Draft Immigration, Nationality and Asylum (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 General Committees

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.

Labour opposes the draft regulations on four grounds. First, they will make changes to 21 separate pieces of primary legislation—something that should rightly be done through primary legislation. The Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, which has just come out of Committee, was surely the perfect vehicle for any necessary changes to primary legislation before exit day. Putting those changes into a Bill would have allowed more time for hon. Members to scrutinise exactly what they will mean for each of the Acts affected, and to table amendments if necessary. We accept that many of the changes are technical, but they could easily have been spelled out in the Bill and nodded through in Committee.

Our second reason for opposing the draft regulations is that on the Bill Committee we spent a lot of time talking about how chaotic and disorganised the current immigration rules are. They are almost impossible for immigration lawyers, judges and Home Office officials to understand, let alone the average person applying for a visa without the help of legal aid. The point of supplementary scrutiny is not just to criticise the Government, but to consider and improve what they are doing. More chances for scrutiny would avoid contradictory rules and bad laws.

Thirdly, the draft instrument puts the cart before the horse. We do not yet know whether the immigration Bill will become law, as it faces significant hurdles before Report in the Commons and has not yet been through the Lords. This statutory instrument makes changes for a post-Brexit immigration landscape that is not yet assured.

Finally, the statutory instrument revokes the Dublin III regulation, which determines which EU member state is responsible for returning an asylum claim.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend raises the question of the Dublin agreement. Is it his understanding, as it is mine, that a significant number of families who can currently be reunited thanks to that regulation could no longer be if there were no deal and we were to exit on the basis of the SI before the Committee?

--- Later in debate ---

[Afzal Khan]

I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend. We accept that leaving the EU will mean leaving Dublin III, but we would have liked continued co-operation on family reunion even in a no-deal scenario.

Dublin III has been a crucial mechanism for reuniting refugee families. In 2018, over 1,000 people were reunited with family members in the UK under that regulation, including over 150 children. If the UK leaves the EU with a deal, Dublin III will remain in place until the end of the transition period, during which time the Government are committed to negotiating reciprocal arrangements on separated children. That should be expanded to include all the family reunion cases allowed under Dublin III.

If we leave without a deal, we will immediately cease to be part of Dublin III, and many refugees will be unable to be reunited with their families from 29 March. UK immigration rules contain provisions for the reunion of refugee families, but evidential requirements are higher than under the Dublin III regulation, in which the definition of “family member” is broader. We support calls for the UK’s immigration rules to be more generous in family reunion cases, so that children can sponsor family members and the definition of “family” is broader.

We welcome the Government’s inclusion of a saving provision in the draft regulations to allow for take-charge requests made before exit day to continue to be considered. In the light of delays between an application for asylum and the submission of a take-charge request, however, what consideration was given to making the asylum application the cut-off for the process, rather than the take-charge request?