Public Order Act 2023

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

I would like to just finish the point I am making to the Minister, and then I will let the hon. Gentleman come in on this point. I have laid out my past history of protest for a very good reason: I have previous on this. I have not been arrested at any of those demonstrations, but I am sure that my name is in a file somewhere—perhaps the Security Minister might tell me—for having protested outside Faslane, for example.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

It is now.

[Alison Thewliss]

Perhaps it is now—who knows? My name may be on a file. The police may say, “This person has form for having protested before. She could be a risk; she could present a threat.” I am an SNP Member with the stated aim of wishing to break up the British state; some may consider that a threat. I am wearing a necklace today that says “Not my King”; had I been walking down The Mall at the coronation, perhaps that would have been cause for me to be arrested. Would the Minister consider that to be a threat? I have a belt on this dress; is that considered a locking-on device now? Can I tie myself with a very firm knot to a lamp post—would the Minister consider that a threat under the Act? If he would like to intervene on me now about all of those things I would be very interested to hear whether he would consider me a threat liable to be arrested under the Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

It certainly is. When we look at how the Act has operated in its first outing, we know that although it is working as the Government intend, it is not working as some people claim it is.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) and the Minister at the Dispatch Box mentioned intentions, which would be fine if intentions could not be misread, deliberately or otherwise. The fact that they can leaves a serious weakness in the Act.

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we talk about intentions, we are almost in the dystopian area of pre-crime, guessing what people’s intentions might be. With strings around placards or a cyclist walking along with a bicycle chain, it is difficult to establish those intentions. It is clear from the coronation weekend’s activities that the measure is insufficient. The Bill should never have been brought to Parliament in the first place, given that it was just a repackaging of the measures that were already rejected during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Rather than accepting the democratic will of Parliament, the Government reintroduced the provisions later in the Public Order Bill, now the Public Order Act 2023. It is clear to me that the Government are seeking to crack down on protesters and protest without looking at the very reasons for that protest. It is very much a knee-jerk reaction.

I come now to the position of His Majesty’s official Opposition, such as it is. The Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), instead of saying that this Act should be repealed, said that we need to let it “bed in”. The shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has said:

“We can’t come into office, picking through all the Conservative legislation and repealing it…It would take up so much parliamentary time.”

I am giving the official Opposition the opportunity today: here is some parliamentary time, and here is the opportunity to repeal the Act. Why will they not come forward and support us in the Lobby tonight?

The shadow public health Minister, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), told Sky News that the Opposition would

“look very carefully at this legislation”,

and the police would appear to have been “heavy-handed” in their approach during the coronation, but he refused to go as far as to commit to scrapping the Act. The Opposition are not opposing the restrictions on the right to protest, and their dithering is enabling it. They have said they are a Government in waiting, but today, on this piece of legislation, as with so many others, they are simply looking like gormless Tory sidekicks.

The Public Order Act 2023 was a petulant, vindictive, knee-jerk reaction from a UK Tory Government who are hellbent on undermining human rights and ignoring international legal obligations. It is a pattern of behaviour, and Scotland wants no part of it. The failure of Labour to stand up against this erosion of human rights and to commit to scrapping the Bill, along with the anti-trade union laws and the Illegal Migration Bill, will gain them no votes in Scotland. It will only reinforce the urgency of independence and of getting rid of this toxic Westminster Government and its successors once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

People who come to London from France might be affected by these laws. Is she suggesting that Members of the French National Assembly should be voting? People might come from the United States of America and be subject to these laws. Should the United States Senate and House of Representatives be expressing a view on these matters?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[Chris Philp]

I could go on, but I would much rather give way to the hon. Gentleman making what I am sure will be an insightful and interesting point.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Given that the right hon. Gentleman does not want the French, the Americans or anybody else to come and vote at Westminster, we have a simple solution that will end the Scots coming to vote at Westminster, thank you very much.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend and John Stuart Mill, the famous libertarian philosopher, are absolutely right. The right to protest, and indeed other rights, should not be enforced or enjoyed at the expense of other people. I know that the protesters think that they have an important and strong case, but that does not confer on them the right to ruin other people’s lives. It is not that they do so incidentally or accidentally as an unintended corollary of their protest; they are deliberately, intentionally and by design setting out to ruin other people’s lives. That is what the Government seek to prevent, and that is what this Act of Parliament seeks to do.

This Act of Parliament received Royal Assent only a short time ago having been through both Houses of Parliament. I think there was about a year between the Bill’s introduction and the completion of its passage through both Houses. The Bill had extensive scrutiny in Committee and was subject to extended ping-pong. No one can say that it did not have extensive scrutiny. That is why it is extraordinary that the nationalists now seek to repeal an Act that received Royal Assent only a few weeks ago.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

On the protests on the day of the coronation of His Majesty the King, does the Minister feel that the authorities overstepped the mark in their dealing with the protesters?

[Chris Philp]

No, I do not. I grateful for the opportunity to talk about that in more detail. Of course, there was an urgent question on the topic last Tuesday, when we debated and discussed it at some length. Since the hon. Member asks about the coronation, let me turn to that, as it is prayed in aid frequently. The most recent information that I have is that a total of 70 arrests were ultimately made on the coronation day. As I understand it, only six out of 70 were made under the new Public Order Act 2023. The others—I will not read out all of them—included arrests for possession of class A drugs; a sexual offender in breach of a condition; 14 people arrested and bailed for breach of the peace; 32 people arrested for conspiracy to cause public nuisance, all of whom have been bailed; one person arrested and bailed on suspicion of sexual assault; and one person arrested for handling stolen goods. The list goes on.

So 70 arrests were made, but only six of those were under the powers in the new 2023 Act. Of course, arrests may be made on the basis of reasonable suspicion. Much has been made of the fact that people were subsequently released. The six Republic protesters were released, and no further action is being taken. It is entirely possible for someone to be arrested on the basis of reasonable suspicion but, on further inquiries being made, it may be that the threshold for charge or prosecution is not met. Of course, in that case, no further action will be taken.

As I said in response to the urgent question posed by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) last Tuesday, we need to keep in mind the context in which the coronation took place. In the 24 hours preceding the coronation, there was a lot of intelligence—specific intelligence—about several well developed and well organised plots to cause serious disruption, including deliberately causing the horses to stampede, throwing paint over the ceremonial procession and, separately, locking on to the ceremonial route. This was a huge policing operation, with 11,500 police deployed that day, policing an enormous crowd. Things were moving very quickly indeed. Given that, the police were doing a difficult job in difficult circumstances—it was the event of a generation and the eyes of the world were upon us—and I think they did act reasonably.

Illegal Migration Bill

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The right hon. Lady has rightly called for a number of assessments, but is the real test of the Bill not the impact assessment of newspaper headlines? That is all it is about.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Unfortunately, there seems to be a great deal of confusion in the House about the small boats issue. It is worth reflecting on the fact that currently the largest number of people coming across in small boats come from Afghanistan and that the backlog in the Home Office system—now over 166,000—has been growing for some time, creating a knock-on effect on how quickly the system can deal with people arriving in this country, process them and remove those who should not be here.

It is also worth reflecting on the Home Affairs Committee report on the small boats crisis, published last summer, which said that the Government needed to address four things: clearing the backlog and speeding up the processing of people arriving in small boats; the issue of safe and legal routes, which I will say a little more about in a moment; the need for international co-operation; and the need to deal with the criminal gangs and to have return agreements with other countries in place. I remain worried about the argument that the Bill will deter people from getting into small boats, which goes back to my concern about the lack of evidence.

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) referred to the Home Affairs Committee trip to northern France in January. One key thing I remember from that trip is that if someone is standing on the beach in Calais or northern France, with the British coastline visible just 30 miles away, it is too late; they are going to take their chance and get into a boat.

I worry about the Home Office’s capacity to deal with the momentous change that the Bill will bring. It has not been very good at dealing with the asylum applications that have been building for many years, and I worry about its capacity to deal with the large-scale detention of people, families and children that the Bill will introduce.

My amendment 137 is on the issue of establishing a cap on the number of migrants using safe and legal routes. It will be difficult for the House to identify and make provision for crises that will unfold in the year ahead. In 2010, we could not have known the true extent of refugees from the first Libyan civil war or from South Sudan, or the number coming from Syria in 2011 or from Ukraine just one year ago. We cannot know what global challenges we will face in the next year, so an arbitrary target could be seen as a restraint on Governments being able to respond dynamically and appropriately.

Who will be included in the cap, and will it include children? Every child has the right to protection from persecution, discrimination and violence. That is a cornerstone of international and domestic law. Turning away a child fleeing a war zone or a genocide because of a cap decided months earlier in this House, could undermine the key principles of the international child protection frameworks that we have signed up to, including our own Children’s Act 1989, which gives clear focus to our international obligations in domestic legislation. The Government say that clause 51 will allow them to exceed the number set out in the cap each year if needs be. In that case, it is not really a cap, is it? It might be a target, but one that would have difficulty dealing with what is happening internationally.

We should reflect on and acknowledge the willingness of the British people to step up to the plate when crises appear, as thousands did last year when they took in displaced Ukrainians, and the wholesale support for unaccompanied children being given shelter when we debated the Dubs amendment a few years ago. If the Government are determined to introduce the cap, children should not be included and “people”, as set out in the clause, should be defined as those over 18 years of age. Setting a cap on the number of children who can claim asylum could result in one child being turned away while another is chosen—it is a “Sophie’s Choice” regulation. I ask the Minister to think again, and recognise the special position of children and our obligation to them.

The most obvious and appropriate way to support refugee children is to ensure they have access to safe and legal routes, which are clearly set out and defined. That is why I have added my name to new clause 13 and amendments 72 to 75, tabled by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. I also support new clause 17 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy).

