Immigration Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

However, I would like to see the back of this altogether. I hope that at least making that point on these clauses will not be relevant because we might not be considering them for much longer. One lives in hope.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the opposition to Clause 8 standing part of the Bill and I also support Amendment 63. At Second Reading a number of noble Lords expressed fears about potential exploitation as a result of Clause 8, reflecting the worries of organisations working on the ground. The Minister tried to reassure us that our fears were unfounded, but the range of organisations that are worried about it must give cause for concern. Also a number of organisations, including the Law Society, have stated that the clause is unnecessary. The Law Society argues that,

“the creation of parallel criminal offences is wrong in principle and creates confusion”.

My noble friend Lord Rosser raised the point about the disparity between the defence of reasonableness that is available to employers not being available to employees who are accused of illegal working. That was a point which was raised in the Public Bill Committee by more than one Member, but as far as I can see it was not addressed by the Minister there in his response, so I hope that the Minister here will be able to say something about it today. Why is there no parallel defence for employees?

As well as the risk of exploitation, I am concerned that the state will in effect be exploiting undocumented workers when it seizes their wages. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me as a lay person that there is a distinction to be made between the confiscation of assets that are the proceeds of a crime such as stealing, burglary or fraud and those that are the result of the criminalisation of the sale of one’s labour. In support of my rather basic lay understanding, I pray in aid ILPA’s briefing. It points out, as did my noble friend Lord Rosser, that,

“the Crown Prosecution Service Guidance on the Proceeds of Crime says that it should prioritise recovery of assets from serious organised crime and serious economic crime”.

Surely we are not talking about that here. ILPA continues by stating that:

“A confiscation order must be proportionate to the aim of the legislation, which is to recover the financial benefit that the defendant has obtained from the criminal conduct … The purpose of the legislation is not to further punish the offender by fining them, or to act as a deterrent. If the confiscation order is not proportionate then it will be a violation of the right to peaceful enjoyment of property under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights”.

It would appear that potentially an important human rights issue is being raised here.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to the experience in Italy. Another aspect of that was put by the organisation FLEX in its briefing, which states that evidence from that experience,

“demonstrates the impracticality of attempts to seize undocumented workers’ assets. Under an ‘irregular migration offence’ provided for in the ‘Bossi-Fini Law 2002’ undocumented workers could be fined for working without documents in Italy. This offence was ultimately repealed in 2014, one of the reasons for which was the heavy bureaucracy and limited success associated with gaining financial penalties from undocumented workers”.

On both principled and potentially human rights grounds, as well as practical and pragmatic grounds, I really do believe that the clause should not stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made rather a good case for inserting the words “without reasonable excuse”, and I certainly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about voluntary work. But perhaps I may raise a wider issue. Making illegal working a specific offence will fill a gap, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, pointed out in his helpful letter of 8 January. It means that those who have entered illegally or who have overstayed their visas could now be prosecuted for working in the UK.

When I gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee of the other place, a former DPP said that in practice he had not known of a case where it was necessary to have this law because other provisions could be brought to bear. However, impressions matter. The present situation must be an excellent selling point for anyone who happens to be a people smuggler. Indeed, at this very moment there are literally thousands of young men camped near Calais. They are there because they believe that if they once get into the UK they can work illegally and send home what to them are very substantial sums of money. If detected, they can claim asylum and be here for a considerable period longer.

The fact that working illegally in the UK is not even an offence sends out entirely the wrong message, as the Mayor of Calais never tires of telling us. She is right; we should change the law. This is about deterrence and it is especially important in present circumstances.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have four amendments—Amendments 65, 68, 69 and 70—in this group. I shall speak to the amendments and then come back to the very legitimate points that have been raised and questions posed. I shall respond to them in turn.

Noble Lords are familiar with the reason why the Government are creating the offence of illegal working: to address a genuine gap in the law which currently impedes our ability to address the economic incentives behind illegal work where they exist. It is against this explanation and the safeguards to ensure its appropriate use that I turn to the amendments that have been tabled.

