Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to be able to advise the Committee that we seem to be back to normal with the emailing of the clerk, so Members who wish to speak after the Minister should use what they thought was the correct route at the beginning.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support this group of amendments. I have added my name to Amendments 24 and 31. I see these amendments as being not just in the interests of asylum seekers and refugees, although we have already heard strong arguments for why they are so, but also in the country’s economic and social interests and in the interests of overall social integration, which is supposedly a government policy goal.

A recent paper from the Institute of Labor Economics throws some light on the issues raised by Amendment 24 and others, using cross-European data for a period of nearly 30 years. It concluded that

“imposing temporary employment bans on asylum seekers has large negative consequences for their subsequent labour market integration − an effect that may remain sizable for up to 10 years”.

The authors recommend that

“host country governments should carefully weigh the (alleged) benefits of such bans against their longer term costs for both refugees and the host country economy.”

They found the sooner the access to the labour market, the better, and that when access is allowed it is not helpful to restrict it according to job type or employment sector in the way that our ludicrous shortage occupation list, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, does.

The paper also found that the existence of a ban has no impact on the numbers seeking asylum, which is one of the arguments that Ministers have used to justify it. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will not come out with that argument, because there is no evidence for it. If he is going to do so, could he please tell us what the evidence is?

Nearly a year ago, I had an exchange with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, about the economic benefits of lifting the ban. As well as the survey of business leaders mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, a group of business leaders wrote to the Financial Times to make the case, and the FT quoted the CBI chief economist, who said that

“despite being keen to earn a living and participate in the society where they live, many of those displaced are prevented from using their skills to contribute to the economy.”

In a letter to me, the Minister questioned how many asylum seekers would in fact be skilled, and suggested that the priority should be speeding up decision-making and then supporting granted refugees into employment more quickly. No one would dispute the need to speed up decision-making and support refugees into employment but, nearly a year on from that exchange, the Immigration Minister acknowledged to the House of Commons committee that the asylum decision-making timeframe remains a concern. This is not an either/or situation. Worse, at present it seems to be neither: we have neither speeded up decision-making nor do we have the right to work. I accept that the assumptions about the proportion of asylum seekers who are skilled may be optimistic, as the Minister said, but that does not invalidate the case, not least because many of those deemed to be unskilled may in fact have very real skills to contribute, including to the care sector, which we heard about on Monday.

This May, the Lift the Ban campaign carried out a skills audit of people seeking asylum. Nearly half of those audited reported previous occupations that would fall into the Government’s definition of “critical workers”, with one in seven having worked in health or social care. Have the Government carried out such a skills audit on which to base their position?

In Amendment 31, which I was very pleased to be able to support, we are talking about a group of displaced refugees who would be recognised as skilled under any definition. The right reverend Prelate has already made a strong case for what I believe is a very helpful and, as he put it, creative idea that is well worth exploring. I hope the Government will explore it. I understand that there have been pilots to see how it might work. It worked rather well in other countries but unfortunately has floundered in this country because the Immigration Rules have meant that it is not practical or scalable. If nothing else, I hope there might be a way of seeing whether we can have a proper pilot in this country.

All I will add to the case already made so well by the right reverend Prelate is to emphasise a point that has already been made in a sense: we do not see this as a substitute for fulfilling our obligation to provide a safe haven to asylum seekers and refugees or for positive reforms to the asylum system, including the more general right to work after at most six months that we have been talking about.

The Government have dragged their heels over the right to work issue, as we have already heard, for nearly two years, yet suddenly it is all speed ahead with what we are told will be the new asylum Bill, designed not to help asylum seekers, as it would seem from what the media has said about it, but to make it harder for them to come here. Suddenly it has become an urgent matter, whereas there has been no urgency at all to do something for asylum seekers here.

If the Government want to dispel the fears about this forthcoming Bill—that it is all about how we keep asylum seekers out and nothing to do with how we make life better for them when they are here—I hope at the very least they will commit today to finish their review of the right to work and include it in this forthcoming Bill.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it was my pleasure to attach my name to Amendment 24 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I express my support for all the amendments in this group, including, as has been said, the very creative Amendment 31 in the name of the right reverend Prelate.

I am following five eloquent and powerful speeches, so I do not feel the need to add a great deal. Those speeches, collectively and individually, have utterly put paid to any suggestion that the UK is generous to people who come to our shores fleeing war or repression and desperately in need of sanctuary. As other speakers have made clear, we are an international outlier in our restrictions on work, to which these amendments refer. I am sure the Minister will recall that she very kindly took the time to hear from me about the circumstances of the asylum seekers in Urban House in Wakefield and the conditions in which people are living.