Our Home Affairs Committee report made it explicitly clear that ensuring that there are accessible, safe and legal routes to the UK is a key plank of an asylum system that is both fair and effective, and also provides a clear disincentive and deterrent for illegal routes. I agree with the comments made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about the need for additionality. We cannot just say that the current schemes are sufficient, welcome as they are. There must be a package of measures to deal with the current situation, along with clearing the backlog. It cannot be right that that is left until some future date when we will know what the safe and legal routes are. That needs to be up front as part of the Bill, so that we have both the deterrent and the options around safe and legal routes.

New clauses 8 and 10 are about safe passage visa schemes. The Home Affairs Committee report mentioned using reception centres in France to allow people to make asylum claims from France—the Government rejected that idea, but some imaginative thinking about how we can assist people to make claims would be helpful. That is why it is worth the Government considering what new clauses 8 and 10 would mean. We have juxtaposed checks on passports and customs with the French, but there may be more room for negotiations with the French about making claims in France directly. New clause 8 is a little more prescriptive than new clause 10; that might be helpful as well.

I have added my name to amendment 122, which was tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). The amendment would clarify our legal responsibilities and fulfil the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Last year’s Home Affairs Committee report underlined the importance of strong international co-operation and relationships in dealing with migration issues. I believe that those would be weakened by walking away from our international legal obligations.

In conclusion, the Government must ensure that the Bill does not undermine our legal or moral obligations. They should clearly establish safe and legal routes in the Bill. If they are determined to tighten our refugee provisions, we must not turn our back on child refugees by arbitrarily placing a cap on, or excluding, those vulnerable children who turn to us for support.

Public Order Bill

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Charles Walker]

I thank the Minister for his intervention, because I am now warming to my task to nail a stake through the heart of this nonsense that we are debating. [Interruption.] It is absolute nonsense, Minister. For the benefit of Hansard, that is what the Minister said from a sedentary position. I would just say this. There is the idea that in this country we will ankle-tag someone who has not been convicted in a court of law. Those Chinese in their embassy will be watching that closely at the moment—they might actually be applying for some of this stuff once we have passed it in this place, as I suspect that we will.

Now I am getting tired and emotional. I say this to the Minister. During the covid lockdowns, when we banned protest, I warned that we would get to this point and that once the Government and politicians were emboldened by placing restrictions on a right and turning it into a freedom, they would not stop.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a fantastic speech that is being admired on both sides of the House. I wonder if he might be concerned that somebody could say that warnings on Radio 4 that the Conservative party might end up smaller than the SNP after the next election would be conducive to public disorder. Does he fear in any way being prosecuted himself as a result of that?

[Sir Charles Walker]

The Conservative party is the architect of its own misfortune, and we must deal with that and respond to it, so I will not be tempted down that track by the hon. Gentleman. All I will say is that this is as unconservative as our Budget a few weeks ago. This is not what the Conservative party does. We believe in proportionate laws, like we used to believe in sound money. I will therefore be joining hon. Members from across the House in voting against this piece of legislation.

As I said a moment ago, I warned, over a pint of milk—the metaphor that I used—that our right to protest was being eroded. Now, we are crying over spilt milk.

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[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend raises an issue that is close to my heart, which is that we need our police officers—our brave men and women, the majority of whom are heroes, frankly, in this nation’s law enforcement and security—to be focusing on our priorities and the priorities of the law-abiding majority. Common sense policing means focusing on targeting and fighting the bad guys, fighting the criminals and stopping crime, not policing pronouns and not pandering to politically correct campaigns.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Suella Braverman]

I will make progress, I am afraid.

No Government should fail in their duty to protect their citizens from such abuse, and this Government will always put the law-abiding majority first. In a democracy, we make policy through civilised debate and at the ballot box, not through mob rule and not by visiting chaos and misery on our fellow citizens.

Public Order Bill

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

There are two different issues: there are issues in respect of the kinds of protests that might cause serious disruption to the vital public infrastructure that we all depend on, but there may also be protests that, to be honest, might be a bit annoying but do not actually disrupt anybody at all. In a democracy, we should recognise that even though the right hon. Gentleman and I may think that the world should move on, if people have strong views, they should be able to express them.

There should be a shared understanding across the House—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way before she moves on?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way once, but I really want to get to the detail of the issues in the Bill.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Is there perhaps a case for introducing a retrospective clause, given the confession we just heard from the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis)?

Ukraine

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I have to say that I find the hon. Gentleman’s comments quite offensive. They are insulting in every single way. [Interruption.] For the first time, the SNP should stop playing politics. At every single stage, and on immigration issues in particular, I recognise and appreciate that we have a fundamentally different point of view.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Get on with your job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I want to come back to a point I made earlier on. The situation is very difficult in-region and in Ukraine. Inevitably, UN agencies will be asked to do more and there will be more convening. It will not just be about money, but practical aid and support. We will continue to work with agency partners in the United Kingdom, because we have to integrate and join up how we help the people of Ukraine.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

As the Home Secretary knows, and I am glad she has already mentioned it, I have a constituent, Derek MacLeod, a businessman on the Isle of Lewis, who has 20 family members and in-laws—normal people who are now refugees—on the Poland-Ukraine border. The accommodation is there and we want them in the Hebrides, but so far red tape in London is stopping them from coming to Scotland. There is a simple question from Mr MacLeod: can the 20 come to the Isle of Lewis? As Mr MacLeod says, time is lives, and he and his wife are very concerned.

[Priti Patel]

That is a case that the hon. Gentleman has already been in touch with me about. We are looking into it.

Immigration

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I welcome this debate on immigration and the opportunity for what I am sure will be a thoughtful and constructive discussion. I am a little disappointed not to see the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) in her place, because when we were discussing refugee family reunion last week, she made a point about the importance of language. I added to that the importance of tone, and I hope that we will hear people using their language carefully this afternoon. I am sure, given the Members present, that we will.

The immigration system is at a point where we are preparing to leave the European Union and working to provide status to the 3.5 million or so European Union citizens who have made the UK their home. Through the measures we set out in our White Paper on the future borders and immigration system, we are looking forward to the biggest change to the immigration system for over 45 years and are halfway through engaging in a year-long national conversation.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The Minister referred to the EU citizens who have made the UK their home, but what about those of them who were denied the right to vote in the recent European elections? What will the Government do to redress that? Was that not a shabby treatment of those very citizens in what should have been an all-inclusive democratic process? It is simply not good enough for that to be swept under the carpet by any manner of means.

[Caroline Nokes]

I do not think there has been any attempt to sweep that under the carpet. There was an urgent question in the House on the matter—I think it was the week before last—and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman raised his point then, but he knows as well as I do that his question is best addressed to the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for elections, not me as the Immigration Minister.

Alongside the White Paper on the future borders and immigration system that we published last year, the borders, immigration and citizenship system continues to deliver, to secure the UK border, control immigration and provide world-class services that contribute to our prosperity.

The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) talked with regret about the immigration system, but it is worth reminding the House of some salient points about its successes. In the year to March, more people came to the UK, with 142.8 million passengers arriving here; the number of visitor visas granted was at a record high of 2.3 million, an increase of 9%; 181,000 people were given entry clearance to come to work in the UK and bolster the UK’s economy; 358,000 students came to the UK to study; over 5,700 people were provided with protection and support through our four UK resettlement schemes; over 5,600 family reunion visas were issued, over 2,700 of which were for children; and 89,000 people were granted settlement, with 149,000 granted British citizenship.

The majority of the people I have referred to engage with the immigration system in a smooth way. They are contributing to the growth of tourism and our economy, attending our world-leading universities and enriching our culture. I do not believe that there is any great difference in aspiration between the Scottish National party and the UK Government on the topic of students. We both recognise that international students make a huge contribution to our education institutions socially, academically and financially. We want our education sector to flourish and to see ever increasing numbers of international students coming to the UK. Indeed, the Government have set an ambition of increasing the number of international students in higher education to 600,000 by 2030.

Where there may be a difference is that the Government are keen to share our successes and send the message that the UK is welcoming, while the SNP sadly seems determined to convey a sense of gloom. I am pleased to say that the facts support the Government’s position. The number of visa applications to study at the UK’s universities increased by 10% last year, to the highest number ever recorded, and visa application numbers are 27% higher than they were in 2011. There are close to half a million international students studying in the UK, and we continue to be the second most popular destination in the world for them. I hope that SNP Members will join in celebrating that success.

While we are on the subject of facts, I note that the motion calls for a policy “based on evidence”. The House will be aware that last year the Migration Advisory Committee—the Government’s expert, non-partisan advisers on immigration matters—carried out a detailed study into international students. The MAC took evidence from a wide variety of stakeholders representing every part of the United Kingdom, including Scotland. As the MAC indicates, 140 written responses were submitted to its call for evidence. This is absolutely evidence-based policy making.

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[Caroline Nokes]

No, I will not.

The MAC concluded both that students should not be removed from the net migration target and that there should be no increase in the length of time that undergraduates are allowed to remain in the UK on completion of their studies. The MAC said:

“We do not recommend a separate post-study work visa”.

I look forward to the SNP’s endorsement of those positions, or are they interested in evidence-based policy making only when the evidence happens to support their pre-conceived notions?

The Government have decided to go beyond the MAC’s recommendations. In our White Paper, we committed to increasing the period of post-study leave for both undergraduates and master’s students because, as I have said, we want our education sector to continue to flourish and to compete strongly on the international stage.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the Minister give way?

[Caroline Nokes]

No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again.

Evidence-based policy making is the principle that our future borders and immigration system will be built upon. It will be a single immigration system, where it is workers’ skills that matter, not where they come from.