The Government have carefully considered the amendment to introduce the defence of “without reasonable excuse”. However, we believe that this introduces considerable ambiguity. Introducing such a wide defence risks making it very difficult to achieve a successful prosecution. The Government have also considered the amendment to remove voluntary work from the ambit of the offence. However, we believe that this is unnecessary because someone undertaking genuine voluntary work would not be working under the purposes of a contract. Therefore, genuine voluntary work is not caught by new Section 24B(9), introduced by Clause 8, and it therefore falls outside the ambit of the offence.

I share the concerns of noble Lords who want to ensure that this offence is used appropriately. The offence is not aimed at the victims of modern slavery, where the statutory defence in Section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act will still apply, as will common-law defences, such as duress. The circumstances of someone’s illegal working will be taken into account by the CPS and prosecutors in Northern Ireland and Scotland when deciding whether it is in the public interest to prosecute.

I also urge noble Lords to see the creation of this offence in the context of other measures in the Bill and elsewhere to increase the protection and support for victims of slavery and trafficking, strengthen enforcement against exploitation through the creation of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and taking tougher action against employers of illegal workers.

We should remember that individuals with an irregular immigration status are already likely to be committing a criminal offence, regardless of whether they are working. The Government’s policy remains unchanged and they will continue to seek the removal of illegal workers from the UK, and prosecute only where the CPS or prosecutors in Northern Ireland and Scotland consider that their prosecution is in the public interest. This remains the right approach. The new offence, however, will serve as an important deterrent to illegal economic migrants and close a gap in the Proceeds of Crime Act powers, which do not necessarily require a conviction.

I have listened carefully to noble Lords’ concerns regarding the strict liability nature of the offence. While I am of the opinion that there are sufficient safeguards to ensure that the offence is used appropriately and that victims of modern slavery are protected, I can assure noble Lords that I will reflect very carefully on today’s discussions and the points which have been made ahead of Report.

I now turn to the offence of employing an illegal worker in Clause 9 of the Bill. The Government’s intention in using “reasonable cause to believe” as the test is to provide a more objective test for the existing offence of employing illegal workers and so make the offence easier to prove. The test is intended to capture those employers who have wilfully turned a blind eye to someone’s immigration status when employing them so that the employer cannot be said to have known.

Introducing a test of recklessness would not resolve the difficulties in establishing an employer’s state of mind that the Government are seeking to address in the Bill. This is because the test of recklessness would remain subjective, requiring proof that the employer foresaw a risk that the person had no right to work, yet went on to take that risk and employ them.

The test of reasonable cause to believe is not the same as negligence. The intention is to continue to apply the civil penalty sanction to those employers who are simply negligent—that is to say, who act without reasonable care and skill—in terms of not checking a person’s right to work, or not doing so correctly.

The Government’s amendment requires an employer positively to have a reason to believe that the individual cannot accept the employment. It will enable prosecutions to be brought against employers who choose not to undertake the necessary checks because they have reasonable grounds to believe that such checks will reveal that the employee has no right to work. This is in addition to the Government’s intention to continue to prosecute those who we can show actually know that someone has no right to work here, as we can do now under the current wording of the offence.

I now turn to some of the points raised during our debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, asked about the projected size and suggested that the sums that we were talking about were fairly minuscule. I refer noble Lords to my letter to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, on 8 January, to which the noble Lord, Lord Green, referred. On page 2, it says:

“In 2014-15, the courts approved the forfeiture of cash totalling £542,668 seized by immigration officers. Following criminal convictions for immigration-related offences courts ordered the confiscation of assets totalling £966,024. We expect that in-country seizure could double with the use of the extended powers enabled by the new illegal working offence”.

Therefore, I do not think that these are inconsequential amounts—£1 million is quite a substantial amount. It is twice the budget of the relevant employment agency body. As I say, these are significant sums.

There is a slight sense that we were looking at destitute, highly vulnerable people, and that they would be the target of these initiatives. We are talking here about people who have on their person a significant amount of cash in excess of £1,000.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am sorry to interrupt but I meant to mention that because I saw it in the noble Lord’s very helpful letter. But where is it in the legislation? I looked for it but I could not find any reference to a £1,000 limit or anything. I wondered whether I had missed it.

