Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Ludford]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to propose the Second Reading of this important and, I think, timely Bill. I am very grateful to all the speakers in today’s debate, to the Families Together coalition of NGOs, which has supported, encouraged and briefed us, to our Library for its briefing, and to all the parliamentarians who have championed this cause in previous versions of this Bill, not least my noble friend Lady Hamwee.

The Bill is timely because recent events make it more vital than ever. Broadcasts from Afghanistan have highlighted the pertinence of family in the case of refugees. We have seen babies passed over barbed wire to soldiers and small children left behind in the chaos outside Kabul airport, and heard the many anguished accounts of those who could not locate their families in time to gather them together for an evacuation flight.

The purpose of the Bill is to expand the criteria of who qualifies as a family member for the purposes of refugee family reunion; to reintroduce legal aid for such cases; and to give unaccompanied refugee children in the UK the right to sponsor their family members to join them under the refugee family reunion rules. On that last point, the application in almost every other European country of the EU family reunification directive means that they allow refugee children to sponsor close relations.

In his report a year ago on the handling of family reunion cases, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration said that

“the Private Members’ Bill having fallen, the Home Office now needs to demonstrate that it has indeed listened to stakeholders regarding: expanding the eligibility criteria for sponsors and applicants; enabling access to legal aid”

and

“fixing issues with the application process itself ... And, where it looks to resist demands for these changes, it needs to show that it has a robust evidence base for its current policy and practice.”

I hope to hear that from the Minister if he is indeed to resist the Bill.

I was impressed by Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins MP, speaking last week about the importance of giving stability to the recipients of the ARAP scheme through indefinite leave to remain and the right to work. That word “stability” is of the utmost relevance and importance in the context of family reunion. Permitting a refugee to be with their family will greatly improve their chance of leading a stable, well-integrated life without threats to their well-being and mental health. Family unity may also save the public purse. It costs £30,000 a year to look after a child in a residential home or foster care.

However, the family reunion provisions of the Immigration Rules are narrow. They allow only a spouse or partner and children under the age of 18 to be reunited with a family member granted refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK. Under the Dublin process, if a family member was in another European country, they had a prospect of being reunited, but of course this no longer applies in the UK, so the prospects of family reunion have become even more constrained.

Apart from being narrow, the Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place has said that these rules pose “unacceptable bureaucratic hurdles”, with forms that are complex, especially without specialist legal advice, an appeals process that is unclear, costly and lengthy, meaning that a child may have to wait in unsafe conditions while the application is processed. They are likely to be particularly difficult for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to navigate, and may drive children to attempt to come to the UK to reunite with relatives via possibly unsafe and irregular routes.

I imagine that the Minister will again seek to deflect the case for this Bill by directing my attention, first, to another provision of the Immigration Rules and, secondly, to the discretion outside the rules. In its response to the report in October 2020 of the then Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, which cited calls from stakeholders to expand the eligibility criteria for applicants, the Home Office indeed stated that there were “other provisions” in the Immigration Rules which catered for extended family members.

However, Rule 319X of the Immigration Rules, which allows a separated child to join a relative who has refugee status but is not their parent—for example, an older sibling, aunt, uncle or grandparent—is less accessible than under the Dublin system. It incorporates tests which provide a stiff hurdle of “serious and compelling”, an application fee of nearly £400 and demanding requirements for maintenance and accommodation, meaning no welfare support, no recourse to public funds and limited rather than indefinite leave. As far as I know, the Home Office has not provided any data on the number of applications made under Rule 319X and the outcomes of those cases; perhaps the Minister can do so today.

The Home Office also traditionally maintains that the 2016 guidance on cases outside the Immigration Rules allows sufficient scope, which makes a Bill such as this unnecessary. It is true that this guidance allows family reunion to be granted in exceptional cases, such as for dependent children aged over 18, but in reality that rarely happens. The applicant must meet a test of it being “unjustifiably harsh” to refuse, so a justifiably harsh consequence is permissible, which I find a little bizarre. Also, discretion outside the rules does not give the same certainty as a change in the rules. Family members may themselves be in an unsafe situation or escaping danger, and with family reunion restricted, some will resort to finding dangerous alternatives. This is the opposite of what the Government say that they seek to achieve.

The nationality and asylum Bill will radically restrict rights, including family reunion rights, for those who arrive irregularly, but this would undermine any attempt to close down irregular routes, since if someone cannot reach family through the reunion rules, they are likely to attempt an irregular route. If the Government are serious about strengthening safe routes and supporting women and children, they will back this Bill.

The New Plan for Immigration, published in March, prior to the Bill, contained a suggestion to raise to 21 the age of children eligible for reunion. Sadly, that suggestion was withdrawn in the response to consultation, although no explanation was given. Perhaps the Minister can provide one. [Interruption.] I apologise; I thought I had silenced my mobile phone.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

The noble Baroness has lost some brownie points there.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord; I certainly have lost some brownie points.

I was noting that the New Plan for Immigration contained a suggestion to raise to 21 the age of children eligible for reunion, which was withdrawn in the response to consultation. I hope that the Minister can provide an explanation for that. As a refugee called Ngozi told the Joint Committee on Human Rights on Wednesday:

“We remain children to our parents even when we are over 18.”


