Refugees: Napier Barracks

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure when a Minister last went in. I would suggest that at this current time, during a pandemic, it might not be the best thing for a Minister to go into the premises. But I can assure the noble Lord that HMIP is going in to do an inspection.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

[Inaudible]—accommodation is entirely adequate. Since then, over 100 of these people—[Inaudible.]

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

I am very sorry, Lord Roberts, but I am afraid we cannot hear you. I am going to pass on, if I may, to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark.

EU-UK Joint Political Declaration on Asylum and Returns

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I can confirm to my noble friend that new guidance, providing an overview of family reunion routes under, and outside of, the Immigration Rules, has been published on GOV.UK. Those Immigration Rules are unaffected by the end of the transition period. We have also taken steps to ensure that Dublin family reunion cases which entered the system before the end of the transition period continue to be processed after 31 December 2020, and we have published guidance on the savings provisions.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the agreement between the European Union and ourselves says that the UK’s intention is

“to engage in bilateral discussion”

with the member states most concerned. That is the promise. To what extent have such discussions started and with which states, and has any agreement been reached?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I can confirm that those discussions have started, but I cannot comment on the status of ongoing negotiations.

Scheduled Mass Deportation: Jamaica

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

My Lords, 50% of decisions on immigration matters have been overturned on appeal. What can we do to restore confidence in decisions taken by the Home Office, and how can we make sure that those facing deportation have sound legal advice? Secondly, what arrangements are made to meet these folk who have been deported to their home country—or what is considered their home country? Are they supported in any way, or are they just left to their own devices, so that they can easily resume a life of crime?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

In answer to the question on immigration, the noble Lord is absolutely right about the high rate of appeal success. Quite often, people bring successful last-minute claims; we are trying to get those figures down. This Urgent Question is, however, about the deportation of some pretty serious criminals. On the noble Lord’s other question, people who face deportation have legal advice whenever they need it and arrangements are made for them when they arrive back in their countries of origin.

Child Trafficking

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the efficacy of the process for child victims of trafficking to seek leave to remain in the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, UK children continue to account for a large proportion of national referral mechanism referrals. Children from overseas who are victims of trafficking may benefit from a grant of leave to remain under a number of different routes, depending on their individual circumstances. Unaccompanied children are only ever returned to their country of origin if safe and adequate reception arrangements are in place.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

The Minister will be aware of the ECPAT UK report in the Guardian which spoke of those seeking solace in this country between 2016 and 2019. Of the 4,695 victims of people trafficking who applied for status in the UK, 2,000—half of them—are likely to have been children, yet only 28 were granted leave to remain in the UK? Why only 28? Also, what has happened to the other 2,000 who applied? Does the policy remain the same, or will we have a change of policy and a bigger heart?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I assure the noble Lord that we have a very big heart indeed; 81% of decisions on asylum claims from unaccompanied children resulted in a grant of some form of leave, 75% of which were grants of asylum or humanitarian protection. The article to which he refers is slightly misleading, in that many of the children who come to this country get leave under asylum grants.

Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens v Home Office

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As I said to my noble friend, and say to the noble Lord now, we do not underestimate the significance of that cost, to either an individual or a family. We keep the fees under review, and, for children and their well-being, there are a number of exceptions to fees for applications for leave to remain.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

My Lords, is this not just one other example of the feeling of hostility: that the Government, the Home Office and the immigration system are against us? Not only that, but imagine how full of worry and anxiety somebody facing deportation or tribunal is. This makes us one of the most inhospitable of countries. Is it not time to revise again the British Nationality Act 1981?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I refer the noble Lord to when the fees were last agreed. They were set out in Section 68(9) of the Immigration Act 2014, during the coalition Government.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

What a privilege it is to share these arguments with people some of whom have been here for many years. I must say how much I appreciate the work that my noble friend Lady Hamwee has done over the years in leading the Liberal Democrat camp.

What sort of world are we aiming for? When we look at what the present Home Secretary proposes, it is even more harsh. She does not propose any end to detention—it is indefinite. Instead she is leading a discussion—I hope it does not come to more than that—on transporting or deporting people to distant islands. The whole thing breaks the spirit of all those people who for some reason or another have found themselves in this detainee situation. The UK should be the leader in building a humanitarian approach to what will be an increasingly difficult situation as climate change and other things affect the areas of Africa that grow the grain and feed the people. The people will move. They will want a new home. Should the UK not join other nations in leading to try to find an honourable way, not one that is so heart-breaking to so many people? I ask the Government to take another look. Let it be a humanitarian look and let us go on to be rather proud not of what we have done in hostility but of what we have done in caring and hospitality.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

I support Amendment 20 and will address the asylum angle. Ms Patel is quite right that the asylum system is broken, but the repairs that are required need not—must not—mean recourse to water cannons or wave machines, disused oil rigs or ferries, Ascension Island or Papua New Guinea, all of which would mean further breaches of international law, this time the refugee convention.

