Immigration Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 122A, since my name is associated with it. Some 2,000 refugees are currently arriving in Greece on barely seaworthy boats every day. According to the UNHCR, the majority are now women and children, fleeing the fighting in Syria and around the Iraqi border. Some 4.8 million Syrians have been displaced since the war began.

The existing rules on family reunion simply were not designed to cope with such a mass and, at times, chaotic exodus of people, which tears families apart and potentially leaves individuals in pretty desperate circumstances. Under the Immigration Rules, people granted refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK can apply to be joined by family members still living in other countries. However, there are a number of restrictions about which family members qualify for family reunion. For adult refugees in the UK, only partners and dependent children under the age of 18 will usually come under the definition of “family”. As a result, families can be left with the invidious choice of whether to leave some members behind.

Amendment 122A seeks to provide an immediate route to reunite, in a managed and controlled way, those families caught up in the crisis. The Secretary of State would specify the numbers to be resettled through the scheme after full consultation with key stakeholders. The amendment would provide for that in a managed way on the basis of current resettlement programmes. It allows British citizens, as well as recognised refugees in the UK, to be reunited with family members through the programme, but, crucially, any number specified would be in addition to the Government’s existing commitments on resettlement.

The amendment does not distinguish between refugee family members who have made it to Europe and those stuck in the region—people do not cease to be part of a family based on where they are in the world. It would help to prioritise those cases of family members who fall outside the existing rules and find themselves in desperate situations. We believe that Britain can do, and should be doing, more in this unprecedented crisis, which the amendment would enable the Government to do through the Secretary of State. Four thousand Syrian refugees resettled a year—none from within Europe—is certainly a start and I do not wish to stand here and suggest that it is not a real contribution, but one is entitled to ask whether it is enough when that number arrives in Greece over the course of just two days.

We support the amendment and we will vote for it if the mover, having heard the Government’s response, decides to test the opinion of the House.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my name is to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I prefer it to the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, but either is considerably better than the current situation. If the noble Lord, Lord Alton, decides to divide the House, we on these Benches will be with him. It seems to me that the Section 59 referred to in his amendment is designed for exactly this sort of situation, had anyone been able to envisage it. Children without their parents who have got to the UK alone are refugees, so by definition cannot return to their country of origin, but their being unable to be with their parents is a situation that I am sure no noble Lord would want to envisage.

When we debated the matter in Committee, the Minister gave a number of defences to the current position, including:

“Our policy is more generous than our international obligations require”.

The vote on the previous amendment—a comparison was made in the debate on that between our generosity and that of others—answers that point. The Minister also said:

“Allowing children to sponsor their parents would play right into the hands of traffickers and criminal gangs and go against our safeguarding responsibilities”.—[Official Report, 3/2/16; col. 1881.]

The issue of safeguarding can be argued either way; there are problems of safeguarding whether you do or whether you do not in this situation. I prefer the right reverend Prelate’s logic.

On family sponsorship, where the more distant family of a refugee is here, it seems illogical in many ways not to allow aunts, uncles and so on to sponsor people to come here because it must lead to much faster integration, address the numbers to an extent—given the numbers, we should use what opportunities there are—and be obviously the right thing to do. There would be fewer safeguarding issues in that, although I would not claim that there are none.

Finally, I should not ask a question at this stage unless I know the answer, but I understand that family reunion is a matter of international law—despite my pile of papers I do not have all the detail with me. If the Minister can assist the House on that I would be grateful.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

I may have missed it, but the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked the Minister whether he had an update on the figures for grants outside the rules on the basis of exceptional, compelling, compassionate circumstances. The year before last it was 12. Can the Minister tell us the updated figure?

[Lord Bates]

I do not have those updated numbers, but I will be happy to write to the noble Baroness. I mentioned a figure of 21,000, but that referred to the whole group of family reunion cases that came to the UK between 2011 and 2015.

