European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have enjoyed and even agreed with many of the speeches today. I am taking away phrases such as “Henry VIII on steroids”, which I particularly enjoyed. There have also been some terrible speeches that have been provocative and perhaps even gloating, which is entirely unnecessary.

Overall, I am sad but also furious about the content and context of this Bill. Although the last couple of years have been a terrible political mess, at times—in spite of the super-polarised atmosphere that has been here—we compromised and worked together, which is a beneficial part of the working here in this House. Now, of course, the first-past-the-post electoral system has done its magic and given Boris Johnson a large majority, despite fewer than half the people—not even 44%—actually voting Conservative. But it was a good result and we have to live with it.

Sadly, Boris’s empty slogan, “Get Brexit Done”, has united the majority in the other place so that, no matter how your Lordships’ House improves this Bill, it will be undone when it ping-pongs back to the Commons. So we might as well now just sit down, put our feet up and not do anything, because it would give the same result. Your Lordships’ House is almost made obsolete by the power grab by the Government that is happening.

Despite this futility, obviously we will fight on. We fight on to expose the Government’s backtracking on environmental protection and workers’ rights. We fight on to protect the rights of Europeans living in this country and British people who live elsewhere in Europe. We fight on to protect our role as parliamentarians to scrutinise this legislation, and all the future decisions on the long road ahead.

At the heart of “Get Brexit Done” is a sleight of hand whereby the very complex, difficult next stage of negotiations with the EU has disappeared like a rabbit down a burrow. This burrow of course will be an arduous process. It could easily end up with us coming out very much worse off, and without any way back to the status quo.

This new Government have gone beyond recklessness by legislating against any extension of the implementation period. Of course, we have seen many times how our Prime Minister can switch from “do or die” to doing the sensible thing, and it would take only a one-line Bill to allow for a very sensible extension. But we really should not have to wait for that, with all the anxiety and uncertainty that the no-deal threat creates. We need to change this Bill to protect the environment, protect people’s rights, limit this government power grab and remove the cliff-edge amendment.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 8 and 9 in my name and Amendment 10 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayter. These are relatively short amendments, but they cover a very important issue.

The settled status scheme does not currently provide a right of appeal, causing unnecessary confusion and frustration for applicants who do not receive the decision they were expecting, and in many cases were entitled to. Under the current scheme, if somebody’s application is unsuccessful, they may be able to apply for an administrative review at a cost of £80. The administrative review process applies for people whose applications were refused on eligibility grounds, or where they applied for full settled status but were awarded only pre-settled status. As we have recently heard, the percentages of those awarded pre-settled status is anywhere between 40% and 47%.

While the Bill’s current provisions allow for regulations to be made providing for appeals, this does not amount to a legal obligation, and neither does it guarantee equal treatment in all cases. There is a clear need for a formal appeals process, as we can see from the Government’s wish through making provision in the Bill to deal with this under regulation. A statutory right of appeal should be set out in primary legislation. These are important rights that should not be played with at the whim of individuals.

There have been several cases where EU residents have submitted documentation demonstrating residency for a period of more than five years, yet they have been granted only pre-settled status. The Home Office claims that the scheme is a success because only a small number of people have had their application rejected—we have heard that the number is five—largely due to the criminality of the individuals. As you would expect, we support those rejections. However, the figures discount those who may have wrongly received pre-settled status. My understanding is that the most recent statistics show that the figure for those being granted pre-settled status is, as was touched on earlier, as high as 40%. But this is a temporary form of leave lasting up to five years; it is not indefinite leave to remain. A number of NGOs have expressed concern that outstanding administrative reviews at the end of the implementation period could leave individuals in difficult and possibly hostile situations. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 4, to which I have attached my name, as well as Amendment 8 and others in this group. As currently drafted, the Bill does not match the Government’s previous assurances that EU citizens’ rights will be protected. It is impossible to deny that massive errors occur in the UK immigration system. People are wrongly deported, sometimes in tragic circumstances leading even to death. While many of these tragedies occur whether or not there has been an appeals process, it is certain that many more injustices will happen if an appeals process is not available. For that reason, the Bill must set out a clear right to an appeals process. It is not good enough to leave it to Ministers to decide on an appeals process in the future, because the Bill does not give a date by which an appeals process should be brought into force. This means that Ministers might never create an appeals system at all.