Refugee Family Reunion

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that 20 June is World Refugee Day; further notes that, with record levels of global displacement across the world, many refugee families have been separated by war and persecution; welcomes that in 2018 the UK granted 5,806 family reunion visas to partners and children of refugees in the UK; and calls on the Government to introduce reforms to family reunion rules to ensure that the close relatives of all refugees in the UK have safe and legal pathways to reunite with their families in the UK.

Much has been happening in and around the House of Commons, and in many other places, to mark World Refugee Day and Loneliness Awareness Week. There has been a lack of progress on the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill, which should have been passed by the House of Commons under this Government.

The idea of a “pull factor” was one of the hares set running on Second Reading on 16 March 2018, and the Bill has not progressed much further. Lord Kerr addressed that in the House of Lords:

“Is it really plausible that, say in Idlib—

or, indeed, any city in the world—

“if it is under siege in six weeks’ time, the family sits around the dining table, pick a child and tell it that it must set off across the battle lines and the Mediterranean, to try to get into England so that it can then pull the family into England? That is implausible. We are talking about refugee reunion and about children. We really must stop talking about this wildly implausible pull factor. They come here to escape being killed; they do not come here in order to become a magnet for the rest of the family.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 May 2018; Vol. 791, c. 372.]

If we bear that in mind in this debate, and in each and every other debate on refugees, we will do ourselves and, indeed, refugees a great service by showing them the respect they deserve for what they have been through.

It would be worth while, as I did on Second Reading, to begin by talking about the idea of refugees. I began that debate by talking about Yohannes, a young welder from Eritrea living in Canterbury. Last month, I came across an article in The Independent headlined, “Germany’s refugee intake begins to boost economy as settlers soothe country’s worker shortage”. I re-emphasise that today’s refugee is tomorrow’s worker contributing to the economy.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He has been a powerful champion and advocate, and I hope that, at the end, the Government will allow time for his Bill to proceed. Once families are reunited under his proposals, it is important that they contribute properly to the economy. Does he agree that the Government must move forward on extending the right to work to asylum seekers?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend makes the case well. We should treat asylum seekers as normally as possible. We often talk about spectrums nowadays, and there is perhaps an argument that we are all on a spectrum of refugees, asylum seekers and movers. A person who moves from one town to another for work is a person on the move. We have various words to grade that movement.

I have been cautioned about making the comparison because, in a way, it minimises or downplays the trauma some people have been through, but on the other hand it is a way of partially seeing ourselves in other people’s shoes. We are not quite escaping war and the threat of being killed, but moving for economic circumstances is a normal thing to do. The more we treat the situation as normal, as my hon. Friend clearly said, the better.

Germany is fairly normal. The article in The Independent says:

“In his native Syria, Mohammed Kassim worked as an electrician. But having learned the trade informally, he lacked the credentials to show for it. Now, in his adopted homeland, the 30-year-old is receiving the training he never had and he is getting paid to do it by a company dangling the promise of a job that could vault him from struggling refugee to member of the German middle class.”

That is the sort of story we want to hear, four years after many people came to Germany. Of course, it is not all sweetness and light. A number of those people are still unemployed, but that is changing. The article continues:

“But after spending billions of euros to accommodate the newcomers, Germany is beginning to reap some gains.”

The German economy is benefiting from the presence of more people, who happen to be refugees.

I will set out the global context. There are about 24 million refugees worldwide, and every day some 44,000 people are forced to flee their home as a result of conflict and persecution. To give some idea, 44,000 people would probably fill Ibrox and Parkhead in the Scottish premier league, and would certainly fill the average stadium in the English premiership. That is a lot of people who are forced to move every day, and this movement of people within and across borders is creating significant policy challenges for Governments across the world and is linked to enormous humanitarian needs.

It is worth reminding ourselves of the definition. A person seeking asylum has normally left their own country due to war, persecution or violence and has requested sanctuary in another country, and their application to receive legal protection has yet to be processed. Importantly, refugees are at the next stage—this is where my Bill comes in. A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his country and has been recognised as having a well-founded fear of persecution. They are not only fleeing as an asylum seeker, but this has now been accepted by others. The reason for persecution could be race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, as we recently saw in Myanmar. A refugee has been granted special legal protection on that basis. War and ethnic, tribal or religious violence are leading causes of refugees fleeing their country. It is worth bearing that in mind.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

In previous debates, we have drawn attention to refugee children and the fact that they cannot sponsor a relative to come over—this is unlike what happens in other countries. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is deplorable and adds to the trauma these children are already facing?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady makes a point that is central to this speech and to the reason behind today’s debate.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

I agree with the hon. Lady on what she said. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the current situation has been exacerbated by the UK’s decision to opt out of applying article 10 of the EU directive on family reunion, which would have allowed unaccompanied children to act as sponsors for their family members?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am glad I have taken both interventions together, because they overlap neatly. This perhaps dovetails into something else, which is that the UK opted out of some EU directives; if only Scotland could opt out of some UK directives. We will park that one there, but it does show that the idea of Brexit—[Interruption.] We had better park that one as well. The hon. Lady and hon. Gentleman got it right, as did the British Red Cross policy briefing for this debate.

The Red Cross recommendations are:

“Give adult refugees the right to sponsor their parents, siblings and children up to the age of 25 to join them in the UK under family reunification rules.”

That is normal in other places in Europe—places that have not opted out. It is the norm. The second recommendation is:

“Give child refugees the right to sponsor their parents as well as any siblings up to the age of 25 to join them in the UK under family reunification rules.”

The third recommendation is:

“Reintroduce legal aid for family reunion applications.”

Members will not be surprised to learn that those recommendations mirror closely, if not precisely, what my Bill set out to do. I refer to the Bill that has been choked by the Government in this House of Commons, despite the fact that it has had laudable and welcome support from Members from Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Change UK, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party, and from luminaries among the Conservative Back Benchers. All those voices from across the political spectrum were supporting the Bill.

I just want to say one thing to the Government and to colleagues across this House, as I know you want me to speak for only 12 to 15 minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] I should have mentioned that the Democratic Unionist party is supporting my Bill. Indeed, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is here, so thank goodness I remembered before I was reminded; otherwise, we might have had an Adjournment debate on the issue. The Bill has been supported across the House, and the plea I make to colleagues is that if the Government do not move on this now—there will be reshuffles, so there will be different personnel at the Home Office and things might move on a bit better—whoever else comes out at the beginning of the ballot in the next Parliament should be willing and open to move forward on this Bill, because it is shameful that the Government have not moved with this. Time in politics is short and time in government is even shorter, and things could have been done that have not happened. The Government could have looked back proudly had they reacted and done this, but I hope, and warn them, that this will not be the only time; I expect this to come forward again.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is commendably keeping to time, and I shall be brief. One thing that the Government could do, in advance of whatever attitude they take to his Bill, is recognise that Syrians whom many of our communities have accepted are desperate to bring their families in. Does he agree that it would be right and proper if the Government were to encourage that, rather than put hurdles in these people’s way?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Absolutely; people would be able to function far better. One thing that struck me from speaking to refugees—these things do not come through in briefing papers so clearly—is the difficulty they have sleeping at night because of worry. If someone is waking up at night worrying about family members, that must have an impact on the way they can conduct, advance and live the rest of their life. That must be a problem, so I absolutely agree with what the hon. Gentleman said, and I am glad he has raised that issue.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one other barrier the Government must address is the high cost of citizenship applications, particularly for child refugees, who might have been here for many years? It costs the Government £300 to process a citizenship application, but they charge children, refugees, more than £1,200 to process one. This is profiteering; the Government make more than £2 million a week on these applications. That is one area where the Government could make the process of welcoming people to our country much better.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman presents the point perfectly, and well done for that. It shows the feeling across the House on this, and I totally agree with what he said. There is so much the Government could do. There is so much the Home Office could do. It could be a facilitator. It could help, but for some reason it chooses not to be the great help it could be, and that is very disappointing.

At one of the events we held this week, we heard from Play for Progress, which helps with therapy, counselling and dealing with post-traumatic stress disorders through music, trust and knowing people. It is run by two doctors, Anna Macdonald and Saliah Khan. I thank the Inter-Parliamentary Union for giving us the room on Tuesday. We heard how the idea of using X-rays, which are not certain in their outcomes, to prove that people are of a certain age was unethical. We are talking about the use of X-rays to determine this from people’s bones, even when a paediatrician has said someone is a child and a number of medical experts have done the same. In some cases a social worker, but in most cases a bureaucrat will be saying that someone is not a child. The doctors pointed out that not only does one try to avoid using X-rays on children, but this is being done to try to prove an inconclusive point. It is being done for non-medical needs—for bureaucratic needs. That betrays a sad attitude within the Home Office and where it is leading this.

A constituent of mine from Lewis wants the Education Secretary to “increase funding for ESOL” so that people can learn English as a second language. She said that the money that would be spent on that would soon be recouped, through taxes during a person’s

“first eight months of employment at the national average wage.”

I will bring my remarks to an end, as otherwise you will start clearing your throat, Madam Deputy Speaker, as is the given signal. First, however, I wish to thank the number of organisations that have been helpful to me. I am sure that if I am not in the top seven in the ballot next time, they will help whoever is near the top. I wish to thank Lucy Wake at Amnesty International, Sam Nadel at Oxfam, James Bulman at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Seb Klier at the Refugee Council and Jon Featonby at the British Red Cross for all the help they gave on the Bill. The great thing is that that shows that many people care about refugees. We are living in fairly stable circumstances, whereas in the past many people from the highlands and islands moved for economic reasons and due to highland clearances. It is not inconceivable that things will change and in the future our great grandchildren or those who come after might be in a situation that results in their becoming refugees.