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[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, whether this amendment is carried or not, it must be clear to a Government who refer so often to our Judeo-Christian heritage that they cannot simply stay where they are thereafter. There must be an acknowledgement of what is going on. The truth must be recognised and must be brought to the attention of the world by this country and the many others that are already committed to it.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have a couple of sentences on behalf of these Benches. This may be the first time that my thought processes have followed exactly those of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, but I had concerns about the format, if you like, of this amendment. I would much prefer to be addressing the matter on an international basis through the UN, but then I, too, found Article 8 of the convention, which provides for contracting parties to call on the UN to take action. In the light of the growing call around the world for the recognition of what is going on as genocide, it seems to me that it is absolutely right that we should take this opportunity, whatever the technicalities of the amendment.

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[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 122 is concerned with individuals who helped the British Army and general British interests either in Iraq or Afghanistan, and who are now refugees or, as it were, want to be categorised as refugees. I am indebted to a small NGO called Help Refugees for the advice and information it has given me.

The amendment refers to individuals who are now in refugee camps—they may be as far away as the Middle East or they may be in Calais, where some have been identified. These are persons who worked with Her Majesty’s Government in Iraq and Afghanistan. They may have worked on the Kandahar air base, as translators and interpreters, or as radio operators. These are people who have sufficient evidence to indicate that they worked in that capacity, helping the British Army and other British interests.

These individuals have now suffered from quite serious threats, and I have got some information from a couple of them. One individual who acted as a logistics officer and was involved in liaison contact between British forces and local interests, and who helped train the Afghan military and other companies, said: “I had phone calls saying that I had to stop working with them and, ‘If you don’t stop working with them, you will be killed’”. Another individual, working at the Kandahar base in Afghanistan, said, “As you know, the situation is very bad for those who have worked with the foreign forces—the Americans, the British—and those who are interpreters or translators. Their life is in danger in Afghanistan. Everywhere the Taliban are present in each province, so if they know that you have worked with them they will elect to kill you. Everybody knows this. This is the truth. Nobody can ignore it”. “Have you personally had any threats?”, he was asked. “Yes, when I was there, I was getting calls saying, ‘Leave this job or I will kill your family. I will kill you if I find you’. It was very hard for me”. “Were you getting many of these phone calls in a week?” “Two or three times, yes”. These are individuals who worked with us and to whom we surely have some responsibility. My argument is that we should give effect to that responsibility through this amendment.

There is a difficulty in that two different schemes are in existence which do not quite fit the bill: there is an Iraq policy and an Afghan policy. It is clear that the Iraq policy is a better one and the Afghan policy has helped only one particular individual. What I am suggesting in this amendment is that we should have a more far-reaching policy which helps all the individuals who I have described. The idea is that if they can be identified—and this is a departure from the present policy—as coming under the various categories as set out in proposed subsection (1) they would be entitled to come to Britain and then claim refugee status here. So we meet some of the difficulties that the Minister referred to in responding to the previous amendment.

This is a modest amendment which would meet a certain obligation that we have. If the Government feel that they cannot accept the amendment, there are things they can do to meet the need. I would like an assurance from the Government either that they will accept the amendment or that they are prepared to say that they will do what they can, and describe it, to help the individuals concerned and make accommodation for them outside the statute. I would be happy about that, but we have to do something for these people. Some of them are in the camps in Calais. They have been neglected and forgotten by the world, and they worked for us. They helped us at a critical time in Afghanistan and Iraq. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment. The whole of this Bill raises moral issues, and it was the simple rightness of this proposition that led me to sign the amendment.

The Daily Mail has been campaigning on this issue and recently highlighted the case of one interpreter who was injured by a bomb and accused by the Taliban of being a spy. He was at that time waiting for the UK Government’s support unit to consider his application to be relocated to the UK. He said, “They told me that after five days they would interview me but after five days I was still waiting and they said the programme has not started yet. Then they said maybe 2014, maybe 2015, but I could not wait that long, it was my life at risk”. We know that hard cases make bad law, but do they invariably make bad law? Do they not sometimes point us to what should be good with the law? The dangers to these staff and their families at home are now obvious, as they were obvious when they provided assistance.

