Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Roberts of Llandudno and Lord Green of Deddington

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

The noble Lord, Lord Green, spoke earlier. Is he a grandfather or a father? Has he children? Would he trust his children to leave Syria to walk across Europe to reach the temptations of Italy and Greece and to meet the deprivations on the way? Would he really think that his child could manage unaccompanied? Is it not really a fantasy to think that these kids are not going to suffer in this way? I would not have thought of putting my children or grandchildren on that trek, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Green, would not either.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I am a father and a grandfather and of course I would do nothing of the kind, but then I am not in the situation of families in Syria. It is almost unimaginable to do that, but the question is whether there is a serious risk that it could happen. There is some evidence that that is exactly what has happened in relation to Sweden and Albania—Albania is different because that is a peaceful country. I raise the question. We need to be careful. If it was done through the UNHCR, we would be saving the same number of children, but we would not run the risk of encouraging further children to get into serious difficulty.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Roberts of Llandudno and Lord Green of Deddington

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, I had not intended to come in on these amendments, but I will mention what has happened in a north Wales town in the past month. An eminent Syrian doctor works there and contributes very much to our community. His wife and two younger children are there, but there is one daughter left in Damascus. She just could not get a visa. The mayor of Bangor and others—sorry, I should not have told you where it was—have been pulling out all the stops they can to try to bring this daughter over. She is alone, or she was. I rang the Home Office, trying to get this through and getting refused. I thought, “We’ll keep on at this”, until a fortnight ago I had a telephone call from one of our people in Bangor. She said that this girl is dead. Was it a bomb at Damascus University, or something else? I do not know. It is just that the whole system needs to have such a reform to have a bit of heart in it.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I am afraid that we are not quite of one mind in this House. I take all the points that have been made and I entirely understand the sympathy that has been expressed for individual cases. However, we have to look at this in a wider context. This, after all, is not the 1930s. We face a refugee crisis in Europe which is absolutely without precedent.

As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, explained, Amendment 231 refers to an EU directive which the UK opted into in 2013 before the refugee crisis erupted in southern Europe. However, its provisions are not exactly as described in the amendment before us. Article 8 requires that, in the case of asylum applications from third-country minors, the determining member state should be the state in which a family member legally resides, where that is in the best interests of the child. That is fair enough.

Article 9 goes further in stating that, if an applicant has a family member—unspecified—in another state who is a beneficiary of international protection, that member state should consider the application. That is fair enough.

Article 10 goes further still, stating that where an applicant has a family member in a member state where a first application is pending, then that state is responsible for the applicant’s application. We signed up to that and that is what would happen if people in Europe applied for asylum in Europe and asked for their case to be transferred to the UK. Noble Lords will be aware that a recent court case has underlined that possibility.

However, the suggestions in Amendment 231 go well beyond that EU directive. In paragraph (b) of proposed new subsection (2) the review is widened to consider all British citizens, not just those already granted asylum, and they would all have the right to sponsor family members. In paragraph (c) of proposed new subsection (2) the reviews suggested would consider extending the criteria to a potentially enormous number of relatives of those who have already been granted asylum in the UK. I think it is quite well known that in the last 10 years about 87,000 applicants have been granted asylum or humanitarian protection in Britain. We have every right to be proud of that. However, if each of those had five or six relatives, we would be deciding to admit more than half a million people who would be granted the right to join those who have already been given protection here. Even that is a very conservative estimate. It does not include those granted asylum in earlier years and does not take account of the fact that in some countries families are even bigger than that.

The fact that you have to apply in Europe in order to take advantage of the Dublin convention is a strong argument for saying that this is not the way that we should go. The main effect of going down this road would be to widen Dublin III and massively increase the flow of people into the EU in the hope of benefiting from these changes. That is a very unwise step to take at this time. If there are thoroughly deserving cases—I am sure there are many—they should be considered on an individual basis outside the rules and let us be as just and sympathetic as we can be. But simply to go down the road of widening Dublin III seems not only unwise but extremely untimely.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Roberts of Llandudno and Lord Green of Deddington

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am not aware of those statistics, but I will take a look at them.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

There are about 600,000 vacancies in the UK, and there always are. It is frictional unemployment. The only way that you can take another job is if a job is vacant.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

Thank you.