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

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Stuart C. McDonald]

My original intention was to speak in support of new clause 34, but having considered the matter I have to say that new clause 10, which also covers family members of non-EEA nationals, is better drafted, so I will speak briefly in support of it instead. Hats off to the shadow Ministers for getting it right when I have not.

I echo everything said by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central. He is right to characterise this not just as a failure to grant the right to appeal, but as the taking away of the right to appeal currently available to EEA nationals under European law. I remind the Minister that the Home Office statement of intent, published in June last year, said:

“Primary legislation is required to establish a right of appeal for the scheme, but subject to Parliamentary approval, we intend that those applying under the scheme from 30 March 2019 will be given a statutory right of appeal if their application is refused. This will allow the UK courts to examine the decision to refuse status under the scheme and the facts or circumstances on which the decision was based.”

The question is simple: why is that appropriate if there is a deal, but not appropriate if there is no deal? There should be a right of appeal regardless of whether a deal is reached. The distinction is absolutely unjustified.

From the point of view of principle and practice, appeal rights are hugely significant in immigration law. It is about the separation between those who review a decision and the decision makers themselves, and about not allowing the Home Office to mark its own homework, thereby ensuring a fair and independent hearing. It is also about the fact that the Home Office simply gets it wrong far too often. Before the current Prime Minister started her slash-and-burn approach to appeal rights, half of Home Office decisions were being overturned by the tribunal. Administrative reviews and judicial reviews are a sub-standard alternative.

Finally, we have to bear in mind that these decisions will have hugely significant consequences for those individuals affected. If the decisions are wrong, the consequences could be catastrophic. It is a small ask to ensure that they have appeal rights, regardless of whether a withdrawal agreement is reached.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I want to add to what the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central, and the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East have said about the importance of appeal rights. All of the new clauses make the same point. We all have suspicions that if the question of appeal rights is left unanswered, the process for EU citizens who need to apply for settled status might go terribly wrong.

There are two facts at the heart of this argument: first, the quality of Home Office decisions and the magnitude of the impact of the policy decision to end free movement; and secondly, the impact on a large number of people—some 3 million people and their families—in this country. We should not proceed without ensuring that protection is put in place in case the process goes wrong.

It seems absurd to have to offer any evidence of the quality of decisions taken by the Home Office, because as constituency Members of Parliament we deal fairly regularly with their inadequacy. That is not a comment on the Minister, who I have no doubt does her best to exercise good judgment on the issues put before her, but she has to do that far too frequently because of the poor quality of decisions taken, by and large, by the Home Office. This is not to point out the failings of individuals, either. I simply think that, systemically, the Home Office is not able to cope with the job that we task it to do.

We know that from recent media reports. We have already heard that when the Home Office appeals against immigration court decisions on asylum, it loses 75% of the cases. Mr Justice McCloskey, former president of the upper tribunal, said that the Home Office had launched one appeal

“on a wing and a prayer…It was manifestly devoid of any substance or merit and should have been exposed accordingly.”

The Law Society has described the Home Office processes as “seriously flawed”, and 50% of all appeals are upheld across the wider immigration and asylum system. We all know this to be true; these facts barely need repeating.

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Brought up, and read the First time.

[Alison McGovern]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss:

New clause 43—Future immigration policy—

“Within 12 months of this Act coming into force, and every 12 months thereafter, the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament setting out how any changes made to the Immigration Rules for EEA and Swiss nationals have affected the extent to which UK employers have adequate access to labour.”

This new clause would mean the Secretary of State is accountable to Parliament for drafting Immigration Rule changes that ensure employers have adequate access to labour.

[Alison McGovern]

I wish to speak about proposed new clause 13. Often this discussion is focused on the procedural matters of immigration law, and rightly so; as we have discussed, these are important issues that affect the lives of many of our constituents and they should be scrutinised in detail. However, my proposed new clause is concerned not with the detail of immigration law but rather with economic analysis of the impact of free movement on our labour market. It seeks to require the Secretary of State to conduct

“an annual review of the impact of the ending of free movement of people in the United Kingdom”,

specifically the impact on:

“(a) the UK economy;

(b) the NHS and social care workforce; and

(c) opportunities for British citizens in the European Economic Area.”

The Secretary of State should also “consult with UK businesses” and, I would add by way of commentary, others in the UK, including civil society and trade unions, about the impact they have experienced, should free movement end in this country. Such a review is necessary for several reasons, which I will explain briefly.

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[Maria Caulfield]

On Friday, I went with the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) to Brighton University to see the new nursing apprenticeship schemes, which are enabling a new source of nurses—mature students—to train as student nurses, and earn while they learn. The students all said that that was better than the previous bursary scheme, as it provided them with better wages and more job security once they finished their training.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I am perfectly happy for schemes to be called whatever they like; the fact is that we have to support nurses properly as they are training. The general point that I want to make, while accepting her experience of what sounds like a really good scheme, is that the general thrust of Government policy has not supported the training of staff for our national health service in recent times, and that has to change.

I will make one final specific point on this issue before I close, and it is about the social care sector. As the hon. Member has just mentioned, nurses are incredibly important and we have to get training and support for people coming into nursing, or back into nursing, correct, but social care is also important, and the pay in the social care sector is really dismal. It is a highly skilled job. If someone is working in a nursing home, they may have in their hands the care of the dying, and I do not think that there is a more important or dignified job in this country.

We have relied on EU nationals to a great extent and this Bill will have a huge impact on the social care sector. We have a massive staff shortage; there are hundreds of thousands of vacancies in the care sector. However, it is an interesting fact that that massive staff shortage has not increased pay in the care sector. If this was simply a matter of supply and demand, we might have expected wages in the care sector to rise quite rapidly over recent years, but the staff shortage has not increased pay, because in the end the funding for social care comes in large amount from the Government. That demonstrates the flaw in the argument that says, “Well, if we restrict immigration, that will necessarily put up pay”. Well, if in the end the funding—