrivals are from Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and Sudan, and since a huge majority of these applications are allowed in the end—the case for asylum is proved—would it not make sense to allow for initial vetting of applications by our diplomatic premises in the region? Would that not be a good additional way of cutting down the queue here and putting the smugglers out of business?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord might be interested in the fact that the top five countries for migration are Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Eritrea, and individuals come for a range of different reasons. I will bring that suggestion to the attention of my colleagues in the department who have direct responsibility for this area, who are Members of the House of Commons.

Istanbul Convention: Article 59

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I think this is important. On the firewall between police and immigration not being implemented, I put it to the right reverend Prelate that an external firewall would not necessarily prevent the perpetrator or any anonymous third party informing immigration enforcement about the victim’s immigration status. However, it would impact law enforcement agencies’ ability to investigate crimes. I hear what she says, and that issue will be reviewed by my honourable friend in the House of Commons as part of this general review.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, was about our reservation on the Istanbul convention, and the Minister’s answer was that the reservation still stands. As long as it stands, we are telling the world that women fleeing domestic abuse have to be turned away at refuges unless they can prove that they have a right of access to public funds. That is shocking. I am glad to hear that the Minister is conducting a review or evaluating the review set up at the urging of the International Agreements Committee of this House under the previous Government. Will he bring that review to a speedy conclusion so that we can remove this slur of our reservation on the Istanbul convention?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I hear what the noble Lord has powerfully mentioned. As I have indicated, a review is being undertaken by my honourable friend the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, in the House of Commons. That review will be completed in short order, I hope, and I will be able to report its outcome back to this House in due course. I fully understand the passion with which the noble Lord speaks.