Queen’s Speech

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am looking around but it would take a brave person to speak in the gap after such a long debate. It is no surprise that the expertise and passion of noble Lords has been evident in this debate, together with an appropriate dose of questioning and scepticism. It has been so wide-ranging that I will not attempt to refer to individual speakers or speeches—I do not envy the Minister her task in winding up—except to congratulate and welcome the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. I am sure they will remind us in the debates to come of those two great places and, no doubt, will both play quite a part in Home Office legislation.

Oven-ready or ready to pop into the microwave? One method cooks from the outside in, the other from the inside outwards—and, as we have been reminded, some things are left to simmer on top of the stove and cause an awful mess when they boil over. These are very different approaches to policy-making: imposition or development in consultation with the people affected.

I want to talk about immigration, which is so important to our society and our economy. The Government put that dish into the oven some months ago. We were told—I learned it authoritatively from the Home Office website well before the election—that we were to have an Australian-style points system. Of course, the Migration Advisory Committee is yet to publish its advice on this, but I have forgotten how much immigration law is created by ministerial fiat, through rules which do not even get the scarce scrutiny of secondary legislation. Perhaps that feeling had rather leached over. Every sort of policy benefits from consultation. That was acknowledged earlier today when one noble Lord spoke about victims. Things look very different when you have an informed or personal take on them, as we were reminded by recent reports of Her Majesty’s concerns about visas for polo events. Who had thought about polo events?

The tagline “Australian points-based system” does not tell us whether the points will be driven by the Home Office or by employers, or whether there will be an overall cap on numbers. There are many questions. The Home Office has not made a success of being both policymaker and administrator—or processor, if you like. Departments closer to the various sectors understand their needs and, one hopes, are able to unpack that awful phrase “the brightest and the best”. To me, that always raises the question: “Best at what?”

There is so much to understand about, for instance, different employment needs. I learned recently that seasonal workers are needed in far more sectors than agriculture, including at Christmas and during heatwaves and cold snaps, both of which put a strain on the health service. There are big, short-lived demands prompted by a duchess’s dress. Kim Kardashian tweeted about a lipstick and that was work for 400 people for three or four days. These things are not straightforward and they are not uniform across all the nations and regions of the UK.

I have been told that Australia has 90 different visas. I counted 74 online plus 46 which had been repealed. Am I being unnecessarily gloomy in thinking that having visas with different restrictions attached to each application will make the whole process a challenge for the Home Office? Individuals caught up in the Windrush scandal have understandable views about the efficiency of Home Office schemes. Apparently we now require legislation which will not, we are told, affect the operation of the existing compensation scheme —not even to speed it up? The Windrush experience inevitably worries EU citizens subject—or subjected—to the Home Office and we will of course debate this more next week. However, given that the Conservative manifesto proclaims—I think this has been quoted already—

“We want EU citizens who came to live in the UK before Brexit to stay”,


we will continue to try to turn that into reality. The Government’s response that the UK does not issue pieces of paper, something for which EU citizens have been pleading, does not meet the point. It defies credibility that 40% of those who have applied for settled status are entitled only to pre-settled status, which is what 40% have been granted.

Having been critical, I will say that I was glad to see an announcement before the election about the length of post-study visas and to see that there will be a boost for English language teaching. How will this be paid for? Please do not lay it on local authorities. This will be for “existing migrants”, so who qualifies?

Refugees are generally very keen to learn English. I want to say a word about refugees and asylum seekers, adults and children, families and lone young people, because so much of the election seemed to focus on little England. I want to remember that there are issues of morality as well as practicality, such as the importance of a safe rather than a hostile environment. We are part of a world community. I am worried, as other noble Lords have been, about the proposal for DfID to become part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Its work must not be downgraded. One reason—only one of many—is because of the impacts that conflicts and climate change will have on the movements of people.

The issues I have mentioned are in one policy area in one of the topics of today’s debate, so I will allow myself one point on each of those topics to pick up some threads from the debate. Regarding a royal commission on criminal justice, we have had some mention of the proposals which the Government have already announced through the manifesto. Is that not rather pre-empting a part of the work of a royal commission? What is the basis for thinking that more years added to a long sentence will deter or reduce the risk of terrorism? There are too many dog whistles and too much that is simplistic. On home affairs, the National Crime Agency is to be strengthened but I have not heard what that actually means. I appreciate that the Minister will not have time to go into this tonight but should our priority not be to ensure that we are involved as possible—as we currently are—in contributions to and benefits from Europol, Eurojust, ECRIS, Prüm, Schengen and European arrest warrants? On the constitution, references have rightly been made to the rule of law. I just say: yes, along with and part of that are human rights.

I end with perhaps the gloomiest thought of all, but clearly I am not alone in this: it is the paradox of the Conservative and Unionist Party so endangering our precious union.