We all know that the hostile environment of the Home Office is very often chaotic. People are trapped, often for years, living in inadequate privatised housing with the desperately limited sum of £37.75 a week to try to get by on and denied the opportunity—which so many of them are desperate to take—to work. I cite a young woman I spoke to some years ago who made a huge impact on me, so eloquent was she about the situation she found herself in. She was, you might say, an extreme case, but sadly a not at all uncommon one. She had come to Britain as a young woman of 18 or 19, having been a political activist in Zimbabwe— I have no doubt that she was a victim of torture. Some 10 years later, we have still not given her status. She was studying for a degree through funding and support from a voluntary organisation, but she told me what her situation was like:

“I feel like I’m in a cage. I can see the door, and people keep walking back and forth in front of that door with a key in their hand, but they never stick the key in the lock and let me out.”


Leaving people in that situation is torture. We are talking about people who are often already victims of torture. Any of these amendments would be a significant improvement. The three-month amendment is obviously the best one. The current situation cannot continue; it is damaging to all British society as well as to individuals. I commend these amendments to the House.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I will deal with the third question first. I am afraid the evidence will flow from the review that I mentioned in my response, which will of course come to your Lordships’ House once it is done, taking into account the additional work of the Migration Advisory Committee and the review of the report by the Lift the Ban coalition.

On restricting the right to work to the shortage occupation list, as I said in my reply, it is right to restrict access to work to British citizens and others lawfully resident, including those already granted asylum. We do that under the reception conditions directive of 2003. The shortage occupation list is based on expert advice from the Migration Advisory Committee. I thought we had a useful debate yesterday on social care. If there are shortages in that sector, that is something that the Migration Advisory Committee is well placed to advise on and to dispassionately provide advice to government. The list can be updated accordingly.

Finally, on the point about Poland and LGBT rights, I do not want to reopen debates from the referendum, but I remember being told quite powerfully when I was campaigning to leave that it was the EU that somehow had created or guaranteed rights for LGBT people across Europe. I thought that was wrong then and I am surprised to hear the noble Lord raising it today. Poland is a prosperous, developed country. It is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. If the EU is good at doing the job that campaigners said it was during the referendum, it will enforce those rights. Unless that changes, we do not see a reason to change our assessment of EU member states such as Poland.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I want to come back to the question of evidence—I was the one who asked for it. I thought the Minister was about to give it because he referred to my question; however, he then started talking about those coming in boats across the channel—what is the connection? We do not have the right to work, so why is that evidence in favour of the Government’s justification? Would he accept the widespread consensus that the best way to reduce the pull factor of the channel would be to increase the legal routes enabling asylum seekers to come to this country? Could I also respond to the point the Minister just made, that we will have to wait for evidence until this review is completed? The review has been going nearly two years. The Minister knew we would raise this question during the debate; I would have expected the Government to have some evidence in support of the case they are making now, rather than having to wait any longer.

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Moved by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

30: Clause 4, page 3, line 8, at end insert—
“( ) Regulations under subsection (1) must ensure that no fee is charged that may deter or prevent registration of an EEA or Swiss national as a British citizen.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment is to probe the impact upon rights to British citizenship of measures relating to fees (currently £1012 for a child and £1206 for an adult to register a statutory right to British citizenship) that have been introduced or are to be introduced in connection with the ending of free movement.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 30 and to speak to Amendment 68. These probing amendments are about citizenship, and I am grateful to the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens—of which I am a patron—and Amnesty International UK for their help with them. I pay tribute to these organisations for all the work they have done to promote and protect children’s citizenship rights.

For technical reasons, the amendments relate solely to EEA and Swiss nationals, but the issues they raise echo concerns raised previously on a number of occasions in your Lordships’ House, particularly with regard to children’s citizenship rights.

Children born in this country to parents settled here, or who have grown up here from a young age, are entitled to register as British citizens. A combination of factors, including exorbitant fees, lack of awareness of the need to register their right to citizenship and the difficulties faced by local authorities in assisting looked-after children to exercise the right, have resulted in thousands of children being denied that right to British citizenship.