Also, no principles are set out, or basic rights which must be protected, or rules which must be obeyed. I do not want a situation where government inaction, for whatever reason, leads to injustice or, worse, citizens’ rights becoming another bargaining chip in the next stage of Brexit negotiations. I say this as someone who voted for Brexit—but I did not vote to be nasty or to make people feel vulnerable and at risk of being deported, and I did not vote to ruin people’s lives.

Surely the Minister understands that the Government are creating a quite complex new immigration status for EU nationals and that it is almost certain that administrative errors will happen, so a clear appeals process must be set out in this important legislation. I therefore make a plea to the Minister to take the amendment away and discuss it with his officials. We need something like this in the Bill so that errors can be put right and so that our EU friends and neighbours know that justice will be done.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to Amendment 10 in this group, to which I have put my name. From my point of view, the amendment is more by way of a probing amendment, because I appreciate that the regulation-making powers that are provided for in Clause 11 are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, as set out in Schedule 4. However, my concern is that the regulations could strike down the ability to make an effective appeal review under judicial review, and I would like to know why this is.

Judicial review is a very important remedy so far as the citizen is concerned, because they can challenge the power of a public authority on the grounds that it is, for example, unlawful, unreasonable or ultra vires, or on a number of other grounds. I appreciate that the courts have sometimes gone a bit far in their interpretation of their powers, in that they have on occasion usurped the executive functions of Ministers—but that is by the way. What I would like to know in this case is why we are extending the power in the regulations to tackle judicial review, and in particular what kinds of changes the Minister has in mind when contemplating this power in the statute.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have no legal training, unlike many of the eminent lawyers who have spoken this morning. I have occasionally found myself in court, but mainly as a litigant against the Met Police and the Government, although occasionally as a defendant, but I was obviously always innocent.

As I have no legal training, perhaps I can be seen as somebody who represents some of the majority of the people in the UK who have no legal training and who perhaps will not understand what is happening here today, because quite honestly it is an aberration and something that we all have to resist. I very much hope that this Government can see that they have a fight on their hands, because if this clause gives any insight into government thinking it is quite chilling and quite upsetting, as it is contrary to everything that Britain stands for.

Our overconfident Government want to completely redraw the checks and balances in our constitution so that Ministers can opt out of legal precedent at will. Ministers are seeking power to disapply EU case law as though their existing Henry VIII powers are not enough. No good justification has been given, and no sensible restrictions have been put in place so that these powers are used only when strictly necessary. This clause will create a wild west of legal uncertainty, where no one can really be sure what the words “contained in retained EU law” actually mean, until even the most basic issues are litigated on. It is a scorched earth policy and totally inappropriate for our legal system.

Of course, these absurd powers will also be particularly harmful for the environment and our natural world, since so much of our environmental legislation comes from the European Union. The UK Government have a terrible track record of getting into trouble with the European courts for things like our air pollution epidemic and the amount of raw sewage in our rivers. It is almost no wonder that the Government would like this magic wand to take away EU case law. But what is convenient for our Government would be disastrous for our environment, which is why my noble friend, who cannot be here in the Chamber at the moment, and I so strongly support these amendments. I hope that the many clear, sensible and legal arguments put forward by so many noble and learned Lords today will encourage the Government to rethink this.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I should like to briefly follow that very powerful speech by my noble friend Lord Wilson of Dinton. The spirit of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, is about consultation. It is about making sure that people behind the scenes know what is happening and can understand if they have to give something up rather than it being delivered on them.

The Senedd, the National Assembly of Wales, has responsibility for a set of devolved competences. When negotiations become difficult and tough, it is almost inevitable that at times people will have to give things up. If people in Wales, behind the scenes, know what is happening and understand why, they can support it. If something is just delivered on them as a fait accompli afterwards, trust is lost. There is a Chinese saying that I think we should remember: trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback—and it is trustworthiness in behaviour that wins trust.

The Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations was set up with promises by the Government to seek consensus over approaches behind the scenes—yet, sadly, I understand that sometimes the committee had no more information than could be found in the previous day’s newspapers. Sometimes those attending were told that they could not be told more because it was not in the public domain. If there is a small group of people whom you are taking into your confidence and you trust them to observe that confidence, it is not helpful for them to be told, “You can’t be told what’s going on because it isn’t in the public domain”—because the role of that group is to share that confidential information and thinking before the next round of negotiations.

