Immigration System

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, immigration—this is not about asylum, which is a separate matter—involves a sort of contract between the immigrant and the host country. Each has a part to play, and each should be positive.

We used to talk more than we seem to now, often in the context of the benefits of overseas students in our universities, about the contribution to soft power played by welcoming people to our country, as well as what immigrants—who included my grandparents—contributed to the UK. I am glad that this was acknowledged by the Home Secretary in the Statement, though I am not convinced that the White Paper entirely reflects that, but I have to say I am shocked by some of the language used by the Prime Minister. Both words and tone are important.

I did not follow the logic of the White Paper. Supporting growth, housing and other construction and hospitality and tourism, for instance, require skills that are not at the highest level and work that can be hard but not skilled. Employers who recruit from overseas would not recognise this as the easy option, given the paperwork involved, and certainly not cheap, with high visa fees and the skills charge. Can the Minister tell us how much is expected to be raised by the increase in that charge and invested in training?

I do not accept that carers are unskilled; rather, their skills are not ones that we have traditionally valued. Better payment—the Minister will be aware of the Liberal Democrat policy of a higher minimum wage for carers—and our respect are due. Although the White Paper acknowledges that, the conclusion that overseas recruitment should end is perverse and damaging to carers and to clients. There is abuse by some employers in this and other sectors, but the response reads too much like victim blaming. Can the Minister tell us the timeframes for the fair pay agreements mentioned? I would also be interested in how the Government respond to concern that more and more pensioners will be exhausting their savings on care.

I look forward to migrant workers being given more control over who they work for, reducing opportunities for exploitation. We hope to explore that through amendments to the forthcoming borders Bill, as well as issues around family reunion, about which we have significant concerns. What consultation will there be regarding changes to family migration? What does proper integration support—to use the terminology—look like? Can the Minister clarify at what point in the immigration process, as distinct from citizenship, English language will be tested?

There is to be a new temporary shortage occupation list, including jobs critical to the industrial strategy, which the Minister may say addresses my earlier point, and to an extent perhaps it does. Does temporary mean a temporary list or temporary for the worker? Is it the list that will apply for asylum seekers when they are allowed to work, which should be much sooner than currently while waiting for a decision?

Indefinite leave to remain will “take account” of the applicant’s contribution. How is that to be measured? Five years is apparently not enough. Is it a matter of salary? How much discretion will there be? What data will the Home Office publish in the interests of transparency?

I return to some of the rhetoric. One gentleman has emailed me about how difficult it is for him and his partner—who he tells me arrived in the UK legally, paid visa fees, paid the NHS surcharge and has no recourse to public funds—to read that she is regarded as causing “incalculable damage”. Regardless of the detail, he says,

“it makes us feel unwelcome in the UK”.

These policies affect UK citizens too.

The White Paper refers to many further policies to come. There is a lot to follow up, with a lot of people uncertain, anxious and feeling threatened about their future, and many having thought that their future was clear. I hope there is a lot of consultation to come before policy is set in stone.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to both the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for their contributions, and I will try to answer them. I hope I do not surprise the noble Lord by saying that I am not going to go over the previous Government’s record; I will let that speak for itself. We can all make judgments on that. Government is a difficult place, but there are decisions that the previous Government took in all their forms from 2010 that we disagreed with, though there were things that we supported too, and we are where we are now.

We are trying to put a framework around some key decisions that the UK has to take in relation to the points before us in the White Paper. The key principles in the White Paper are that we need to reduce net migration substantially. We are potentially looking the number of visas issued to fall by up to 100,000 a year by the end of this Parliament as a result of the changes.

We need to link immigration to the UK skills strategy. We need to ensure that we create fair, effective and strictly enforced rules, and that includes what I would term good labour values to ensure that we do not have exploitative workforce practices, we do not have foreign-national criminals who continue to commit crime in our country and we do not have people working undercover because of their illegal entry to the UK. They are good values to ensure that we support work and the workforce as a whole.