[Lord Bates]

It comes under the Proceeds of Crime Act. What we are doing here is simply drawing that element into line. The accusation appears to be being made that somehow the Government are targeting people who are here illegally. Of course, if they are here illegally, they should not be here and they should rightly be removed. However, it is odd that under the legislation to which I referred, we can currently prosecute those who have permission to be in the UK and are working in breach of their conditions. We can confiscate the relevant sums under the Proceeds of Crime Act for those who are legally here in breach of their conditions. However, if someone is illegally here, or they have overstayed, we cannot do that. Noble Lords will need to comment on that themselves. However, if they believe that this provision is too punitive for people who are working illegally in this country, they ought also to say—I am not inviting them to do this by Report—that people who breach the terms of their existing stay in the country, such as students who work beyond the hours legally allowed, ought to be exempt as well. The fact that there is one rule for people who are legally here but breach their conditions, and another for people who are illegally here, seems to me wrong as there is a gap. We are trying to close that gap.

Refugees: Eritrea

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, there was, on 15 July last year, a response from the Government, by my noble friend Lady Anelay, to that specific report. One of the problems with that report was that the rapporteur, disgracefully in our opinion, was not given access to Asmara and could not go to Eritrea to engage and find out for herself. That is why the dialogues that have been undertaken by Foreign Office officials and James Brokenshire are so important in establishing what is happening on the ground and in holding the Eritrean Government to account on the commitments that they have given.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, can I go back to the Question of my noble friend Lady Kinnock? The proposal to resettle 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children is not a new one. On 2 September, the Prime Minister said that the Government would discuss it further. On 2 December, he said that they would think about it some more. Yet here we are, a further month on. I plead with the Minister to inject some urgency into these discussions. Every day that a positive decision is not taken, more children are left vulnerable to trafficking, to the cold, to disease or even death.

[Lord Bates]

When we hear about this situation, as when the Prime Minister heard about it, the immediate instinct is to think that there are, somewhere, 3,000 unaccompanied children waiting to find placement. Of course, 3,000 is an estimate of the total number, and where they are in the system is clearly a matter to be defined. We think that the way to do that is through the Dublin regulations and by making sure that they are properly recorded when they arrive in the UK. It is worth noting that the conclusion to that report said:

“We strongly commend DFID for setting an exemplary standard in its commitment to funding humanitarian assistance to address the Syrian crisis”.

That is part of the solution, but there is more to be done, and the Prime Minister will make an announcement on his review when he has examined all the facts.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, it feels like déjà vu all over again. Not only are we faced with a very similar set of measures to those in the 2014 Act, but also the Bill includes a second savage cut in asylum support this year and, yet again, a parallel consultation is taking place on charging migrants for healthcare, including some emergency treatment. We still await time limits on detention. As if the 2014 Act did not create a hostile enough environment for so-called illegal migrants—a term that bodies such as the General Assembly of the UN committed not to use; I will refer instead to “undocumented” migrants because no person is illegal—organisations on the ground warn that this Bill will make Britain an even more hostile and suspicious place for all migrants and their descendants.

I am grateful for the bumper bundle of official information that appeared on my desk last week, but the sunny picture it paints bears no resemblance to that detailed in the copious briefings we received, for which I am also grateful—though I will not be able to do them justice. Instead, they point to a Bill that spells discrimination, exploitation and destitution.

A number of provisions could give rise to discrimination. As the Conservative MP Richard Fuller warned,

“the problem is that it is very difficult for someone to see that a person is an illegal immigrant. What they see is someone who is different”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/10/15; col. 196.]

He asked whether the Home Secretary accepted that within this law there was the potential for discrimination to be increased if this was pursued too aggressively. The Home Secretary’s reply provided no reassurance. In the name of combating exploitation, some of the Bill’s provisions are likely to increase it, as we have heard, and, as has been argued, the withdrawal of the asylum support from appeal-exhausted families with children will without doubt mean destitution for all too many of them.

It was my original intention to speak solely about asylum support as I feel so strongly about this, particularly following the shabby and shameful cut in support for children that we debated in October. However, I am increasingly alarmed by other provisions, particularly the likely implications for children, whose best interests would appear to be far from paramount, and for women. I shall flag up some of these other concerns.