The Minister for the Armed Forces in a Statement last August spoke of the UK team,

“which investigates thoroughly all claims of intimidation. When necessary we will put in place appropriate measures to mitigate any risks. These range from providing specific security advice, assistance to relocate the staff member and their family to a safe place in Afghanistan, or, in the most extreme cases, relocation to the UK”.

There are others in the Chamber who can speak with much more authority than I can about whether giving advice and relocation elsewhere within the country is realistic or effective.

I will finish by saying simply that it took a long campaign to recognise the contribution of the Gurkhas to this country, which was supported by David Cameron before he was Prime Minister. I think that we should put right the position for the individuals who are the subject of this amendment now.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, the hour is late and no doubt the House does not want to sit for too long. This is an issue on which I have campaigned for the best part of 18 months. My instinct is to speak at some length to outline the individual problems that affect Afghan interpreters, but I do not think that this is the moment to do so. I shall try to be fairly brief in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in his amendment.

The amendment cannot be seen except in the context of the United Kingdom’s policy towards Afghan interpreters. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has said, a significantly more disadvantageous set of regulations applies to Afghan interpreters than existed in relation to Iraqi interpreters after the Iraq war. That is an injustice by itself, but let us leave it to one side. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee has said, this is an issue on which the Daily Mail has campaigned—no weeping liberals they, as we know. The newspaper has described the Government’s policies in respect of those to whom we owe a duty of recognition and honour as dishonourable and shameful. I do not often agree with the Daily Mail, but I certainly agree to the use of those adjectives.

I suspect that I am probably the only person in Parliament who not only has been an interpreter—not, I hasten to say, in operational conditions—but has used interpreters, in that case in operational conditions and sometimes moderately dangerous ones. Many of those who served with the front-line units were the bravest of the brave. If there is a front line, they are on it because they have to be; British soldiers cannot do their job unless they are. If there is action, they had to be there too, otherwise we could not do the task that Her Majesty sent us to Afghanistan to fulfil. When the patrol returns the soldiers go into a protected base, but not the Afghan interpreters. They have to spend the night with their families in their communities. Their families are not 10,000 miles away in safety. They too live in the community and are subject to the threat of the Taliban. They came almost by the month for every one of those 13 years and now they come virtually by the day to individual Afghan interpreters, who are beaten up and their families threatened. I have heard so many stories of this that I can barely remember the individual details.

The Afghan interpreters who served day in and day out in active service in the most hostile and dangerous positions, sometimes even with the Special Forces, do not go back after six months. They have stayed in the country for every single one of the 13 years of the Afghan conflict. Now—I have to say it bluntly—we have abandoned them. I do not think that there is a single squaddie or serviceman who served in Afghanistan alongside these interpreters who did not love them, who did not admire them, and who did not think that every single one of them on front-line duties bore a burden of risk greater even than many of our own soldiers because they had borne it for longer. And yet we have abandoned them. It is a shameful policy that shames the Government and, in my view, the nation as well.

The Government’s refuge in this, and we may well hear it from the Minister, is that they have set up their package. There are obligations of duty, honour and service here. Our soldiers could not have operated without the service of these men. They simply would have been useless. The next time our servicemen are asked to go into battle on behalf of our nation and we seek a local interpreter, given the way that we have abandoned them and in the light of the way we have treated them, what kind of response do noble Lords imagine they will get?