I wish to end on a case study. People’s stories and situations are better here than the facts that we can drily drag from any situation. The case is as follows:

“Muhammed and Amal are from Syria. They fled to Libya with their four children shortly after the conflict began. Life in Libya became increasingly dangerous while they were there and after two years Muhammed decided to make the journey to Europe. Muhammed was granted refugee status in the UK. Aware that his son, Kusai, was due to turn 18 very soon, making him ineligible for family reunion, Muhammed immediately began the process of applying to bring his family to the UK.

That application was rejected. Muhammed knew that his 20-year-old daughter, Athar, might not be accepted but also knew that, under family reunion law, he had the right to bring his wife and any children under the age of 18 to the UK. It turned out that the reason for the rejection was Kusai’s passport expiring while the family was in Libya. While awaiting that decision Kusai turned 18 and became ineligible for family reunion. Muhammed appealed, and a judged ruled that while Muhammed’s wife and two youngest children were eligible for family reunion and could come to the UK, Kusai and Athar were rejected on the basis of being over 18 years old.

While Athar has remained in the region, Kusai decided to take matters into his own hands and took the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to a makeshift camp in unthinkable conditions in Calais.”

That was in the famous jungle. That is the story that people have and it forms part of the points I can raise in my 15 minutes on refugees. Many other Members will raise different and better points, and we will all learn today from Members in all parts of the House as they say what they have to say. I look forward to hearing it.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), not least because I can congratulate him on having secured this debate on an important topic, and also because, as he knows, my great-grandfather left the Western Isles after the clearances and was himself someone who, for economic reasons, was driven first to Glasgow and eventually to England. Had it worked out otherwise, I might have been a constituent of the hon. Gentleman’s, and in a rather small constituency who knows what could have happened. Let me leave that point to one side and move on to another personal matter.

Every day—today is as every day—I walk from home down to Chislehurst railway station. I go down a road called Old Hill, and on the junction with Lubbock Road there is a seat with a memorial plaque on it that is inscribed in these terms:

“Rev. & Mrs. I. E Davidson & Friends

Gratefully remembered by

All the BMJ Children

(68 of them rescued from Central Europe 1939)”.

The BMJ referred to is the Barbican Mission to the Jews. Reverend Davidson and his wife were based at Christ church in Lubbock Road in Chislehurst, where they set up a home for children who had been rescued, predominantly from Czechoslovakia and neighbouring countries, during the Kindertransport. They found refuge and a welcome in my home community of Chislehurst and are remembered there to this day with fondness and affection. This is an appropriate opportunity for me to pay tribute to their memory, and to all the people in our community in Bromley and Chislehurst who to this day keep alive that memory and that work for those who have suffered through displacement.

I was a sponsor of the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill and hope the Government will reflect on the failure to allow that modest Bill to progress. In my judgment it is a shame, because the attitude embodied by the Davidsons and their friends and neighbours in Chislehurst before the second world war is the most genuine reflection of this country’s record and approach to refugees. The facts show that Britain has a very good track record on resettling the most vulnerable. It is worth observing that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said that the UK maintains its standing as one of the most generous countries for refugee resettlement. The UNHCR judges the community sponsorship programme, which enables community groups to welcome and support refugees directly, to be a success, although it is still in its early phases, and hopes that it will continue. In a sense, community sponsorship of that sort builds on the work of the Davidsons and their friends in the Barbican Mission all those years ago. I very much hope that the Government will continue that work and build on it.

In a recent written statement, the Home Secretary observed:

“The UK has a long history of supporting refugees in need of protection.”

He noted that we have welcomed tens of thousands of people in recent years and, since 2016, have resettled

“more refugees from outside Europe than any other EU member state”,

and I am glad that my right hon. Friend also confirmed

“the UK’s ongoing commitment to resettlement and set out our plans for after 2020.”—[Official Report, 17 June 2019; Vol. 662, c. 1-2WS.]

Compared with that good track record and generous spirit, it seems to me a little jarring that we have a restriction that prevents children who have come here lawfully as refugees—whose refugee status has been accepted—from being able to bring their closest relatives to come and support them. We are not talking about a large number of people, nor are we talking about abuse of the asylum system. The key point to remember is that these people have been found and accepted to be genuinely in need and have proper refugee status.

As the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar said, it is shame that the policy seems currently to be driven on the basis of the frankly ill-informed and unsubstantiated fear of a pull factor. The hon. Gentleman referred to the speech of Lord Kerr in the other place, in which the noble Lord dismissed that fear, but I wish to take the matter one step further. This country’s upper tribunal recently considered a case in relation to this matter, and the judgement was critical of the Government’s position. Mr Justice McCloskey overturned a decision to refuse the application made by a 19-year-old boy, who was recognised as a refugee when he was 16, to be allowed to sponsor his mother and brother to join him in the UK. One of the arguments on which the Government had relied in the initial decision was that it was in the public interest not to allow the family reunion application. The Government argued that other would-be child refugees

“would be at risk of trafficking and exploitation in their quest to reach the United Kingdom”—

that is the suggestion of the pull factor. In his judgment, Mr Justice McCloskey was pretty damning of that suggestion, saying that

“there is no evidence underlying”

that argument. He went on to say—I agree with him on this—that allowing reunification

“will promote, rather than undermine, the public interest in this respect.”

Mr Justice McCloskey is right, the Government are wrong, and they should think again in that regard.

Because we are talking about a small number of people and because the current system is based on what appears to be a policy premise that is unsubstantiated by evidence—that position is clearly borne out by the court, and I have seen no intrinsic or palpable evidence anywhere to suggest that a pull factor can be shown to exist—it seems to me that, although in many respects I am proud of what my Government have done, in this respect they let themselves down by taking a needlessly restrictive and, forgive me for saying so, a somewhat mean-spirited approach in relation to this comparatively small number of people. We have an opportunity to look at this again. By allowing refugee children to sponsor their immediate families, we would reduce the number of people who make irregular journeys to reach the UK. There is evidence of people sometimes making irregular journeys because they are unable to come through the proper channels.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is making a great speech. One point to consider is that over the past 18 months the Home Office has said on several occasions that it is following the progress of the family reunion Bill and talking to stakeholders—a sort of indication of change—but what has really happened, change-wise? The Home Office cannot stall on this much longer, given the body and breadth of opinion stating that the rules should change and come into line with those elsewhere, and that we should be decent to this small number of people.

[Robert Neill]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Whenever I talk to people in my constituency, whatever their political association, their gut reaction to this issue is that it just seems only fair, decent and reasonable to allow reunification. That is right and I hope the Government will think again.

The hon. Gentleman observes correctly that this has been a matter of debate and consideration in a number of places. In 2016, the Home Affairs Committee said:

“It seems to us perverse that children who have been granted refugee status in the UK are not then allowed to bring their close family to join them in the same way as an adult would be able to do. The right to live safely with family should apply to child refugees just as it does to adults.”

That must be right. If we want people who are genuine refugees to settle in this country, to integrate well with our society and to make a success of themselves, as so many of those children who were housed in Lubbock Road in Chislehurst were able to do—their stories are available in the archives of Christ church, Chislehurst—it seems to me to be only generous and decent to enable them to bring their close family, which is therefore a limited and concise number.

The Government have the opportunity to carry out a review, and I hope the Minister, who I know is a humane and caring person, will reflect on this matter. We need not put a needless stain on our reputation, which is otherwise good, by adopting such a restrictive approach in relation to this small number of children. In that spirit, I hope that the Government will think again about this matter. If this debate on World Refugee Day serves to do that, as it serves to honour the memory of the Davidsons and many others who helped people at that time, that will be a good thing and we will not have wasted our time today.

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[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) on bringing this motion to the House on World Refugee Day. I am proud to be a sponsor of his Bill, which will be of great benefit to society in general and to the young people who need the help it offers.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as this Parliament keeps limping on, there is certainly plenty of time for the Government to get the Bill in Committee and table a money resolution so that we can make progress? I am sure that he, like me, would like to see that happen.

[Bambos Charalambous]

It is frustrating that the Bill has stalled because the Government will not give it a money resolution, and it is very sad that we are in this situation after the Bill has passed its Second Reading. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to see progress.

On 9 February, I visited some of the refugee camps just over the channel with Care4Calais—a charity that distributes clothes, sleeping bags, tents and other necessities. I cannot forget the harsh conditions in which the refugees there find themselves, with little electricity or hot food, no hot water, no heating, no privacy and the constant background of cold and damp. All this is coupled with the knowledge that their loved ones still face danger back in the country they have escaped.

I heard at first hand from refugees in Calais about the life-threatening situations they had fled. For some, it was religious persecution; for others, the stark realities of war and sometimes torture. Many of the refugees were young—still in their early teens—but already they had experienced horrors in their lives that many of us would find difficult to imagine. The terrifying steps these refugees will take to escape torture and persecution are telling. I spoke to young boys who had clung to the underside of lorries, risking death for hours, and others who had been stowed in the boots of cars. I met a family who had crossed the sea in winter in a tiny dinghy the size of one of the rowing boats in St James’s Park.

We must ask ourselves what prompts people to take such extreme actions. These are not the actions of people who have the choice of a comfortable life back home, nor of people who have taken decisions lightly: no, they are the actions of desperate people who want to survive and build a better life; people who need and deserve the help of rich nations like our own.

It was clear in Calais how often it is the young men who will make the journey first in the hope that they can carve an escape route for their loved ones. One young man I spoke to in Calais told me that he often speaks to his mother on the phone. I asked him, “Does she know where you’re living now?” He smiled ruefully and answered, “She’ll cry if I tell her, so I say I’m in a hotel. I just want a good job so I can make her safe.” I asked him what brought him to the camp. Like so many others, he said that it was his family’s conversion to Christianity that effectively placed a death sentence on their heads.