First, I shall speak on Clause 34, known as “Remove first, appeal later”. In its two reports on the last immigration Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I was then a member, raised serious concerns on human rights grounds about out-of-country appeals. This provision now goes further. As we have heard, Justice is one of numerous organisations warning about the human rights and rule-of-law implications as access to justice is impeded. There are also concerns about family separation and fears that the best interests of the child will not be given primary consideration as required by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, despite the Minister’s reassurances.

Rights of Women is worried about the implications for women migrants who have left abusive partners but who do not qualify to remain under the normal domestic violence rules because of their status, which is a common occurrence. Rights of Women fears that:

“A mother seeking to remain in the UK as the parent of a child who is wrongfully refused by the Home Office faces the prospect of leaving her child in the UK with an abusive father or taking her child with her forcing them to leave behind a network of friends and family, abandoning their schools and communities and being forced to live in a country where in many instances they have no ties, no understanding of the language or culture”.

It points out that this upheaval could last for months or longer.

I and other noble Lords raised fears about the potentially discriminatory impact of the right to rent scheme during the passage of the 2014 Bill. The Home Office’s gloss notwithstanding, I am not reassured by the findings of the pilot, which in my view do not allow us to conclude that our fears were unfounded, particularly in the light of JCWI’s independent evaluation, which reinforced those fears. Rights of Women warns that its extension and intensification could disproportionately affect women fleeing abusive partners, regardless of their nationality.

With regard to discriminatory effects, will the Minister give an assurance that the new language requirements for customer-facing public sector workers will not be used against those whose first language is British Sign Language, and commit to include a clear statement to that effect in the code of practice, as requested by Sense?

Turning back to the right to rent, there are also fears that it would make undocumented migrants more vulnerable to exploitation by rogue landlords. Similarly, as we have heard, the criminalisation of undocumented workers who undertake paid work makes them more vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace, thereby undermining one of the Bill’s aims. Exploitation can also be one result of the removal of asylum support from appeal-exhausted asylum seekers unless they can demonstrate destitution and a genuine obstacle to leaving the UK. The danger is that, counterproductively, adults and children disappear into the shadow economy or even are subject to sexual exploitation. Despite widespread opposition to the use of prospective destitution to incentivise voluntary return, the Bill steamed ahead with the original proposal just six days after the consultation closed.

The language of “incentives” is constantly used as justification, as if asylum seekers personified economically rational man in their decision-making. Such thinking was challenged by a Centre for Social Justice working group some years ago, and the overwhelming evidence from organisations working with asylum seekers shows just how misplaced it is. For example, Women for Refugee Women writes that,

“parents who fear for their own and their children’s safety will not be swayed to return to their home countries by the threat of being made destitute, or actual destitution”.

Not one of 45 women that WRW spoke to in a 2012 study felt able to contemplate voluntary return, despite facing destitution. That still held true when it spoke to 30 of those women a year later.

Women can face particular problems in getting their need for protection recognised when it arises from sexual persecution. My concern about this provision is heightened by the absence of any appeal rights, as we have heard, which again raises serious human rights and rule-of-law issues. It has been justified on the grounds that whether or not there is a genuine obstacle to leaving is a straightforward matter of fact, but judgments have to be made on facts pertaining to both this and the other criterion for destitution. ASAP’s analysis of decision-making on destitution under the existing scheme suggests that serious injustices could result.

More detail about what constitutes a genuine obstacle will be contained in regulations, as will the level and type of support to be provided for those who qualify and the length of the grace period, although I am pleased to say that the Home Office has recognised the strength of representations that 28 days is just too short in family cases. When will the draft regulations be published? Can the Minister give us a firm reassurance that at the very least an Explanatory Note of the contents will be published before Committee?

The Home Office has been more willing to respond to local authority concerns by severely restricting access to local authority support. The result is graphically described by ILPA as,

“a series of tatty ‘safety’ nets, each full of holes”,

through which it would be all too easy to plummet. There are also limitations on support for care leavers subject to immigration control, who are referred to as “adults” as though somehow the vulnerabilities faced by care leavers who turn 18, long recognised in law and policy, will magically dissolve.