One consequence of our leaving the EU is that many more children could be in this position. They are the children of EU nationals who were born or who have grown up in the UK from an early age; the Home Office appears to have ignored this group. In establishing the EUSS, it has done nothing to raise awareness of their citizenship rights or to encourage children and young people with these rights to exercise them. Instead, because the EUSS is free, there is a real danger that many of them will be encouraged to secure themselves immigration status and not confirm or register themselves as British citizens, which they may not realise is open to them and involves a fee of £1,012.

In a High Court judgment in December last year—mentioned in the debate on an earlier amendment—that fee was deemed unlawful, as it was set without having regard to the best interests of the child. That decision is being appealed, but its reasoning is highly pertinent. In particular, it underlined the importance of citizenship.

In response to a similar set of amendments in the Commons Committee stage, the Immigration Minister argued that any child looked after by their local authority can apply for limited and indefinite leave to remain without having to pay a fee, and that citizenship itself

“is not essential for any individual to work, live, study or access services in the UK.”

When he was urged not to pursue that line of argument by Stuart McDonald MP, he re-emphasised that citizenship

“is not something that people need in order to access services.”—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill Committee, 16/6/20; cols. 208-09.]

Does the Conservative Party really believe in such a transactional view of the significance of citizenship? In contrast, in 1981, during the passage of the British Nationality Act, which conferred the right to register as a citizen, it was emphasised that this was in part to ensure that the children concerned should have

“as strong a sense of security as possible”.

Citizenship is about security, belonging, inclusion, integration and identity. Indeed, the High Court judgment cited the Secretary of State’s own guidance document, which states that:

“Becoming a British citizen is a significant life event. Apart from allowing a child to apply for a British citizen passport, British citizenship gives them the opportunity to participate more fully in the life of their local community as they grow up.”


As noted on the earlier amendment, the High Court judgment referred to a “mass of evidence” that the inability to exercise their right to register as citizens because of the fee causes many children born in the UK to

“feel alienated, excluded, isolated, second best, insecure and not fully assimilated into the culture and social fabric of the UK.”

Is this really what the Government want? Do we want many more children to feel this way in future? This false equation of immigration status with citizenship was one factor in the Windrush scandal. Please do not let us repeat it.

Amendment 30 addresses the impact of the fee level on registration. In her Windrush Lessons Learned Review, Wendy Williams notes that

“there’s little evidence that the impact on people was effectively considered”

when fees were increased significantly. Amendment 68 specifies that the level should not exceed the administrative cost, which according to the Home Office is currently £372—£640 less than the fee charged. The Home Office’s argument that such a mark-up on the fee is justified because it provides a “benefit” and because the Home Office needs the money to run a sustainable immigration and citizenship system—repeated by the Minister at Second Reading—is specious because we are talking about a citizenship right bestowed by Parliament, not a discretionary immigration status.

Amendment 68 also excludes from the fee any child who has been looked after by a local authority—a particularly marginalised group of children. There is no logic to local authorities having to pay these fees on behalf of these children as it simply involves a transfer of resources from local to central government. I believe some other noble Lords might say more about this. It also requires the Secretary of State to take steps to raise awareness of the right to register as a British citizen but I will not say more about that now as it is the main focus of Amendment 67, which will be debated on a later day.

Because of the restrictions created by the Bill’s Long Title, these are simply probing amendments. However, as I am sure the Minister realises, the more general question of the barriers to registering the right to British citizenship, particularly the level of the fee, is one that we will return to in this House time and again. Given the Home Office’s welcome readiness to accept the recommendations of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, and the dangers of now repeating some of the flaws it revealed, will it now think again? As a first step, will the Minister, on behalf of the Home Office, undertake to look again at the level of the fee, which even Sajid Javid, when Home Secretary, admitted was “huge”? I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has been terrier-like in her pursuit of these issues. I, like the whole House, am grateful to her for that and I too thank the organisations she mentioned.

The fees are to exercise a right, but a right is no use if you cannot exercise it. The fees are a deterrent. They are a deterrent if you think that you are in a sufficiently secure position and do not understand the distinction between immigration status and citizenship. They are a deterrent if you are told by the Government that you are in secure position through the European Union settled status scheme. They are obviously a deterrent if you cannot afford them. I will not be the only Member of the Committee who has heard distressing stories of families who have realised that they cannot afford to pay for the citizenship registration of all family members and have selected some. If there is a mother with four children—well, we can all do the maths.