We cannot sit back and ignore this kind of persecution or people’s death-defying attempts to escape, and should they make the journey safely here, we surely owe it to them to allow family reunion. Some argue that to reunite children with their families will mean taking in too many people. I am afraid that that argument is one of prejudice and selfishness. According to Oxfam, the UK has taken in substantially fewer people than would constitute its fair share. In 2018, the UK received five asylum applications for every 10,000 people living in the UK, while the European average is 14. Even at that number, over two thirds of applications are rejected. In this context, it seems nothing less than cruel to block the reunion of refugee children with their families. It is well known that doing so will condemn these children to greater likelihood of mental health problems and leave them less able to engage with society. This right already exists for adult refugees in the UK, who are able to bring their families over to join them having been successful in their asylum application. It is therefore perverse that the same right is not given to child refugees.

One of my own team in Parliament is part of a family who fled torture in Algeria in the 1960s. Her family are proud of their integration and achievements in this country: proud to be British, proud to contribute economically and socially, and proud to have done well in their chosen professions. They have thrived, but how many others are prevented from doing so because they are being cut off from their loved ones?

That brings me on to the subject of legal aid. It is now seven years since legal aid was made unavailable for family reunion cases. Although the need for family reunion has greatly increased, the Ministry of Justice has been prevented from bringing justice to refugee children. The fact that £600 million has been taken from the legal aid budget in the name of austerity has meant more isolated children, left to fend for themselves. Refugee family reunion has been described by the Government as a straightforward immigration matter, but there is clear evidence to show that this is not the case.

In its report, “Not so straightforward”, the British Red Cross argues that a substantial percentage of refugee family reunion cases are highly complex. These cases are in fact anything but straightforward. Yet because of the removal of legal aid, refugees wishing to reunite with their families must apply without legal help or must themselves pay to hire legal advisers. Of course, refugees are rarely able to hire solicitors or legal advisers on their own due to financial insecurity. Instead, they are left to navigate a fiendishly complicated system that sometimes requires DNA evidence and documents that have been long since destroyed in the rush to escape war or torture.

If we are to be the open, civilised and tolerant country that we aspire to be, we urgently need to make refugee family reunion possible. Part of this would include the Ministry of Justice committing to a statutory funding regime for legal assistance for refugee family reunion cases. We cannot pass by on the other side. It is time as a nation that we behaved like the good Samaritan we should be and took family reunion seriously.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Today marks World Refugee Day. I am proud to represent Brightside and Hillsborough in Sheffield. We have a proud legacy of welcoming and supporting refugees over many decades. My city was the first “city of sanctuary”, established more than a decade ago. We are home to a vulnerable person relocation scheme. I am pleased that our Labour council has recommitted to the scheme until 2020, and hopefully beyond. Yet the scale of the challenge is enormous. Globally, there are 25 million people who are refugees and 68.5 million forcibly displaced from their homes due to war, persecution or environmental catastrophe. Today we are reminded of their plight and suffering, but also recognise the enormous contribution that refugees make here in the UK and beyond.

In March 2018, I stood before the House to deliver a speech in favour of the Second Reading of the private Member’s Bill on family reunion introduced by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil). I explained that I supported the Bill for all the refugee and migrant constituents in Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, and for their loved ones who were unable to join them in the UK. I talked about my constituent Abdul—a young man from Syria who had settled in Sheffield after completing his degree there. Abdul attempted to rejoin his family in Syria, facing many dangerous situations along the way. It quickly became apparent to him that a reunion in Syria would not be possible due to the ongoing war, so he returned to the UK. On his return, Abdul made every effort to ensure that his family would join him safely in the country he now called his home. He sought help from every agency and organisation available to him to be able to be reunited with his family as quickly as possible. Despite his efforts, and compliance with the Home Office guidance and procedures, the process proved to be painfully slow and disappointing. It was an arduous journey for Abdul, separated from his elderly parents who had serious health problems for over 11 years while the request for reunion was dealt with.

I am very pleased that after that speech and following my plea to the Minister, Abdul and his family were finally reunited. I met the family a few weeks after they had arrived safely. It is fair to say that it was an emotional day for us all. Both I and his mother cried. I would like to place on record my sincere gratitude to the Immigration Minister, who responded swiftly to my request and was able to assist Abdul and his family. However, while Home Office policy can be useful in exceptional scenarios like that of Abdul and his family, I am afraid it is not good enough that families are still suffering, proving that the system is not fit for purpose—and the cases continue to come forward.

Only recently I have been approached with another deeply worrying case. Ms Sermani is a Syrian refugee, too, who came to the UK through family reunion to join her husband. She was separated from her children, aged six and 10, while undertaking the extremely dangerous journey to safety. Four years have now passed, and we are aware that the children, now 10 and 14, are currently living in Turkey. Their biological father disappeared during the war, and his whereabouts are not known. It is quite possible that he will have lost his life during the conflict in Syria.

It has been four desperately sad years since Ms Sermani has seen her young children. I cannot begin to imagine what it must feel like to live with so much distance between them. Despite her numerous attempts to bring them to the UK, she has had no success. I have been informed by the Home Office that under current rules, as she came to the UK under her husband’s refugee status, she does not have refugee status in her own right. This means that she cannot bring her children to join her through a family reunion application. Her husband is unable to make the application for them to reunite under his status as he is not their biological father. It is beyond shocking that we are confronted with this situation. Due to Home Office rules, the children will remain in another country without either parent.

I raise Ms Sermani’s case, with her consent, to highlight her personal plight but also the real, practical problems we are facing when dealing with such cases. These arbitrary criteria leave people extremely vulnerable, falling through the cracks of the system. The current bureaucratic barriers are actively keeping parents separated from their children. This is not the Britain that I know and we must do better.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady highlights an interesting case. Surely there have to be guiding principles from which the Home Office’s rules stem. The rules have not been written from those principles in a way that allows that person to come here. In the absence of rules, the Home Office should fall back on principles, and the woman being able to be reunited with her children is a case in point.

[Gill Furniss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. I hope that my speech today will alleviate the process for this family. I hope the Minister is willing to help, and I ask her to reconsider the application of Ms Sermani in my constituency. I also ask her to look at what more the Government can do to ensure that the guidance allows for greater flexibility in cases that do not fit the criteria directly.

Finally, as we mark World Refugee Day, I urge the Minister to allow the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill to come back to the House, so that we may move forward. It is vital that the House has the opportunity to debate the Bill in Committee as soon as possible. We owe it to the many people who will rely on the passing of the Bill to be reunited with their loved ones.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I welcome the tone of this debate; it has been absolutely fantastic. By comparison with the debate on 16 March last year, there have been no voices speaking against or running up false flags. We are trying to do something that is very unambitious—we are only trying to catch up with 25 other European countries that have no difficulty operating the modest change that we are trying to bring in. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) said, people are using dinghies and so on to cross the channel because they cannot get here legally, and we are just trying to open up the legal avenues.

I thank the many Members who have contributed, including the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill); I thank him for his knowledge, what he added to the debate and what he told us about Chislehurst and his honourable past. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) gave a great, wide-ranging speech. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) pointed out that we should not have any need for this debate. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) related the story of his trip to the jungle. I mentioned in my speech that when we meet people, it opens up another avenue of thought. People are in the jungle because they have changed their religion—in the instance he raised, they had become Christian—and have to escape for the protection of their own lives.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) made a very interesting point about the case that she is dealing with involving the woman who cannot bring her children over, and I hope that the Home Office will have been listening. I do not think I have interacted with the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) before, but she is certainly following in the footsteps of the great Paul Flynn, who was a friend of mine in the House, and I welcome the humanitarian note that she struck. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who demonstrated his excellent Gaelic pronunciation, gave a speech, again, driven by his humanity.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East for making very good points, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) for his intervention, in which he said that we have the time in this Parliament for a lot of things to happen. I take the Minister’s point about an instruction to the business managers, who are just few yards outside the door, to enable this to happen. I hope that the business managers in the Conservative Whips Office are listening to this microphone and making sure that that happens.

I want to mention Jalal from Afghanistan, who spoke at our event on Tuesday about what it is like being a young refugee. He spoke very well in, I think, his third or fourth language, including about the difficulties that young men, in particular, face and how they can fall through the gaps. There is a lot to be done and yet to do, but we are only trying to do something very little at the moment.

Finally, I appreciate Members’ very good efforts to say the name of my constituency. I sometimes do not find it easy to say the name of Welsh constituencies, but that gives us a little reminder, by serendipity, of the language challenge that is presented to many refugees. We only have to learn two or three words to say “Na h-Eileanan an Iar” but most Members here did it very well, albeit with concentration. I thank them for that and for their contributions, and I will let you move on, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I see that you are very anxious to do so.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

That was the longest two minutes I have ever seen.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that 20 June is World Refugee Day; further notes that, with record levels of global displacement across the world, many refugee families have been separated by war and persecution; welcomes that in 2018 the UK granted 5,806 family reunion visas to partners and children of refugees in the UK; and calls on the Government to introduce reforms to family reunion rules to ensure that the close relatives of all refugees in the UK have safe and legal pathways to reunite with their families in the UK.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In calling the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), I am calling no less a figure than the Chair of the International Trade Committee.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

That is much appreciated, Mr Speaker. This cuts across the Department for International Trade, of course, and I have a constituency interest.

The Minister talks about a year-long engagement. She told me the very same last May. She said that the Home Office would reflect and ask industry for its views. We hear the same rhetoric today. It is quite simple: she should go to her boss, the Home Secretary—a man who needs to show leadership at the moment—and ask him to lift his pen and get fishing boats working on the west coast of Scotland. It will happen that easily. Get it shifted, make it happen, and make it happen this year. We do not want another year-long engagement.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I do not think I have quite recovered from him appearing in my office asking me to write visas on the back of an envelope for those whom he deemed to be appropriate. It is important that the Home Secretary and I listen to all sectors, take the time to reflect on the advice received from the Migration Advisory Committee and the proposals set out in the White Paper, and make sure that we make the right decision, not simply the decision that the hon. Gentleman is demanding.