The spirit of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, completely encapsulates a need: where devolved competences are at stake and will be deeply constitutionally affected, it is only right that the devolved Administrations are involved and that their thinking is sought early on, so that they can explain it both to their own legislatures and to the people who voted them into office.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 27 and 28, and I would have put my name to Amendment 40 had I seen it before the deadline. This is a sad day for me, not just because these amendments are necessary but because today I have disagreed very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. We have sat together companionably for six years. He is like a human form of Wikipedia. He knows everything that there is to know about all noble Lords and this saves me from having to use my phone.

Returning to the amendments, I hope that Hansard has a copy and paste function, because, quite honestly, we have been over this time and again. Noble Lords have said the same things to the Government again and again, and at one point it seemed to have sunk in, because the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill last year contained a whole load of provision for parliamentary scrutiny. I know that the Minister will reply to us with his tried and tested lines that we have heard before—but, quite honestly, that is not enough. The election has changed things and now the Government have gutted the agreement Bill of all scrutiny. I say to the Minister that, just because his Government now have a majority in the other place, that does not make them right or mean that this is the right thing to do. It does not make them immune from parliamentary scrutiny. Our job is to hold the Government to account, and if they scrap us—well, actually, I have been trying to abolish the House of Lords for six years and it has not worked so far.

Is it not obvious that a lack of parliamentary engagement—a failure to bring the majority on board—is what led to the parliamentary deadlock when the final deal was secured? Instead of working with Parliament, the Government told us that there would be no running commentary and that the sharing of details would undermine the negotiations and so on. Scrutiny was deferred until the very last stages of the negotiations when, instead of it being a mere inconvenience, it culminated in a crescendo of chaos. Had the Government engaged constructively with Parliament, things could have turned out very differently. However, despite all those lessons, the Government are, once again, trying to sideline Parliament.

Over the coming weeks and months, much will be made of the Salisbury convention and the extent to which this House should exercise its powers and functions to scrutinise, correct and improve. My stomach slightly turned over when the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said that we had to trust the Government. Well, actually, no, we do not. It is our job to trust when it is appropriate to trust and to distrust when we can see that they are going wrong. When the Government try to shut down scrutiny in the way they have with this amended Bill, it leaves this House with no choice but to exercise its constitutional might as far as that extends. The last stage of the negotiations was the easy bit. It is the next stage that is going to set out all our future concerns. That negotiation must be got right, and this sovereign Parliament absolutely must play its role in securing that for the national interest.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I think that the context has changed. When the Benn amendment went through, it was suspected of having the intention to thwart or delay Brexit. We are not in that position now: Brexit is going to go ahead. Surely, then, it is the job of the whole of Parliament to defend and promote its own interests and those of the Government in the negotiations going forward. So, in a perverse way, this amendment strengthens the hand of the Government by bringing in Parliament to back it and provide support as they embark on their negotiations; it does not diminish it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)]

My Lords, the compassion in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, makes it extremely difficult to oppose him —but oppose him I do. Despite the wonderful statements by Cross-Benchers of enormous eminence who know more about children’s law than anyone else, my work in international children’s care tells me that this way lies danger. I have worked with children on all continents of the globe. I used to be a director of Save the Children and have worked with almost all international children’s organisations, and perhaps the heartland experience that I wish to offer the Minister is on child trafficking.

When I was fortunate enough to be the rapporteur for Romania, and when working in other countries on this, I saw the deep underbelly of the filthy trade that happens when you begin to move children away from their own jurisdiction. Whether a child is deemed to be a refugee or is labelled as part of a family, child trafficking is the fastest-growing sector of organised crime on the globe today. The European Union legislation has not only failed to protect those children but has, in some ways, made things worse. I will give a clear example of a Member of the European Parliament—from France, incidentally, although this is not a criticism of France as such. When we were having this debate in the European Parliament, he could not understand why the free movement of children should not take place, since the European Union allowed the free movement of camions. Noble Lords will remember that “camions” means lorries.

That is exactly what happens: once you start moving children around, there is no stopping it. It does not help to say that they are coming to the United Kingdom. One of the most traumatic cases I had to deal with was that of a child from Romania. When I went there, there were 30,000 children who had been trafficked in eight years: no names, no pack drill, just numbers on a computer. One of them was a boy who came as a refugee to London on a false passport. In London, that false passport was changed and he managed to get an American passport. When he arrived in America, he was met by eight men, and he has never been seen again. Thanks to one of those wonderful efforts by the FBI, the CIA, Scotland Yard and the Romanian police, 11 men were captured. They were said to be the biggest child trafficking ring for pornography on the globe.