The Government believe that all their obligations to these brave men can be fulfilled by the Afghan intimidation scheme. When I understood that the scheme would be put into operation in the next Government, I expressed my opposition to it. I thought that it was the wrong scheme. But if it had been applied with good will, so that the burden of presumption was that the Afghan interpreter would, in the face of intimidation and threat, be allowed to return to Britain, maybe this would have been a reasonable policy—inadequate, flawed, but maybe just about acceptable. But it is not. Almost none of those who have suffered from mortal intimidation from the Taliban have been housed and not a single one has been allowed to return to Britain in the years since this Government have been in power. This policy is already flawed. It is very difficult to understand why it has been enacted with such little generosity and duty of honour, except that those interpreters, along with the honour of our country, have been sacrificed in this Government’s obsession to do not what is right but what is necessary to outflank the revolting prejudices of the right wing of the Conservative Party and UKIP.

This is a shameful policy, the price of which will be paid in the standing not only of our nation but of our own troops, when they seek to draw in the services of interpreters in the future. If we vote for the amendment we can at least make amends in this Bill for three or four years of complete failure to live up to the role that these men have played on behalf of Her Majesty and of our nation in a conflict of our choosing, and who have placed their lives at risk in doing so.

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[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, the situation of most young adults in this country reveals why this group of amendments is needed. I am glad to add my name to it and pay tribute to the noble Earl for his introduction. In 2015, half of all young people aged 21 in this country and 40% of all 24 year-olds were still living with their parents. As many Members of your Lordships’ House will know from personal experience, even adult children who have left home often return when need arises. Indeed, my own personal experience of adult children is that territorial control of bedrooms continues even when they have got married or have their flats elsewhere—I am thinking of introducing a bedroom tax in Bishop’s House in Norwich.

Children in care are not somehow exempt from the societal pressures of this age. In this regard, the Government recently changed legislation so that all care leavers can stay put in foster placements until they are 21, which is a recognition of a massive shift in our society and is good for their welfare. The current system of leaving care is designed to keep contact with young people, wherever they end up.

Care leavers who have exhausted their appeal rights and find themselves alone in this country face the same difficulties as other children leaving care but additional ones as well: isolation, loneliness and fear are common. They have often suffered abuse, violence and trauma earlier in their lives. Migrant care leavers need help from their corporate parents to gain access to legal advice and representation in relation to their immigration status.

Research for the Children’s Commissioner, published 18 months ago, included interviews with care leavers who had become appeal rights exhausted. They had a pervasive sense of fear, anxiety and depression. Some said that they contemplated suicide. The experience of friends hardened their resolution to remain in the UK. One young person said of this friends that,

“one of them is currently in a detention centre, one was sent back years ago, and one was sent recently, sent back to Afghanistan … but he is in a big trouble. His father is telling him to join the Taliban”.

This amendment is necessary because such young people undoubtedly continue to need support, whether it is to make sure that returning them to their country of origin is truly safe or to work with them in preparing them to return with assistance and proper support, without the need for enforcement. I hope that the Minister will look sympathetically on this group of amendments.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have added my name to these amendments and I was planning to say nothing more than that I agree with everything the three previous speakers have said. However, the point made by the noble Baroness on definition seems to need clarifying. When the Minister has considered that, if there seems to be any doubt that has to be resolved in correspondence, it should be resolved in the Bill at Third Reading. If there is a problem, that is where the resolution needs to be.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for moving the amendment. He is one of the Members of this House whom we all greatly admire. He focuses on a particular area that he cares passionately about—namely children, particularly children in care, and seeks to introduce their voice into all pieces of legislation that go through your Lordships’ House. That is to his credit and we appreciate him in that spirit. My officials and I were grateful for the opportunity to meet with the noble Earl about his amendment, and I know that James Brokenshire, the Immigration Minister, was grateful to have the meeting with the Alliance for Children in Care and Care Leavers on 8 March.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, invited me to write another of my famous letters. I was particularly proud of the one that we wrote on 11 March following the meetings and the consultation. Not only did we listen to the concerns that were raised, but on page 4 we went into some detail about how we would respond to those concerns. We said that we would look at how provision should be geared to what the local authority is satisfied is needed to support a person through their assisted voluntary return or forced departure. Let us just be clear for those who may not have followed all the aspects of this issue. We are talking about people in local authority care who, after various appeals for leave to remain, are deemed to have no legal right to be here, and furthermore—this is very important from the perspective of the noble Baroness and the right reverend Prelate—there is no barrier preventing their return. These are important provisions to bear in mind in relation to the group that we are talking about.