It is also a good value that we extend the hand of friendship to those who have lived here, come here and worked here, but also we need to support integration and community cohesion. We need to ensure particularly that we empower Parliament to give a clear definition of family life and that the Immigration Rules are clear for all.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has mentioned three particular areas, which I will try to respond to. First, should we place a cap on migration and put that figure in there for the Government to be held to? We have taken the decision that we are not going to put a figure on that cap, but we are going to try to keep reviewing all the time the impact of the policies in this White Paper with the objective of reducing net migration over a period of time. Caps have proved a challenge in the past as an area where Governments have failed to hit targets so, while we can debate it and argue about it, that is the decision that we have taken.

Secondly, should we disapply legislation such as the ECHR and other legislation? The Government will abide by our international obligations. We do not intend to withdraw from those obligations, but we will look at, and will consult on, how we apply those obligations in a UK context. There may be room for us to look at that in detail, but there is no indication whatever that we are going to withdraw from those, nor would we wish to, because those are our international obligations and they should be met.

The noble Lord mentioned the visa changes. There will be consultations. A number of the measures in the White Paper will require legislation in this House, either at SI level, at rules level or in primary legislation, and there will be an opportunity for consultation, discussion and contributions from both Houses of Parliament accordingly.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, began by talking about the contribution of people who are immigrants to this country. I put on record how much I value those people who have come to this country to make their lives and to contribute. There are a range of services, public and private, where the contribution of people who have come to this country is central to public service, economic growth and business as a whole, and we need to recognise that.

However, we still need to have a system whereby we put some boundaries around migration and around supporting the development of UK society and its needs. There are 9 million people currently economically inactive in this country. What is the skills programme for those individuals? Can we get those people to do some of the work currently being done by people being brought into the country? That is an important issue.

I value very much the contribution of students and universities. We are not stopping students coming to the country, and we are not stopping universities having individuals come to the country. What we are doing is saying, “When you’ve finished your university course, we’re going to review the amount of time you can stay here before you need to make further applications along the lines of the immigration regime that we are putting in place in those areas”.

I know for a fact that we can probably count the number of Presidents, Prime Ministers and business leaders who have been to universities in this country and who value that experience and look back on this country as being the first step on their long road to success. That is important; we are not stopping that. We are simply putting in place an 18-month period after graduation which says that you have to then start look at reapplying, as opposed to being automatically able to stay.

The skills agenda is really important. As I have mentioned, there are a lot of unskilled people who can be brought into the market. Adult social care is important. We will be bringing forward rules to this House about changes in that sphere. However, it is important because a lot of people have abused the adult social care route and we are trying to put some rigour and order into it.

The noble Baroness mentioned exploitation. I am pleased to see the former Prime Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady May. It is important that modern slavery issues, which the noble Baroness, Lady May, championed in the other House in government both as Home Secretary and as Prime Minister, are put into measures that ensure we strengthen that route to avoid exploitation. We need to examine the issues of people coming here illegally, working illegally and being exploited by domestic employment orders, because that undercuts people who are doing legitimate work and legitimate businesses. That is a key issue for the Government.

We will be consulting on the measures the noble Baroness outlined and we will certainly examine in full any representations made. But the Government have to set out a direction of travel. One of the key things we have to do is set out a direction of travel and put some order into the system. Not everybody is going to agree with the direction of travel or the order we put in. But it is important that we have stronger control of our borders and stronger employment and training opportunities for all, that we still attract high level of talent and that we are still open for students to come and for businesses to invest. However, there has to be a framework around that, and the White Paper intends to provide that framework.

Finally, those who have indefinite leave to remain can currently apply for naturalisation after five years, but we have a 10-year proposed ceiling in the White Paper. We are going to look at transition arrangements and make sure we try to give opportunities for further consultation on points to do with naturalisation that we know are important to this House, the House of Commons and, most of all, to people who are here already. That will be subject to further consultation at an appropriate time.

I hope I have answered the questions the noble Lord and the noble Baroness raised, and I await further questions.