I have received many emails from organisations and individuals asking me to speak today because of their concerns, particularly around asylum support. One of them, a Quaker,

“saddened by the increased dehumanisation”,

of policy-making in this area, wished me,

“strength in maintaining your opposition to the Bill in its present form”.

We owe it to them and, more importantly, to all those who stand to be affected by this wretched Bill to improve it and prevent the discrimination, exploitation and destitution that it threatens.

Domestic Violence

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

There is a particular group called Imkaan which works in this area with BME communities and they are represented on the national oversight group which the Home Secretary set up to advise her on improving her response across government to domestic violence.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the Justice Select Committee found that more than a third of the victims of domestic violence were unable to get legal aid because they could not provide evidence that such violence occurred within two years of their application. The Government responded with only a very minor reform. Will they now review the situation with a view to extending the time limits and, if not, why not?

[Lord Bates]

Certainly in relation to legal aid there is a merits test to go through. I understand that in cases of domestic violence there is a more generous provision than in other areas. There is an important new provision coming out in which we are going to refresh the cross-government strategy on tackling violence against women and girls. That will include some elements of new legislative responses which are available and being considered by the Government.

Asylum Support (Amendment No. 3) Regulations 2015

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Lords Chamber

All too often for these desperate families it is a case of no money, no house, no permission to work. In the 21st century, in the fourth-richest country on earth, people are being reduced to absolute destitution, not by accident or personal tragedy but by deliberate act of policy—and we should therefore certainly reconsider these regulations today by supporting the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble friend Lord Rosser. I apologise if I cover some of the same ground. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness for having moved so quickly to ensure that we were able to debate these regulations. I believe that your Lordships should oppose them on two main grounds: the manner in which they were introduced and the impact that a cut of £16 a week in the allowance for each child will have on a particularly vulnerable group of children and families, as is spelled out in the regret Motion.

As we have already heard, these regulations replicate regulations that were originally laid on 12 March, just a fortnight before the end of the last parliamentary Session. To my knowledge, no Statement, oral or written, was made to Parliament that the regulations had been made, despite the significant change in asylum support policy they represent and despite the considerable interest in that policy that had been expressed, particularly in your Lordships’ House. As I understand it, the stakeholder forum of voluntary organisations working with asylum seekers was informed on 23 March, just two weeks before the regulations were due to come into force. I learned of the regulations the following day by pure chance. No other parliamentarian whom I contacted, Front Bench or Back Bench, knew anything about them. It is thanks only to the behind-the-scenes intervention of the former MP Sarah Teather, who was a great parliamentary champion of asylum seekers, that they were withdrawn as they had not been agreed by the coalition partners.

It was shoddy behaviour on the part of the Home Office to sneak out controversial regulations in this way at a time when Parliament could do nothing about them. I do not address this criticism to the Minister, because I am quite sure that he personally would not have countenanced such behaviour. However, I hope that he will relay to the Home Office our dismay at it.

Although the official reason given for the withdrawal of the original regulations was “further reflection”, the suspicion was that they would be relaid in the new Parliament, so I tabled a Written Question to ask whether the Government planned to do so. The response on 8 June was that:

“The matter is under consideration”.

Five weeks later, identical regulations were laid just a week before the House rose for the Summer Recess. Therefore, once again there was no time for them to be debated before they came into effect in August. It is difficult not to conclude that this was deliberate.

Not surprisingly, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, as has already been referred to, was pretty scathing. It found “unconvincing” the explanation given for an instrument containing such a “controversial policy change” being laid “so close to a recess”. It expressed its disappointment that,

“gaining an understanding of the … background”,

to the policy change required such,

“persistent questioning of the Government”.

One aspect of the background to the policy change that was not addressed is the consistent picture painted by organisations working with asylum-seeking families of the severe poverty and hardship they have experienced living on the existing allowances. As we have already heard, these were set in 1999 at 70% of income support rates. However, since 2011, they have been frozen, resulting in a cut of nearly 7.5% in their real value.