I emphasise that the great majority of care leavers are not affected by the changes in Schedule 11, including those with refugee status, leave to remain or an outstanding asylum claim or appeal. They will all remain subject to the Children Act framework. Under new paragraph 7B of Schedule 3 to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, this also includes those who have been refused asylum but have lodged further submissions on protection grounds that remain outstanding, or who have been granted permission to apply for a judicial review in relation to their asylum claim.

Under new paragraph 2A of Schedule 3, the Children Act framework will also continue to cover those awaiting the outcome of their first application or appeal to regularise their immigration status where, for example, they are a victim of trafficking. This means that the young adults affected by the changes in Schedule 11 will be those who have applied for leave to remain here on asylum or other grounds but have been refused, and who the courts have agreed do not need our protection, have no lawful basis to be here and should now leave the UK.

I shall now deal with the points referred to by the noble Earl and the noble Baroness. It is possible for individual cases supported by local authorities under the new 2002 Act framework to continue in a foster placement or to be supported by a personal adviser where the local authority considers this to be appropriate. That is an important safeguard.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Hamwee, asked about the meaning of “unaccompanied” in Clause 64(10), concerning the transfer of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We understand the concern to ensure that all relevant cases are properly safeguarded, including victims of trafficking. We will set out in writing how we intend “unaccompanied” to be defined and how it will operate. My notes do not say when that will be, but it will be done by Third Reading. That is an important point and I am grateful that it has been raised.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked about care leavers being dispersed across the country. These cases will qualify for Home Office support under new Section 95A only where they are failed asylum seekers facing a genuine obstacle to departure from the UK. It will be possible in these cases for the person to remain in local authority accommodation funded by the Home Office—for example, while they await a travel document from their embassy. We will develop appropriate guidance with the Department for Education on those cases. I am sure that the views of the organisations that the noble Baroness referred to will be valuable in formulating that guidance, and would be appreciated.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall not keep the House for a great deal of time. This is an issue which I believe to be fundamental, which is why I have brought it back on Report. I thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee for having simplified it down to its basic elements so that we get to the crux of the matter.

When we talked earlier this evening about bringing together families who were asylum seekers, it was interesting how the Minister agreed, as he obviously would do, that it is much better that asylum families are able to live together. I think that what is not recognised or realised by the vast majority of the population is that we do not in many circumstances allow British citizens to live together with their spouse or civil partner. There are many instances where British citizens who have married are not able to bring their spouse or civil partner to this country to live with them, or if they are abroad and wish to do that, they are effectively exiled. If they have children, who are then usually entitled to British citizenship, those younger citizens are also effectively exiled from their country of citizenship.

The reason for that is the requirement of a certain income per annum for the British citizen over a period of time to enable them to live with their chosen civil partner or spouse. It seems fundamentally wrong that we as British citizens are constrained about who we are able to marry or enter a civil partnership with and are unable to live in our home state. Not only is that fundamentally wrong; it is discriminatory in terms of income levels, with those in certain professions or work or those in certain regions less likely to be able to live with their spouse or civil partner in the United Kingdom, with their family, than are those in other trades and professions and other regions.