The problem is not the one that Ms Patel addressed yesterday. The realm is not at risk from the summer surge in small boat arrivals. Although as a proportion more are coming that way, overall numbers of asylum applications are sharply down—by 40% compared to one year ago. No doubt that is partly related to Covid-19, but it shows how absurd is talk of invasion. The real problem is how to make the system more efficient and more humane. Ms Patel does not need to think outside the box. The tools are in her hands now. Making it more efficient means putting more resources into tackling the backlog and reducing the queue and providing better guidance to those who have to take the decisions.

Brexit: Refugee Protection and Asylum Policy (EUC Report)

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

It is such a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, because it was his amendment that came before the House of Lords four years ago. At that time, the amendment was to accept 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children, and when it was put to a vote in the Lords we won by 300 to 200. So we were looking forward to that. However, the House of Commons and the Government themselves then overturned that vote, with 294 MPs defeating the 276 who wanted to support the amendment. The sad thing I remember about the vote in the Lords was to see the Government Benches opposite—I was sitting on the Front Bench that afternoon—trooping through to vote in the Not-Content Lobby. It was so sad to see so many of them, many of them friends of mine, voting against allowing these children into the United Kingdom.

You may say that things have changed since, but I do not know that they have. Three or four weeks ago we had the fire on Lesbos, which destroyed the homes and possessions of 13,000 immigrant people. I asked the Minister only last week what we had done to assist the people who were in that fire and lost all their possessions. I am still waiting for an answer. This is about the attitude we have as much as anything else—about our approach. Are we a people who are welcoming, or a people who somehow or other think we are defending ourselves? It is very sad. I know that there are figures; some people would say that our Government have done some good things, and they have, but we are trying to resolve a question.

The Government have a hostile mentality. They think that we can really build a wall between us and the problem itself, but it will become far more serious. As climate change proceeds, a lot of land that supplied the needs of the population, particularly in Africa, will be turned into desert and they will look for some other place to go. We who are currently able to support ourselves—who knows what will happen in the future?—will have to find a way to meet those needs. Instead of trying to keep the barriers up, we need to lead, think and innovate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

In speaking of the future and the planning needed to accommodate all those people who will be leaving their natural countryside and looking for somewhere to survive, having a Government who are ready to think along these lines and prepare for the mass migration to continue is the only way we will tackle this problem. We are coming out of our relationship with Europe and will lose all the advantages, such as Dublin and crossing borders. We have brought a terrible feeling of uncertainty on ourselves.

I go back to the choir. The night when we had the vote in the House of Lords and accepted the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, we gathered together and said, “Well, what can we do to at least help the situation?” We had been round parts of Wales looking for a way to accommodate children, expecting that we might get 3,000 of them. We even thought of having a children’s village for refugee children. There were so many things that we must think about. In the end, we formed a choir. Of course, as a Welshman, I am always in favour of a choir. We formed a choir of refugees and their friends. In those three years, we have had more than 100 singers from 27 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

I remember the day that the choir started and that first rehearsal. I remember the look of joy and hope on people’s faces. In the first year, we took them to the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, where they sang on the open air platform. After that, a 14 year-old lad from Afghanistan came to me and said, “Do you know, that was the best day of my life.” Is that not what life is about? It is not always about just the dry mechanics; it is about giving people hope or despair. I am afraid about the present Government’s attitude—already they have spoken in the past week about deporting thousands of people. Their answer is always deportation; it is never about meeting the problem and trying to resolve it.

I ask the Government, and will do so again and again, whether the present situation in the Home Office regarding immigration procedures is fit for purpose. If they say no, please can they confer with others? Look at the voluntary situation; look at churches: they are doing a tremendous lot and can help a lot in resolving this problem. This report shows what could happen after Brexit and so on, but please, let it not be the last. Let us look again, with hope, and pass on that hope to so many people who, at the present moment, are in deep despair.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

Until such deep reform has been enacted and we have genuinely learned the lessons of Windrush, we should not be subjecting a whole new group of EEA and Swiss nationals to the brutalities of what the former Home Secretary and Prime Minister billed as a “really hostile environment”.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

I join in the appeal from the noble Baroness for the Government to look again, as I have many times—and she has as well—at the whole immigration process that we have in this country. To mention recent developments, I would like to know exactly how many of the 13,000 immigrants on the island of Lesbos have been offered a place here in the United Kingdom.

Windrush of course created so much harm and unnecessary suffering, but we still see that the sort of attitude that is there is able to create harm to many people. As I mentioned before in this Chamber, in 2005, 17% of those who were given a hostile decision by the Home Office had the decision overturned on appeal. It is better now, they say—but it is not. Last year, 52% were successful on appeal; that means that 52% of the decisions taken by the Home Office were incorrect. They created hurt and worry and also created for the United Kingdom Government the need to go to appeal, at extensive cost.

So will the Minister and the Government look again so that, as we say in this amendment, the lessons of Windrush will be learned? We should have a thorough-going overhaul, because we are going to see very many new crises in the coming years regarding immigration. Are we going to take the lead in a hospitable way? We are not the best nation in the world for accepting migrants. We are going to see climate change, and so on, create deserts where previously there were productive lands; we have to face that. Now is the time to look at the past and say, “We were wrong,” and look at the future and say, “We can do better.”