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

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I will make some progress and then give way later.

Given the concerns that were raised in the referendum, we must control immigration to make it fairer and more sustainable. We wanted to ensure that our proposals were based on the very best evidence, which was why we commissioned the independent Migration Advisory Committee to review the impact of European migration on the UK’s economy and society. It was clear that, with free movement, we could not guarantee that we would maximise the benefits of immigration, so it recommended a system that was focused on skilled workers. We heard that, and our White Paper, which was published before Christmas, proposed a skills-based system welcoming talent from around the world, with no automatic preference for the EU.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

May I caution the Home Secretary about setting too much store by the Migration Advisory Committee? For years, as he will know, I have been talking to various Immigration Ministers—they come and they go—about trying to get fishermen from other parts of the world to work on boats on the west coast of Scotland. Northern Irish Members and Members on the east coast of Scotland have been talking to them about that as well. The advice that comes back is that fishing is not a skilled business. If it is not skilled, can I get some of these guys from the Migration Advisory Committee to go and work on the boats so that they can understand the business? The point is that we need people to come, but they are not coming, because the Secretary of State is setting too much store by the Migration Advisory Council.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I say to the hon. Gentleman that he is down on the speaking list—save something for later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I absolutely agree. We could spend many hours debating, and highlighting the flaws of, so many of the features of the family migration rules. Another is the fact that this threshold only takes into account the earnings of the UK sponsor; it does not take into account, for example, the potential earnings of those who want to come and join their family members here. So these rules achieve absolutely nothing but keeping families apart—families split apart and destroyed.

Our asylum system also urgently needs important reform: to fix and extend the “move-on period” that forces newly recognised refugees into homelessness and poverty; to end the poverty support rates for asylum seekers and allow them the right to work; and to respect the vote in this House on the Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill to extend family reunion rights.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fundamental point is that those under a certain age who have been designated as refugees should have the same rights as people over that age, and it is very nasty not to give those rights to children in particular?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the UK is once more an outlier in terms of the refugee family reunion rules it has in place. Sadly, the Bill does not mention asylum at all, and gives us little chance to address those issues.

These and a million other things need to be fixed, but this Bill does not do that; instead, it provides the Government with a big blank cheque to extend many of these flawed features to hundreds of thousands more people, each and every year.

On EU nationals who are already here, although scrapping the fee for settled status is welcome, much more needs to be done. The Home Secretary says he is listening, but the biggest concern just now is what happens in the event of no deal. Unilateral promises from the Government are fine so far as they go, but promises can be here today and gone tomorrow and, being unilateral, they are no help to the UK in Europe, nor do they have the force of international law. That is why MPs across the House have repeatedly urged the Government to seek to ring-fence the deal on citizen rights so that they can be guaranteed once and for all sooner rather than later. But the Government have shown absolutely no interest so far. We should use the Bill to try to make them at least attempt to secure such a deal, and we should use the Bill to enshrine the rights of the 3 million in primary legislation so that they cannot be changed in the blink of an eye via immigration rules.

Other questions remain. Why are there differences between the positions of EU citizens in a no-deal scenario compared with if a deal is agreed? Why are there to be settled status appeal rights if there is a deal, but not if there is no deal? Why are the appeal rights not in the Bill? Why are voting rights not protected? Why are the 3 million to be refused physical documentation despite calls from the Exiting the European Union Committee to make that available? Where is the clarity about rights for Surinder Singh cases, and the different rights of carers from Chen, Ibrahim and Teixeira case law?

Perhaps most significantly of all, we still do not know anything about what will happen to those who fail to apply for settled status in time. Why should there be such a severe cut-off date? It is inevitable that hundreds of thousands will not apply in time: many children; people who have been resident for many years; those who think having a permanent residence document is sufficient; people who struggle with language or technology; vulnerable and exploited people; people who were born here and do not think they need to apply—the list goes on. We must also remember that in a recent British Medical Association survey, 37% of EU national doctors were unaware of the scheme. That does not bode well.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

When Conservatives are on the stump or going around the country, they always talk about getting rid of red tape and taking the Government out of the centre of people’s lives. Right now, through this sort of legislation, they are putting massive amounts of red tape in people’s lives and putting Government right in the middle of people’s lives. Where things are currently going seamlessly, they want to introduce a ramping up of bureaucracy. That is shocking.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; the Bill will catch hundreds of thousands of people into one of the most horrible bureaucracies that the Government have managed to create, and we should have absolutely nothing to do with it at all.

All the people—inevitably, hundreds of thousands of them—who fail to apply in time for the EU settled status scheme will be cast into the hostile environment, and that will make this a Windrush crisis writ large. The Bill creates that danger, but provides no clarity on, or protection from, the danger it creates.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Badenoch]

In that case, nor will I take any lectures from Scottish National party Members. We can see from their sparkling racial diversity just how much they care about immigration. As someone who came to this country as a first-generation immigrant, I have seen at first hand both the positives and the negatives of immigration. There are not enough people who are willing to speak the truth on the subject.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Come and join us.

[Mrs Badenoch]

No, I am not interested in joining any nationalist party, but I thank the hon. Gentleman whose constituency I forget for inviting me to join. The fact is that if we are to have a calm debate about immigration, what we need are facts and figures, not smug self-righteousness, which is all that we get from those on the Opposition Benches.

I will continue on the topic of free movement, which is what this Bill is about. We all have different constituency experiences, which will have an impact on this discussion. I have had many positive discussions with Conservative Members. For instance, my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Colin Clark) talked about positive impacts in relation to immigration in his constituency. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) talk about some of the difficulties that his constituency has had. We have both positive and negative experiences.

What creates the problem is when Members on the Opposition Benches, and perhaps some on these Benches, feel that only they have the best intentions and that anyone else who speaks with concerns is speaking from xenophobia and racism. That is absolutely wrong. We cannot think the very best of ourselves and the worst of anyone else who is not in our party, or who is not sitting on our side of the House. I am very, very willing, even as an immigrant, to hear arguments against immigration, because I know that immigration is a global issue. It is not a UK issue. Every single country in the world is talking about it. It is completely crazy for us to have this discussion as if it were a UK-only issue, or even an EU-only issue, and believe that no one else has the experience to be able to speak on it.

From the perspective of my constituency, immigration has, perhaps, an indirect effect. The north of my constituency has a huge biotech and pharmaceutical industry, and many of the arguments that people make there are very, very similar to those that have been made by SNP Members and by my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and others, about the need to ensure that we continue to have a strong relationship with the EU—that is something that I support. Speaking as someone who was a former London Assembly member, I have also seen how immigration has an indirect effect on those of us outside London. My Essex constituency has seen a huge rise in house prices and house building, which is having an effect on its population in a very significant and profound way. It is not because loads of immigrants are coming to take on our jobs, but because lots of people who migrate to London raise prices and take up housing there, causing a push-out effect on other parts of the country, which we do not get the resources to deal with. As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), who is no longer in his place, we should be looking at trying to reduce the impact of negative consequences on places such as Saffron Walden and Uttlesford District Council.

[Mrs Badenoch]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. We need to look at what is actually happening and to think of an immigration system that will work for the very north of our country as well as for the very south. There will not be a one-size-fits-all approach. I am very willing to listen to arguments from Opposition Members about how much they need it, but they also need to extend the same courtesy and not pretend that everyone on this side of the House, including people like me who grew up in Nigeria, are racist. That is completely mad.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady talks about the UK’s one-size-fits-nobody migration policy. Like other countries such as Canada and Switzerland, does she support decentralising or devolving the issue, or is she still of the mindset that we must hold things centrally in London, and that London knows best?

[Mrs Badenoch]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, and I can see why he is making it. I am not someone who supports devolution, and I do not think that that would necessarily solve the problem. [Interruption.] I am talking about the devolution of this issue. We have a national border, so devolving national border issues to specific places will not solve the problem, but I take his point.

Social security co-ordination is another reason why I support the Bill. Those of us with long memories will remember that this very matter was one reason why former Prime Minister David Cameron went to the EU to seek a negotiated change to some of these things. Perhaps if we had been able to resolve this issue, we would not be having this debate now.

We can do better. We should be asking ourselves more questions around migration. On free movement, is it fair, for instance, for us to absorb all the youth and young people from southern Mediterranean countries and not to give back? We do not talk enough about brain drain, for example. We do not talk enough about villages in eastern Europe that are losing all their young people. Migration is not going two ways. Not enough people from this country are going to eastern Europe. We talk about going to France and to the Netherlands—

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). Indeed, I will be following him into the No Lobby this evening, because I, too, will be voting against this Bill.

It is a funny old world when—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[Anna Soubry]

No, no—I have only just begun. I will give way in a moment.

It is a funny old world that we live in when, faced with this Bill, Her Majesty’s Opposition—the Labour party—find themselves in the bizarre and, I would argue, appalling position of abstaining on it. What shame they bring on a formerly great party.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I want to give the right hon. Lady some breaking news: apparently Labour has U-turned on its abstention and is now going to oppose the Bill. Is that right?

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

Wait and see.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My goodness, we have breaking news in the Chamber: “Wait and see.”