The noble Baroness used words, which I have written down, that are about more than security; they are about a sense of belonging. Otherwise, over the years why would so many people have chosen to become citizens through a sometimes pretty laborious route, having to take tests about things that would probably be mysteries to many of us and culminating in citizenship ceremonies? I have been to one. The ceremony is an important part of the whole process—the recognition of that belonging.

Everyone understands that there are administrative costs to these things, but the current fees far exceed the costs. There is a surplus—I use that term rather than “profit”, because I understand that the Minister protests at the term “profit”—in the order of £600, as I understand it, and £800 in the case of adults, where the fees are something like £1,200. The Home Office talks about this surplus being justified because of the benefit, but I do not understand the logic of citizenship being a benefit if indefinite leave to remain is an equivalent, or at least sufficient to meet all the attributes of citizenship, as seems to be argued by the Home Office.

The noble Baroness mentioned the Windrush scandal, and I am sure the Home Office must be anxious not to get into a similar situation. It has said that all Wendy Williams’s recommendations are accepted. About three of those are about meaningful engagement with stakeholders and communities and the use of research. If the Home Office were to engage on this topic and undertake research, I think it would understand how very fully these issues play with the people affected. In any event, as has been said, citizenship is about rights—the right to citizenship of the children referred to—and we should not put blocks in the way of rights.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I could go through them tonight, but I think the Committee is probably getting quite weary, as is the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, so I will write and explain.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I am very grateful to all noble Lords who added their names to this amendment or who spoke from across the Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about being a member of the infantry. With infantry like this, who needs generals? We have had such powerful, passionate, well-informed speeches from across the Committee. I think they all came from the heart, and that is what made them so powerful. It is clear that everybody feels very strongly about this, particularly when talking about the implications for children.

The right reverend Prelate used the word “iniquitous”, which is unusually strong, given his measured approach. This is iniquitous and we should take note when someone such as the right reverend Prelate uses that word. It is a tragedy that we are having to come back to argue this again. The Windrush scandal is hanging over it all like a spectre. It is important that we do not repeat that shameful episode in our country’s history.

I thank the Minister. I am relieved that she did not try to argue that citizenship is not important—I think she realised that she was on hiding to nothing if she tried to do that. Apart from that, however, I am disappointed that there is no sign of any give in the Government’s position.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt, but somebody else wants to ask a question. I shall let them ask the question and then come back to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, to let her finish. I am really sorry about this. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has made a late request to ask a question and I think we should let her ask it.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Baroness has just demonstrated that it is really beneficial to be here throughout the whole of the debate, because I covered that aspect on local authorities in my speech. If she reads Hansard, it will clarify the matter for her, and if she would like to come back to me again, I would be very happy to respond.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I was saying that I found the Minister’s response disappointing. Yet again, when she talked about the cost of the immigration and citizenship service, she seemed to be conflating immigration and citizenship. Part of the point that we are making is that they are different and that it is irrelevant what the overall cost of the immigration and borders system is, because these fees should not be paying for that system. They should simply be paying for the cost of registering a right of citizenship that already exists. That was disappointing, and she might want to look again at that.

The Minister said that EEA and non-EEA people would be treated the same in future. That is not very reassuring because we have been going on for years about how badly the non-EEA people are treated in this area. She talked about a two-tier system not delivering the required fund or policy intent, and I was not sure what she meant by “policy intent”. As she is going to be writing a letter to us anyway, perhaps she could clarify that.

I was also very puzzled—this might be partly what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, was referring to—that subsection (2) of the amendment does not refer to local authority assistance. That was an original amendment that was put down in the Commons. The Minister in the Commons pointed out that this was a very vague term, so we deliberately put in this amendment the words

“looked after by a local authority.”

I do not quite know whether the Minister was speaking to an amendment that was laid in the Commons rather than the amendment that is before her now. We are talking very specifically about looked-after children, not any child who gets any kind of assistance from a local authority. Perhaps she could clarify that when she writes her letter.

I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, who talked about the importance of doing the right thing. That is why we are all still here, in this echo chamber, and we will continue to be here until the Government do the right thing. The only dispute I have with the notion of an echo chamber is that echoes tend to fade away. This echo is not going to fade away: it is going to get stronger. The more the Government try to resist it, the more we will be coming back. It might not be part of this Bill, because clearly the amendment is not going to pass, but there will be ample opportunities and we will not let this go. We will, of course, wait to see what will happen in the appeal, but I hope the Government will remember the importance of doing the right thing, because the Government are now doing the wrong thing. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 30 withdrawn.