Income support rates are far from generous. A study of the cost of a child for the Child Poverty Action Group by Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy—I declare a double interest as the honorary president of the CPAG and emeritus professor at Loughborough—concluded that,

“a family on benefits is left well over a third short of being able to afford a socially acceptable minimum”.

Back in 2010, before the rates were frozen, Still Human Still Here analysed the basket of basic goods used by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for its minimum income standard research but stripped it down to include only goods needed to avoid what it termed “absolute poverty”. It concluded that 70% of income support was the absolute minimum necessary to meet asylum seekers’ basic needs.

We have already heard about the research conducted by Refugee Action. Respondents to that research expressed deep concern about the impact that deprivation was having on the health, well-being and physical development of their children. The point was made that, whereas income support recipients might be able to turn to family or social networks for help in getting by, this was rarely an option for asylum seekers. Overall, its conclusion was that the support system,

“fails to meet essential living needs or ensure a dignified standard of living for those in its care”.

In 2013, I sat on an all-party parliamentary inquiry into asylum support for children and young people, chaired by Sarah Teather and supported by the Children’s Society. We were shocked by some of the evidence received of the hardship faced by asylum-seeking families. We took evidence from a range of experts, social workers, local authorities and families themselves and concluded that the current levels of support provided to families are too low to meet children’s essential needs. Furthermore, these rates do not enable parents to provide for their children’s wider needs to learn, grow and develop, especially if they have a disability.

It is difficult to square all this evidence with the Home Office’s conclusion that the previous levels of asylum support for families with children,

“significantly exceed what is necessary to meet essential living needs”.

This conclusion is based primarily on ONS expenditure data for the lowest 10% income group, supplemented by various other data on the cost of essential items. But taking expenditure data for the lowest decile begs the question as to whether people at that level of income are able to spend enough for a healthy and decent life—a point made by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. We know that many of those living on a lower income are not able to afford an adequate diet. It therefore does not provide an appropriate benchmark for costing a healthy diet. Also, I am not convinced that the adjustments made to the ONS data take adequate account of the extra costs involved for people new to the country, often living in poor accommodation.

The advice that I have received from Donald Hirsch, whose evidence was cited in the 2014 High Court judgment on asylum support, and from Professor Jonathan Bradshaw, both respected experts who work on minimum income standards and the costs of children, is that it is not good enough to rely on multiple strands of evidence to corroborate the questionable figures taken from the ONS data, when each of the strands is, in their words, “flimsy and selectively chosen”. They focus in particular on the evidence used to argue that the food budget is adequate, pointing out that it provides little more than half of what has been calculated is required to achieve a minimum income standard deemed necessary for decent living by the general public. That is in the context of greater access to kitchen facilities and transport than is likely to be the case for asylum seekers on the Government’s assumptions.

One piece of evidence is misrepresented hearsay taken from quotes from a nutritionist. Another is based on the spending habits of a member of the Home Office team. The example for one day is: “breakfast: cereal; lunch: garlic baguette; dinner: pasta with peppers”. That does not sound like a very healthy diet for a growing child. Would it not have been more appropriate, when determining the level of support for a particularly vulnerable and sometimes traumatised group of families for whom, as we have heard, paid work is not a committed option, for the Home Office to have employed a nutritionist and to have made a proper scientific costing of a weekly menu, as done by proper academic research in this area?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

Our position is that we have gone into this in exhaustive detail, as my letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, set out, probably in too much detail. It set out right down to the last penny where we felt that these amounts had come from. We clearly believe that we are complying with our international obligations. If this is shown to have a real detrimental effect, and evidence can be provided to us, then of course we will consider that very carefully next year, when this comes to be reviewed.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

It should not be up to other organisations to provide the evidence. The Minister very honestly said at the outset that these people will be living on an income barely above the level of destitution. I asked if he would give an undertaking that the Home Office would monitor the impact. Will he now do that please?

[Lord Bates]

We will, of course, continue to monitor the impact. We will continue to work through the National Asylum Stakeholder Forum with other groups. We have set out our position, and if people challenge that position and have data that show that there is unintended hardship as a result of these regulations, they should come forward with them. They should make the data available to us, and we will then consider them.