Immigration Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group concern Clause 38 and Schedule 9. I declare an interest as an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham.

As we have heard, many noble Lords have concerns about this part of the Bill, particularly the effect it may have on children who do not understand their immigration status and who, on reaching the age of 18, can find themselves in considerable difficulties. As we have heard, Schedule 9 aims to remove most local authority obligations under the Children Act to care leavers with unresolved immigration status.

We have to be clear that in these circumstances we are dealing with very young people—young adults but also very vulnerable people—and before approving these provisions we need to be satisfied that proper arrangements are in place to look out for these young people, who, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and other noble Lords have said, are at risk of serious abuse and other terrible things. They will lose their entitlement to support from the local authority where they have lived for many years and will not be allowed to remain with their foster parents. This is a particularly tough decision, along with the young adult not being able to benefit, on leaving care, from the services of a personal adviser to provide advice and support in place of a parent.

The Bill is flawed because it assumes that everything is okay, everything has been done properly and there is nothing to worry about—“Just use those criteria to assess them”. But it must be understood that these people will have come here as young children, they can be traumatised and have no understanding of why they are here and why they are on their own. They may have witnessed terrible things that no person, let alone a child, should witness. Is it really correct that we just assume that everything has been done properly when the reality may be very different? The best the young person could hope for would be being placed in Home Office accommodation, potentially far away from their foster family and the area they have grown up in and have come to understand. It can be far away from their existing support networks and their legal representatives. They will have to establish that they are destitute and have been refused asylum and that there is a “genuine obstacle” to leaving the UK.

Amendment 230D, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, seeks to deal with the problem where the young person, on reaching 18, has not had the correct advice and could have been entitled to register as a British citizen or otherwise, and it makes provision for the schedule to have no effect in these cases. It is an excellent amendment, which I hope the Minister will accept or at least reflect on before we come back to this issue on Report. It will be important for the Minister to set out carefully what safeguards are in place to ensure that injustices are prevented from happening and are not built into the provisions in Schedule 9. I endorse all the questions asked of the Minister by noble Lords in the debate.

Amendments 235 and 236, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Rosser, seek to maximise parliamentary scrutiny and ensure that Parliament has the opportunity to debate and approve by resolution the regulations before they come into force. These regulations have such far-reaching consequences that it is right that this level of scrutiny takes place, and I think there are some government amendments on the Marshalled List which have a similar effect.

Other probing amendments in this group, in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich and other noble Lords, seek to improve the provisions and increase the protections available to care leavers. They all have the support of these Benches and it will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response to the issues they raise. There are a number of government amendments, which I am sure the Minister will explain in detail shortly. I may have some further questions after hearing his explanation.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 239B relates to asylum seekers who came to this country as children, who then progress into higher education. They are currently subject to the rules that provide for higher fees in education because they have come from abroad, so they face the charges that are faced by those who apply to come to this country, as though they were people living elsewhere.

I am seeking an amendment to the Bill to allow for those young people not to be subject to the charges faced by foreign students and, since they have come as asylum seekers and are living now in this country, being provided the protection and safe haven of this country, we might therefore provide for tuition fees to be charged at the lower rate that is charged to people in this country. I should have risen before my noble friend on the Front Bench, but I had not realised that my amendment was in this group. That is the basic argument being made for Amendment 239B.

I have direct experience of this because, as I think I have mentioned in the House before, there is a small foundation which gives bursaries to people who are particularly disadvantaged. A category of them are asylum seekers, so we are very conscious of the problems that young people have when they come to this country and are given a safe haven. They are then often the most diligent at sixth-form colleges and in further education, and go on to higher education, but they face this incredibly high bill, although they have very little resource at all. We can help them in the tiniest ways, but they are facing the increased fee as if they were a well-to-do person applying to come to study in this country from abroad. So we think that the Government might want to look at this matter.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am conscious of the time and that there has been some shuffling around and stern looks from the usual channels, who are looking to make progress. I hope your Lordships will bear with me when I say that it just happens that the way in which the scheduling has gone, we arrived at what is probably the most important group of amendments just before 7 pm. There are a huge number of people outside as well as inside this Chamber who need to understand what the 26 amendments that the Government have in this group, and of course the other amendments in it, would do. I need to put that on the record—that is a kind of clue to those people who are hovering that it may well be 15 minutes before I have done that. I hope that the House will bear with me and understand that we are talking about a very important group. I want to get those comments and explanations on the record so that they can be examined ahead of Report and our meeting.

To shorten somewhat what I will go through, I again refer noble Lords to my letter of 21 January and to the response explaining Schedules 8 and 9. I particularly draw the Committee’s attention to paragraphs 64 through to 76, and to appendix B. I have struck out some remarks of explanation in the areas covered in that document, which has been circulated and is in the public domain. I have also given an undertaking to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that we will have a meeting on this—an opportunity to exchange views and take a little more time to look at the evidence in the period between Committee and Report.

Clause 38 and Schedule 9 make changes to local authority support in England for migrants without immigration status, under Schedule 3 to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, while they establish a lawful basis to remain here or prior to their departure from the UK. Our public consultation on asylum support highlighted concerns that the framework provided by Schedule 3 and associated case law was complex and burdensome for local authorities to administer, and involved complicated assessments and continued litigation to establish what support should be provided and in what circumstances. The Public Bill Committee of the Commons heard similar concerns from local authority colleagues.

We are clear that we want to encourage and enable more migrants without any lawful basis to remain here to leave the UK in circumstances where they can do so, while retaining appropriate safeguards. We have also listened carefully to what local authorities have told us about the scope for simplifying and strengthening the current framework. In that context, we have also had engagement with the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and I will ensure that we get a readout from those discussions for our meeting.

Schedule 9 therefore makes two key changes to Schedule 3 to the 2002 Act. First, it simplifies the way in which local authorities assess and provide accommodation and subsistence for destitute families without immigration status. It enables local authorities to continue to provide, under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, for any other needs of a child or their family in order to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Secondly, it prevents adult care leavers who have exhausted their appeal rights and have established no lawful basis to remain here from accessing local authority support under the 1989 Act. It makes alternative provision for their accommodation, subsistence and other support before they leave the UK. It ensures that local authorities can still provide these care leavers with any social care support which they consider that the young adult needs during this period.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the Minister for the care with which he has responded and his full recognition of the vulnerability of these young people. I am grateful to him.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

I, too, thank the Minister for giving consideration to the position of people who are facing this fee problem. I am grateful he has given some thought to that.