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 95 in the name of my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lady Ludford and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett.

In her Windrush Lessons Learned Review, Wendy Williams described the Windrush scandal as both “foreseeable and avoidable”. The Home Office cannot afford another scandal, this time in relation to EEA and Swiss Nationals. Wendy Williams said:

“It is the responsibility of the department to keep track of the impact of the policies and legislation … and to make sure that, where members of the public are affected, particularly where they are at risk, it supports them appropriately.”


We heard from noble Lords on Monday about who might be at risk: those in abusive relationships; those who do not have access to IT, such as many Roma people; and those who rely for IT support on organisations that may not be there in years to come. Wendy Williams went on to say that

“it is perhaps unsurprising that the department did not then consider how difficult it might be for people to prove their status, prove when they arrived, or that they had been in the UK continuously some 30, 40 or even 50 years later.”

As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has said, amendment after amendment in this Committee has criticised the hostile/compliant environment. As the noble Baroness said, Wendy Williams recommended a full review and evaluation of it, assessing whether the measures contained within it were effective and proportionate. She said:

“This review must be carried out scrupulously, designed in partnership with external experts and published in a timely way.”


To echo the noble Baroness, where are we with that review now?

We have heard compelling evidence that the EEA and Swiss nationals affected by the ending of free movement have real concerns—reinforced by recent developments over the past week—particularly over having physical proof of immigration status, although the Government say that is not necessary. The Windrush review said:

“The Home Office should take steps to understand the groups and communities that its policies affect through improved engagement, social research, and by involving service users in designing its services”,


yet the Government not only seem not to be listening to EEA and Swiss nationals whom this Bill affects but, as a result, appear to have learned nothing from the Windrush review.

When it comes to impact assessments, the report recommends:

“Officials should avoid putting forward options on the binary ‘do this or do nothing’ basis, but instead should consider a range of options.”


Yet the department’s approach to matters such as physical proof of immigration status seems to be exactly that—failing to properly consider a “physical proof on request” option, for example.

As my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno has just said, the number of successful appeals against a refusal to grant settled status questions whether the values and culture of the Home Office have changed in the way that Wendy Williams recommended, and whether there is an effective central repository from which lessons and improvements from adverse case decisions can be disseminated.

Windrush really was a scandal. Ensuring that there is no repeat in relation to EEA and Swiss nationals depends on the implementation of the Wendy Williams review recommendations. I support this amendment.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, has withdrawn from the speakers’ list. The next speaker is the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

When this Bill emerges, it will define our place and reputation. Will we be proud to have been here? As the verse at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty says:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”


Is that what we want to be remembered for? Or will it be: bring me those who earn between £25,000 and £30,000 per year? Or, bring me those we think of as being best for us? Is it not better to welcome those who are most in need in the world? About 200 or 300 members of staff at the House of Lords earn less than that minimum income that is required to come to the UK—those wonderful people. Need, not greed, should define us, so that people come to us because we want to welcome them. We are trying to build a world which is fit for children to live in, yet we are far, far away from that.

I suggest we look at what will happen with income in Committee, and say that we have to mend this. We have to make this an Immigration Bill with a human face. Thinking of those detained in our immigration centres, we know we are the only country in Europe that has indefinite detention. When the Chief Inspector of Prisons visited some of those detention centres in May this year, it was found that one person had been detained for three years, while another 12 had been detained for 12 months. There is something so wrong with what we are doing with our immigrants. This Bill gives us a chance, so that history will say we took a step that was humane, kindly and concerned. Let us take it.

Immigration: Detainee Support

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that no detainee of an immigration removal centre is released without support for (1) finding, and (2) funding, accommodation.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, if a detainee leaving detention has an outstanding asylum claim and would otherwise be destitute, they can apply for support. They will be provided with free furnished accommodation if granted. We cover utility costs and provide a cash allowance. When the person is at immediate risk of homelessness, we provide emergency accommodation while the application is assessed. Those who do not qualify for asylum support may be eligible under immigration bail provisions.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]]

My Lords, first, the Minister will be aware of the report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons about the situation in immigration and detention centres during the pandemic, and the report that nine detainees from Harmondsworth were released into the streets without any support whatever. Secondly, the stabbing and shooting at the Park Inn Hotel in Glasgow cause deep concern. I am sure the Minister has heard many times before that, when somebody goes into provided accommodation, they lose their £35-a-week allowance. Can something be done about that? Does the Minister agree that it is high time we had a thorough overhaul of both detention and immigration procedures?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, this country is probably one of the most generous in the world when it comes to our treatment of asylum seekers. The noble Lord refers to the accommodation in Glasgow. It is three-star accommodation in a Radisson hotel, which I think is very generous by all measures. People would not be getting the £35 a week because everything is provided for them—bed, board, food and any other needs they have.