For a party and a Government who believe that family is of fundamental importance and for a party with many libertarians among it who believe in the freedom to marry and live with who you wish as long as it is not a sham marriage—clearly those exist, and the amendment takes that into account—I have brought this amendment forward again. I believe that there is a fundamental discrimination and a fundamental injustice in terms of what British citizenship should mean and the liberties that this country should offer to its citizens. On that basis, I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, at the previous stage my noble friend and I tabled an amendment that sought to change the financial thresholds that currently apply to spousal visas. The Minister gave as one argument for the threshold the need to protect families, saying that the Government want to see family migrants thriving here, not struggling to get by. But separation does not help people to thrive. The Minister thanked my noble friend for raising our sights at that point by talking about love. So instead of another amendment on financial thresholds, my noble friend and I have decided to say what we mean, which is this: do not set a financial threshold on love.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, the amendment simply deletes a key requirement in a spousal visa. Noble Lords will remember that the Migration Advisory Committee was invited to make recommendations on what should be a threshold. I take the point that the noble Baroness would not like a threshold at all, but the recommendation was £18,600 as the level at which no income-based benefits were paid. The level at which the overall costs to the Exchequer would be zero was £40,000. That gives an indication of the cost to the taxpayer of abolishing this income requirement. It is surely not right that the taxpayer should be obliged to subsidise at such a considerable level the arrangements of other people. This amendment would drive a coach and horses through that requirement, and I hope that it will be opposed.

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[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak in favour of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, to require the Home Secretary to make exemptions from the immigration skills charge for certain cases. I declare an interest as a member of the councils of UCL and of Nottingham Trent University.

The problem which the Government claim the charge is intended to fix is the underinvestment in the skills of our young people, particularly by employers. I do not think many in this Chamber would disagree with that. Action is certainly necessary on this; employers should be incentivised to invest in skills. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I wonder how this charge will interact with the apprenticeship levy, and whether it might be more sensible to proceed with that vehicle as the primary means of increasing investment in apprenticeships and perhaps other forms of education and training. It would be useful if the Minister would comment on that.

The Government have suggested that the charge seeks to disincentive employers who perhaps too readily recruit from overseas in preference to training the domestic workforce. However, the Government have, on many occasions in debates in this House, commented on the impact of immigration on our higher education and research communities and made clear that they do not oppose the UK attracting the brightest and best from around the world to study, teach and research, and to help us to develop an innovative and growing economy. It is difficult to square this commitment with a charge that punishes employers for doing precisely that, particularly if this were applied in blanket fashion without appropriate exemptions.

The amendment also seeks to exempt the appointment of health professionals from the scope of the charge. It is worth pointing out that in many cases in the health sector the supply of suitably qualified candidates in the domestic workforce is at least in part dictated by government policy. To levy a charge on NHS trusts recruiting from overseas, when the number of qualified doctors, for instance, is entirely determined by government quotas, does not seem a sensible approach. It seems particularly perverse that these two sectors will surely be among the most heavily hit by the proposed charge if no exemptions are allowed for.

I accept that the Government have not yet set out their precise plans on this matter, and I understand that they will shortly set out their response to the Migration Advisory Committee’s report on tier 2 migration. I urge the Minister to give some reassurance to the House—and to the health, education and research sectors—about what provision will be made for these sectors.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, my noble friend filleted his remarks rather skilfully. I have been trying to do the same, but I think they are going to come out a little disjointed. I am sure we will be told that we will have the opportunity to scrutinise the proposals when regulations are laid. However, I think we know that we can debate but not scrutinise effectively when we have unamendable regulations.

In the public sector generally, particularly the health and education sectors that are publicly funded, I wonder whether there is a risk that the charge will in effect be recycled back into the sector—less all the administrative costs that are lost along the way—if the sector can actually train via apprenticeships. That is not, of course, the case for doctors and many other front-line healthcare professionals. Yesterday, when I was preparing a very much longer speech than this, I wondered about the logic of a charge whose effect may well be to reduce the contribution of skilled workers because employers will simply not be able to afford them. We may be left in a worse position than we are in now. Undoubtedly, we should have enough information to be able to debate these very significant proposals, at the stage of primary legislation, in an effective, possibly even constructive, fashion. It is very disappointing that we are left without that possibility.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, I very much agree with the thrust of the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I think he was absolutely right.