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he addresses his remarks through the Chair, not directly to the Front Bench.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I was only going to make a couple of points, but as I have listened to the debate, the number of points has grown. I shall kick off by correcting, or perhaps taking on—I do this on migration quite a lot—the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch). I was very disappointed by the remarks of the hon. Lady, who is not in her place, and the sort of reverse dog whistle when she looked at the SNP Benches. She should be aware that the first ethnic minority Member of the Scottish Parliament was Bashir Ahmad of the SNP, that the first Government Minister in the devolved Scottish Government was Humza Yousaf of the SNP, and that the first Muslim woman from Scotland to be an MP was Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh of the SNP. I merely put that on record so that people such as the hon. Member for Saffron Walden do not repeat that sort of nonsense again.

This immigration debate is an interesting one. It is not a debate about what we want or what we could do; it is a debate about what we can stop, what we can control and what we can limit, and that is very disappointing. There is actually something really akin to the Soviet central planning of the 1920s onwards: we have Soviet tractor statistics. That is really the sort of theology that is driving this current Home Office—centralised planning and red tape, with Government at the heart of people’s lives and building bureaucracy where there is no bureaucracy at the moment. All the time, what the Government will do is increase the work in MPs’ offices up and down the country as a result of the nonsense we are going to have.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the historical point. In response to what the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) said, does my hon. Friend recognise, as I do, that freedom of movement was actually brought in to replace the extremism of Soviet communism and Nazism? It is one of the greatest achievements in history—economically, diplomatically and culturally. Is it not a great shame that people such as the hon. Gentleman can see it go so easily and cheaply?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Absolutely. When people mix together, rub shoulders and talk to each other, they learn quite a lot from each other. They stop fearing each other and stop believing the demagogues who are telling them all sorts of nonsense about the other.

We will not just see more work in our own MPs’ offices, but add anxiety and angst to people’s lives because of the nonsense that will come before us. What is all this based on? It is based on a voodoo referendum. The question was about leave or remain, but it quickly became akin to slaughtering a chicken, looking at its entrails and claiming that the people meant us to leave Euratom, that the people meant something on standards and tariffs, that the people meant something on the customs union, or that the people meant something on the single market. It is claimed that the people meant something else again on migration and freedom of movement, and on the European Court of Justice. It is nonsense, but people draw all sorts of conclusions. This is voodoo politics based on a voodoo guff referendum that we had a couple of years ago.

[Alison Thewliss]

I am almost loth to interrupt my hon. Friend because he is making some excellent points. He mentioned the increased casework for MPs’ offices. My surgery on Friday overran by an hour and 10 minutes, all because of Home Office problems. Does he agree that the Home Office cannot cope with the additional 3 million people, and woe betide anyone else in the system at the moment?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend’s point stands for itself and is well made. As we are dealing with further voodoo from the Home Office, let me say that the problems that we have at present are based on voodoo thinking. Part of it was “Take back control”, but when we are dealing with the Home Office, no one is in control, least of all the Home Office itself.

The Bill is based on Soviet-style central planning and a desire for tractor statistics, but it does not take account of what we really need. I have raised one of the most important points with the Home Office time and again. It is said that we are in control and we do not have free movement, but if we need people to come and work on fishing boats—people from outside the European Union want to come here, their Governments want them to come, our local authority wants them to come, fishing organisations want them to come and our communities want them to come; indeed everybody wants them to come except somebody in an office in London—we are told it cannot happen. The Home Office in London says no, and boats are tied up.

[Christine Jardine]

The hon. Gentleman’s constituency, like mine, depends a lot on EU immigrants. In my constituency it is in the education and health sectors, and he has mentioned fisheries. Does he agree that the Home Office needs to think about allowing people who come here as asylum seekers to work earlier and to make a contribution to the economy, rather than robbing them of their dignity?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

That is correct, and the point has been well made by many MPs. If it was not for the voodoo thinking of the Home Office, and if normal people were allowed to decide this, that would be happening, to everyone’s benefit.

I introduced a private Member’s Bill on refugees, and I would have thought that this Bill would be an opportunity for the Home Office to extend the same rights to people who have already been given refugee status and are under the age of 18 as it does to those over the age of 18. Again, we have voodoo arguments and nonsense thinking from the Home Office about why it should not do this. There is an opportunity. The Home Office could end the need for my Bill if it wanted to, and it is disappointing that it does not.

We are happy in Scotland, but we need more people. Switzerland has 26 cantons. Half the visas of people going into Switzerland are divided between the 26 cantons, and the other half are centrally controlled in Berne. Switzerland can manage to do that, but the UK cannot, because of voodoo thinking and a desire to keep control where the Home Office does not need control, thereby creating problems and messing up people’s lives unnecessarily. That is our lot, given that we are stuck with the Home Office as it is.

Migration is good. I will repeat that for anyone who is in any doubt: migration is good. I live on a small island in the Outer Hebrides and our construction industry is just about driven personally by a guy called Pawel Kochanowicz. He is a young man who came to live on Barra, and he works day in and day out. Such people are welcome, and the more like him, the better.

[Stephen Kerr]

After 12 years of an SNP Government in Scotland, and when other parts of the United Kingdom have a net increase in immigrant population, why is it that Scotland’s population does not really move?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

If the hon. Gentleman looks at the part of the UK that became independent 96 years ago, he will see it now enjoys five to six times greater growth. When a country controls all the levers of the economy, it finds that things improve. If a country is scared of responsibility and outsources it to someone else, it should not be surprised if its economy is in reverse. If the hon. Gentleman wants to take control of his life, he should follow the SNP’s route, as the example is there of Ireland, of Iceland, of Norway and of many other countries. What is he scared of? He is scared; that is his problem. He uses migration to make cheap political points on the back of mismanagement by the Home Office and the Government in London—he should be ashamed of himself. I am grateful to him for giving me that row; I particularly enjoyed it.

There are many benefits to migration, and it goes both ways. I have cousins who live in New Zealand. I have Maclean cousins in Cape Breton in Nova Scotia and MacNeil relatives in Vancouver. We have all benefited from the movement of people and, if they are watching, I say a quick hello to them. It is great to use the House of Commons for that opportunity.

My relatives have contributed to New Zealand, Canada and many other places. Other people have helped our country—I gave the example of Pawel Kochanowicz from Poland. The hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), made a more sensible intervention earlier when he said that the problem was a lack of resources. We need dynamic resource allocation to make sure that when populations grow, we get more housing, schools and hospitals, rather than people being blamed. As one of my hon. Friends said to me earlier, those people should be seen as strivers and as aspirational, but when the Home Office get hold of the situation, they are seen as a problem. There is no need for that.

Indeed, the Home Secretary himself conceded that the people who came here under free movement were good—that the students were good and everything was good. They were helping our economy. They were paying more tax than they were taking out. The Government are actually better off having people from other countries here paying more in, because people from this country tend to take out more than we put in. That is why the UK has had a deficit since 2001—a black hole. It has not paid its own way in all those years.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) suggested that we should perhaps take responsibility for migration away from the Home Office and give it to the Treasury, because then we might get some of the sense and logic that the hon. Member for Saffron Walden talked about in her speech. She is in no danger of promotion in the Tory party if she keeps talking about sense and logic, but she can take her own risks. We need to see this happen. An Immigration Minister said to me, “But we have the manifesto commitment on the one hand and the economy on the other.” I will spare that Minister’s blushes, but we know what Bill Clinton said about the economy. It is important that we look after the economy, and daft, voodoo-based Conservative election promises should be thrown in the bin with all the rest of the voodoo thinking that we have seen from the Home Office and the Government on something that is an opportunity. Migration is an opportunity, and the Bill should be an opportunity to do things, not to stop things.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr]

I have made it clear what I think should be happening in how Scotland’s two Governments work together.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Kerr]

I will not give way again, because I am now using my own time.

A lot more must be done about seasonal workers. It cannot be said often enough that a rigid system for seasonal workers will cause untold damage to the rural economy and to sectors such as hospitality and tourism, both of which are vital to my Stirling constituency.

We must also be fair to everyone and enforce the laws that we pass in this place. Will the Minister enlighten me about how we check and measure that people are leaving the United Kingdom? That should be straightforward enough in this data-driven age. It would help us not only to secure our borders against illegal immigration but to support those who may be able to remain but have outstayed their current visas. I have casework to that end.

Leaving the EU allows us to have a non-presidential—non-presidential? That may be as well, but it would allow us also to have a non-prejudicial immigration system that does not simply allow free movement for people from the EU but opens us up to the wider world of talent—to skilled workers, to knowledge workers, to compassionate workers, to people who would make a welcome contribution to our society. Stirling is open to business, to students and to people from across Europe and the world, and I want to see that continue well into the future.

I hope that Ministers will appreciate that we have challenges to meet in my part of Scotland. Stirling is the most beautiful place in these islands to live and work, with doorstep access to Scotland’s great cities and the wilderness beauty of the highlands, and we have secured an exciting city deal that will help us to explore the full potential of our local economy, but we need the ability to attract people to come and make their homes and their living in our communities. The SNP Government do not help much in that regard by making Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK.

I will undoubtedly support the Second Reading of the Bill tonight because I fully support its purpose, but further down the line, when other measures come about resulting from the White Paper consultation, I will of course do what I feel is in the best interests of our country and my constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sweeney]

Yes, perhaps she ought to have done.

The Home Office told my colleague that because her fiancé was resident in Dublin, he could not come to live with her in Glasgow. They had to move away to Brazil in order for him to apply to come to live in the UK, even though they had both been living in Ireland. What a bizarre anomaly that is! It is just one example of the absurd situation—the Kafkaesque nightmare—that many people encounter. As a result of that situation, my colleague had to go to work in Dublin. She left her job on the shipyards on the Clyde: another example of potential lost to the industry on the Clyde and to Scotland.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Of course if the Brazilian gentleman had become a full Irish citizen, he would have been able to move through the common travel area without hindrance. There is a question here, and it is one the Scots Tories do not like. They do not want Scotland to be able to contribute to common travel area migration in the way that Dublin and the London Government can. Does the hon. Gentleman support the Scottish Government’s having the same rights to enable people to become citizens as the Irish Government have, and having them freely move within the common travel area, which is not a problem?