The Conservative MP and former Home Office Minister, Caroline Nokes, said in the debate on Afghanistan in the other place on 18 August:

“Our children do not suddenly become independent because they pass a day over their 18th birthday, so refugee family reunion in this instance has to ensure that those girls are able to come here. Would we leave our daughters in Afghanistan?” —[Official Report, Commons, 18/8/21; col. 1322.]


To answer her question, I think none of us would regard it as remotely reasonable to make a family contemplate leaving a 19 or even 25 year-old daughter in Afghanistan to the mercy of the Taliban, or indeed in a refugee camp or unsafe situation anywhere. Imagine being the parents of a family having to make the cruel choice either to depart the country while leaving an over-18 child, considered adult but still vulnerable, or to stay in a dangerous situation in order for them all to remain together. It is entirely possible—indeed, it happens—for there to be delays in deciding an asylum case such that a child who was well under 18 when the asylum application was made turns 18 while waiting for a decision. We know that some decisions can take many years.

The Home Affairs Select Committee called it “perverse” to deny refugee children the right to bring close family to join them in the same way as adults. The traditional Home Office objection is that a child may be sent ahead as a peg or anchor, to justify a whole family being able to secure refugee status. In response to the 2020 report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration that I cited, it said:

“The government has made clear in the past its concern that allowing children to sponsor parents would risk creating incentives for more children to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their family and attempt hazardous journeys to the UK.”


As well as the chief inspector saying that there was no such evidence, the former EU Committee of this House, in its 2016 report on unaccompanied minors, said the same:

“We found no evidence to support the Government’s argument that the prospect of family reunification could encourage families to send children into Europe unaccompanied in order to act as an ‘anchor’ for other family members. If this were so, we would expect to see evidence of this happening in Member States that participate in the Family Reunification Directive. Instead, the evidence shows that some children are reluctant to seek family reunification, for fear that it may place family members in danger.”


I think we can appreciate that there are all kinds of reasons to send a 16 or 17 year-old away from danger, without having to speculate wildly about ulterior motives. Allowing refugee children to sponsor immediate family would, in fact, reduce the number taking irregular journeys.

The Bill also reintroduces provision for legal aid, which was withdrawn in 2012 on the basis that applications for family reunion were, according to the Ministry of Justice, “straightforward”. This is often not the case, as they can be complex and time consuming, particularly when DNA tests or adoption cases are involved. There was an order in 2019 making provision for legal aid in the case of separated migrant children, either under the Immigration Rules or outside the rules, on the basis of exceptional circumstances or compassionate and compelling factors, but I do not know how many cases have benefited from this. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us.

The advantages of restoring legal aid would accrue not only to the applicant but to the Government, since helping the system to function better would save money. The inspector of borders found many errors needing to be overturned on appeal or refusals resulting in further applications. The cost of reintroducing legal aid would be modest. It was estimated by the Government a decade ago at £5 million. I have not seen any more recent estimate, but I do not imagine it will have gone up by more than inflation. Let us say that it is below £10 million, and it will save money all through the system.

To conclude, the case for a more generous approach to family reunion for refugees is based on both humanitarian grounds—which, I contend, are very strong—and the hard-headed case that reunited families allow refugees to find their feet more quickly, integrate better and contribute more fully, to the benefit of themselves, their community, the country and the Treasury. I therefore hope that the Minister can give me a positive response today. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has taken part in this debate. I cannot sum up everyone’s contributions, but my noble friend Lord Paddick and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, did a very good job of surveying all the contributions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for giving the support of his group to this Private Member’s Bill.

I will pick out just one or two points. Several noble Lords agreed with the initial remark by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that if you do not offer more safe and legal routes, in this case for families to be reunited, the traffickers will have a field day. We all agree. The Government say that they want to cut down on trafficking and no one could disagree with that. It is a cruel and exploitative trade, and the way to combat it is to make sure that people with a legitimate case, which I would contend this Bill expands, can arrive safely and legally.

Many noble Lords talked about the case for humanity and the welfare of people. In response to the Minister saying—I am not sure on what basis his figure was derived—that we could see tens of thousands more people coming through family reunion routes and that resources are not limitless, I agree. However, one of the points about family reunion is that increasing the welfare of all involved and enabling their mental health and well-being to be supported means that they are more likely to be productive and contribute, and not to make a claim on public resources. That is half the point.

While I will never allow the Conservative Party to grab the mandate of “party of the family”—I think all parties would claim that—the reason why I cited Victoria Atkins and Caroline Nokes is that allowing families to group together is not only for their well-being but makes good economic sense. That is why I said that it ought to please the Treasury. I ask the Government to look at that case—by allowing families to get together, you can save money as well as spend it.

Lastly, I have to say that I still believe that the Government have not brought forward any evidence for their contention of a pull factor. They keep trotting out the same allegation, but they do not have any evidence for it. This is wild speculation. If the Government do have any evidence, it is about time they were able to produce it.

I was very encouraged by most contributions in this debate. The Minister said some useful things in his response. Of course, I welcome whatever channels there are already for family reunion, but I ask the Government to have another look at this. Bringing families back together is a case not just of the heart but of the head as well.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.