I beg the Minister to retain Clause 37. We need to protect these children, to help them to stay in their own jurisdiction, not to move them around like this. They are unprotected as soon as they leave their own jurisdiction. We cannot manage it. We in Britain are very poor at managing unaccompanied children of our own. Look at the ones in the Midlands, for example. We have thousands of children coming in every year from countries trying to dump their children here. Others then pick them up and sell them.

I have another very good example, although there are too many to give all of them. When I went to Bucharest originally, there were 12 trafficking agencies—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

I will give way. I will have difficulty, as I cannot hear, as noble Lords know. Somebody will have to tell me.

In Bucharest there were 12 trafficking agencies, and when we pushed them out, they went over the border to Moldova, and they are now bringing in children from China.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

Will the noble Baroness give way?

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

If noble Lords will forgive me, I will ask someone to interpret for me, because I was born deaf and will not pick it up.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I have been to Calais and met unaccompanied children: on one occasion my noble friend Lady Bennett and I were together in Calais. Does the noble Baroness accept that the children most at risk are the unaccompanied children? The children we are talking about are coming to their families. They do not have a jurisdiction; they do not have a family unit. They are coming to their families.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

Lack of a jurisdiction is not quite the case. They have not lost their own jurisdiction, unless they have been signed out of it. You can therefore get them back home to their own jurisdiction. That is why my work, and the work of most people who, like me, work internationally, is to try to look after those children at home, to support the families and to bring clean water and food and everything else. Of course children can be signed out—by their own judges, for example—but most of the children that the noble Baroness is describing will not have been signed out at all; they will just have moved.

So I will merely say that we know all too well what happens to children when they are moved around. We in this House should not do anything to encourage that movement. That is why, from the heart, and from all my experience, I urge the Minister to retain Clause 37.

--- Later in debate ---

It is mistaken to think that this provision damages the underlying view that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, had and which I supported. Your Lordships cannot believe that I do not believe that what he wants to achieve is right—I am sure that it is right—and I am equally sure that it should apply the other way around. I ought to be just as much concerned for the children here who are in this position and whose families are in the EU as the other way around. They are all children; they are all in much the same difficult position; and we should do everything possible to make the necessary arrangements for them to be reunited with their families. That is precisely the Government’s intention as shown in Clause 37.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. Unlike him, I have not had any explanation from the Government about this, because an explanation—I looked it up in a dictionary just in case—involves explaining. We have not heard explanations, but we have heard excuses. Those excuses narrow down to three matters. First, the existing law in Section 17 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act is perfectly all right and reflects the will of this House and Parliament generally; it has passed. The change cannot be interpreted as anything but a watering down. It is either a watering down or, as we have heard, a bargaining chip—something to trade when the negotiations happen.

The worst explanation is that this is a dead cat. It is an issue that the Government purposely know will excite much of this House; it will raise a lot of concerns and we will, I imagine, push it hard. The Government are therefore narrowing down the matters that we will push hard on when we come to Report. Whatever it is—whether it is a watering down or a bargaining chip, which would be absolutely wrong, or a dead cat—the conclusion is the same: we must remove this clause from the Bill. The Green group here, if I can call us that, supports the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in his efforts.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support my noble friend Lord Dubs in this matter. For me, this is a moral and ethical matter as well as a political one. Why would a Government resile from a clear provision to facilitate the reunification of refugee children with their families, particularly when it had already been passed into law?

A noble Lord opposite, who is not currently in his place, said that a Government with a majority of 80 might make some big mistakes, and the inclusion of Clause 37 would be just such a big mistake. As my noble friend Lord Dubs said, the British people are essentially humanitarian. The Government would be seen to be lacking in their will for social justice and basic humanity if any inhibition was put in the way of ensuring that that small number of children—who are already out of whatever their jurisdiction might be deemed to be, but find themselves in difficult and, for us, unimaginable circumstances—are reunited with their families in this country.

It is often said that a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable, its weakest and those in the most difficult circumstances. We would be found wanting if we were not to oppose the introduction of Clause 37; we would be treating badly those who are already extremely vulnerable. I would much prefer to be well considered in how we deal with, consider and treat the most vulnerable.