[Mr Sweeney]

One interesting and more laudable aspect of the Bill is that it does seek to maintain a common travel area. I recognise that there are many issues with the Bill, which is why I will not be supporting it. I will certainly be going through the Lobby to vote against it.

One of the fundamental issues with the Bill is the lack of flexibility and the rigidity of the system, of which the £30,000 is merely one example. I have talked about my personal example, but I also think of many of the people I know from university, including junior doctors who start on a salary well below the £30,000 threshold, or other people I know from other countries around the world who will not meet that threshold. It is an entirely arbitrary and utterly absurd threshold that will destroy potential in our country. That is one reason why, if the Bill does go into Committee, I will be looking to support amendments that remove the threshold, so that we can have a skills-based system rather than an arbitrary salary threshold.

There are also severe problems with the 12-month visa scheme, and there are all sorts of issues relating to the protection of workers’ rights, which are another fundamental root cause. It is not a question of immigration undermining wages and working conditions in this country; it is the fact that organised labour has been under systematic assault by this Government for many years. That is what has driven down wages and why wages have stagnated. The power of organised labour to bargain collectively in this country has been systematically undermined by this Government. That is the root cause and the heart of the problem. It is not about immigration.

The swathe of Henry VIII powers that the Government seek to usurp from Parliament in favour of the Executive is extremely sinister and unacceptable. If the Bill receives its Second Reading tonight—I hope it does not, but it may well—that must be challenged in Committee.

The whole notion of an arbitrary cap on migrants panders to the worst sort of stereotypes and ought to be stopped. We cannot have a system that imposes such arbitrary limits. It is simply nonsensical from any sort of economic development perspective. Indeed, an arbitrary cap militates against any effort to try to improve the country’s prosperity.

I wholeheartedly support the proposal by the Mother of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), to introduce a 20-day limit to immigration detention. I deal closely with this issue in many constituency cases. The idea that this is the only country in Europe with a system of unlimited detention is absolutely shameful. The Government should accept my right hon. and learned Friend’s amendment without any Division and incorporate it into the Bill.

It would be a great gesture of good will and a great example of this country’s humanitarian tradition if we sought not to have arbitrary detention. In the past year, more than 10,000 have been detained in this country without limit. They can only count the days up; they cannot count the days down. Some 70% of those people are detained not because there is any sense that they have committed an offence; they are being detained entirely arbitrarily and it is an extremely distressing situation for many of them to be in. The system needs to be changed.

It is about not just the economic aspects but the opportunities denied because of our asylum system. Think of the huge talents thwarted. I have met doctors, surgeons, lawyers and chemists in my constituency who are all denied the opportunity to work in or contribute in any meaningful way to our society, because under our current asylum policy they are not able to work so are kept in limbo for years at a time. It affects not only the adults but those who came here, often as infants and small children, who have grown up as second-class citizens. There are very frustrated young adults in our society who have been denied the chance to go on holiday with their friends or to get student tuition. They have been denied any kind of meaningful recognition in our country.

I have confronted the appalling reality in my past 18 months or so as an MP. I have had to deal with more than 100 asylum cases in the past five months alone because of the Home Office’s failures to expedite those cases efficiently. I find it tragic when 18-year-olds are unable to take up a place to study law at university in Glasgow because they cannot get student finance because their immigration or asylum status has not been determined, or when champion boxers who want to represent Scotland internationally are unable to go abroad to fight in competitions because their asylum status has not been settled. That is shameful and a squandering of human talent and ability. That they are denied that chance is a collective loss to everyone in our country. It needs to be addressed urgently because it is a shameful situation.

The “move on” policy came into sharp focus in Glasgow last year. With the existing asylum contracts coming to a close in 2019, we learned that Serco, which had the asylum accommodation contract in Glasgow, was seeking to move on asylum seekers at a much faster rate than usual. We saw the prospect of mass destitution in Glasgow, because more than 300 potential evictions were going to happen. It is clear that the “move on” policy needs to be addressed. I would support measures to extend the period to give asylum seekers the right to assess where they are at the end of a process and to consider their right to appeal, without the threat of being turfed out on to the streets. That is especially true for those in particularly vulnerable situations when they have no recourse to public funds. If they are survivors of domestic abuse, care leavers or have dependants, it is shameful. We cannot be in a situation where they are reliant on charities to support them in the face of destitution. I just find that, in our country, that just cannot be acceptable. I hope that most people in this House recognise that appeal for basic dignity.

We face an economic challenge in Scotland, which we tried to address in previous years under a Labour Government through the fresh talent initiative. The initiative was successful in reversing Scotland’s historic population decline. From 1801 to 1901, the Scottish population grew by 180%, but from 1901 to 2001 it grew by just 10%, which was a huge demographic challenge for Scotland. The current immigration policy of this Government threatens to undo all that hard work to reverse Scotland’s population decline.

Having worked in Scottish enterprise, promoting initiatives such as the ScotGrad scheme, which has brought in international graduates and foreign language students to help promote Scottish exports abroad, I can say that the policy is a real threat to the future economic prosperity of this country. We must oppose this Bill for a number of reasons—reasons to do with thwarted opportunity, basic human dignity and economic opportunity. The Bill’s approach is totally wrongheaded. We need a new system rooted in economic opportunity, in human dignity and in the ability to grow our collective potential as a country.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

We have had a good and thorough debate this evening, and many wide-ranging issues have been raised, some of them even included in the Bill. I remember a couple of weeks ago nodding in agreement when the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) spoke of the importance of tone and language when discussing immigration. She was right then, and she was right today, and I thank all Members who have spoken thoughtfully and carefully on this topic in this debate.

The views expressed in this debate demonstrate the interest in the future borders and immigration system and the importance of getting it right. We have also heard from across the House of the great contribution that immigration has made to our society, culture and economy, and the Government value that contribution very much. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was generous in giving way in his opening speech, and indeed the debate has drifted some distance from the contents of the Bill, but I want to reflect on the contributions of as many Members as possible.

The end of free movement will allow us to build a system that recognises and maximises all the benefits of immigration, and we will continue to welcome talent from every corner of the globe under the future system.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[Caroline Nokes]

I will come to some of the hon. Gentleman’s comments in due course.

At this time, we must be an outward-looking, global nation, and as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary indicated, over the next 12 months, we will speak to a range of businesses and organisations across the country. The right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington raised the specific issue of Irish citizenship and deportation. Of course, the UK has always had the power to deport or exclude Irish citizens, but in the light of the historical, community and political ties between the UK and Ireland, along with the existence of the common travel area, the approach since 2007 has been to consider Irish citizens for deportation only where a court has recommended deportation in sentencing or where the Secretary of State has concluded that owing to the exceptional circumstances of a case the public interest requires deportation. This approach is to be maintained.

Coming to Back-Bench contributions, it seems fair to kick off with my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who mentioned football at length. Of course we welcome the contribution made by sports people to the UK. Our current visa arrangements are designed for elite sports people and coaches who are internationally established at the highest level, and whose employment will make a significant contribution to the development of sport. To support the sector, the Home Office works with recognised sports governing bodies to agree on an objective set of criteria against which elite sports people will be assessed. My hon. Friend made clear the importance of the premier league, not only to our society but to our economy, and I am absolutely committed to working alongside the Football Association and the premier league to ensure that that continues.

The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) spoke about detention, and specifically about indefinite detention. That issue was also raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). The hon. Gentleman will be aware that 95% of those who are here without immigration leave are in the community, and I am sure that he will welcome the current Yarl’s Wood community pilot scheme. We are working with 12 women who would otherwise be in Yarl’s Wood to ensure that they are being supported. There is, of course, an automatic bail referral requirement for people who have been detained for four months, and we are now piloting a referral after two months. That will provide the judicial oversight for which so many have called.

The right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham spoke passionately about detention. It is seldom that I say this, but I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to appear before her Select Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, a couple of months ago. We had an interesting and challenging discussion about detention, and I hope I convinced her and her Committee that we are thinking very hard about the issue. It is right that we work to make the correct decisions, but detention remains part of our immigration policy. It is important for us to work on the immigration bail pilots and, of course, on detention in the community.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) spoke about the conventional view that we should have one immigration policy for the whole United Kingdom, and I absolutely agreed with what he said.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

No, I am not.

I would now like to turn to the other big issue for the Home Office regarding this deal, which is immigration. Concerns over immigration were a key factor in how people voted in the referendum in 2016. People wanted control over immigration. They wanted future decisions on UK immigration policy to be taken in this country and by this Parliament. That is what this deal delivers. The deal will allow us to create an immigration system that is not constrained by EU laws and that works only in the national interest. Free movement will end. In future, the decision on who comes to the UK will rest with the UK itself, and not with individual migrants. The UK will continue to be an open and welcoming country that attracts the best talent from across the world.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Can I impress on the Home Secretary again the acute problems that there have been in fishing on the west coast of Scotland and, indeed, in Northern Ireland? I do not know how many numerous meetings I have had with various Government Ministers—they come and they go all the time—but will he look at this next year to make sure that it does not happen again? Will he make sure that we are getting crews on boats and that non-European economic area labour is coming in? The problem is going to get worse with the situation we have at the moment. The Home Secretary has this in his gift; it is not Europe that is stopping him. He can lift the pen and this will happen. He will be thanked and appreciated across the west coast of Scotland if he does that.

[Sajid Javid]

I am always happy to listen to Members. Indeed, I have met many Conservative Scottish Members of this House, who have made that point powerfully. We are listening. The hon. Gentleman refers to current issues, whereas I want to focus in this debate on the future immigration system.