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

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my old and noble friend Lord Dubs has, with his usual firmness, introduced this amendment and the reasons for it very well indeed, and the intervening speeches have all put the position strongly. I want to add a word or two.

The first point I want to make is that as we consider this huge and grievous humanitarian challenge, it is just as well to remember that we are dealing with a tiny proportion of what is happening across the world. Repeatedly, in all parts of the world, there are stories of a similar kind which undermine the whole cause of decent humanity.

This also makes an important point that I cannot resist making: we are always dealing with the symptoms. Although these symptoms are very real and must be dealt with, there is a challenge here for the international community to root out and face the causes of the problem. That should start with us working with our European colleagues, but we need international strategies. It is an incredibly difficult challenge, but we need to do this, and we must not lose sight of it by becoming preoccupied with particular aspects of the whole issue.

It is very easy, when looking at the situation across the globe and reading harrowing accounts of what is happening, to begin to feel a sense of helplessness and ask what on earth we can do. However, here we can do something. It is only a beginning, and only a small part, but we can do something; that is important not only in itself but will send a signal to the international community.

It would be immensely strengthening for the role the Government keep saying that they want to play, of being an outward-looking member of the international community. We have some difficulty in believing that that is a real conviction on the part of the Government, but it would give them immense strength if they were to take this course.

I am sure that most noble Lords will feel the same way, but I simply cannot with ease contemplate the prospect of vulnerable children, who have been through God knows what kinds of traumas, trying illegally to get into the UK during autumnal storms and the cold winter months. They are not illegal immigrants—what they are doing may be illegal, but they are not illegal immigrants. They are vulnerable, desperate children seeking our support, care, love and concern. We can do something here, not least on the issue of children having to come here illegally by God knows what kind of dangerous route. We can play a really important part. I hope that there will be strong support across the House for this amendment.

[Baroness Primarolo (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, much has been said in the debate and I want to add a couple of quick points.

First, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, made clear in introducing this amendment, it provides a way forward for the Government to plan what we are to do in responding to the humanitarian crisis we face with regard to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made it absolutely crystal clear to the House that there will be no route through by the end of December in negotiations with our European partners, either in collective negotiations with Michel Barnier or bilateral negotiations with EU member states. New negotiations will have to be started, but we will not be able to do that in time. My noble friend Lady Lister made an incredibly important point about the context and the misinformation that is being put forward about the ability of this country to provide safe sanctuary for those unaccompanied children who desperately need safe routes and have families here in the UK who could support them.

I do not want to go over the ground of other speakers. I want to ask the Minister, in her reply, to explain the way forward clearly to the House. During the debate on 22 September, on the European Union Select Committee report on Brexit, refugee protection and asylum policy, the Minister said:

“The UK … provides safe and legal routes to bring families together through its … family reunion policy … under the family provisions in Part 8 … of the Immigration Rules.”—[Official Report, 22/9/20; col. GC 500.]


She offered this as protection for when the arrangements that we have through Dublin III fall away at the end of December. What she did not go on to say was that those rules are much tighter, which would mean that what was defined as “family” would be much smaller. It would exclude siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents, who play such a vital role, and it would curtail rights of appeal and other protections that are in place. Although the Minister may say in reply that there is scope in the Immigration Rules to grant leave outside the narrow definition in exceptional scenarios, these applications are very rare.

We know that local authorities have pledged places for unaccompanied child refugees in Europe and that, for the system to work properly, they need safe and legal routes to get here in the first place. That is what the Government must do: they have to organise a system so that we can plan and take these young people and children who have family here. As my noble friend Lady Lister said, this is not because we are taking huge numbers, because we are not. France and Germany, for example, take far more than we do. We are below the European average.

What we ask in this amendment is that the Home Secretary adopts these policies, so that, by the end of the year, the amendment will provide a way forward for unaccompanied children still to get here. From her speech and in the comments the Minister made earlier in the Private Notice Question, it seems that the Home Secretary is intending to make her announcements some time next year. The amendment provides a way forward in the gap between the end of this year and the Home Secretary bringing forward her plans. Indeed, it offers a structure for the Home Secretary to have a fair, safe and good humanitarian policy that defines Britain as a safe haven for those who desperately need our help, in partnership with others across Europe. I sincerely hope that, even at this late stage, the noble Baroness will indicate her willingness to take this amendment as a clear road map for how the Government should behave after the end of December.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I will not repeat any of the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. She knows that I greatly respect her analysis on most things, and on this occasion it is substantial and well worth listening to. My noble friend Lord Alton, who I have respected over many years, has also done a great job.

As I said the other evening, it was my privilege to sit on the Public Accounts Committee for 12 years and I was the senior spokesman for my party for four of those. Its reports are not done on a whim. They arise from the Auditor-General when there is clearly a problem. That committee does not waste its time; it asks questions in depth. The reports that come out do not necessarily agree with the Auditor-General. On occasions, they completely disagree. I have only had a quick read of this report, but it would seem that the committee believes that there is a real problem. That is, in itself, substantial.

I have two granddaughters; their mother is a widow. As I read the papers on the train coming down, I wondered what would happen if they were in this difficult situation. One is taking A-levels and the other doing GCSEs. They are intelligent young women, as young people today are. They take a great interest in public affairs. It would be deeply upsetting if they found themselves having to think about their ownership when they are supposed to be studying. The same must apply to those at university. They are going to university at 18 and a fair number of courses are now four years, so they would be getting close to the cut-off point of 25. This is a problem area. Finally, costing over £1,000 is a bit rich. I have to help my family a bit, understandably, but £1,000 a child—£2,000—is quite a lot of money for any household.

I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench can give some encouraging words. I understand the challenges that are faced—I am in the middle, in a sense—but this amendment needs serious consideration.

[Baroness Primarolo (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will add a couple of comments to this very important debate. First, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Lister. She has pursued this vital subject with great tenacity and ensured with great clarity that the main arguments are put again on the Floor of the House. I know that the Minister will be listening carefully to all the points that have been made.

As my noble friend said, this is a modest amendment, which seeks action from the Government to ensure that the rights that were conveyed by the British Nationality Act 1981 are open and accessible to those who are entitled to them. When reading some of the comments that Ministers made during the passage of the British Nationality Bill, it is fascinating to see the clarity with which they saw the entitlement to citizenship which has now been so clouded and had so many barriers put in its way, as my noble friend Lady Lister said. For example, the Minister of State for the Home Office who took that Bill through said that

“as I think the House knows by now, what we are looking for in the creation of our new scheme of British citizenship is real connection. We are looking for citizens who have a real connection with the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, Commons, 3/6/1981; cols. 979-980.]

He went on to say that it is “extremely important that those who grow up in this country should have as strong a sense of security as possible”. Conveying the entitlement to citizenship was central to that.

It was not Parliament’s intention at the time that anyone, least of all children, entitled to British citizenship, should be content, as a substitute, with either limited or indefinite leave to remain. That could leave them liable to immigration control and powers from which it was intended they should be free and would not fulfil the clear intention that Parliament wanted to establish in providing for the entitlement—the right—to British citizenship. It is time to make sure that we have a clear route through to delivering that entitlement, that right, to those in this country who currently cannot get access to it.

The requirements of this amendment, modest as they are, seek to remove a two-tier system, the prohibitive fees and the lack of information which leaves people unable to access their rights. It is time that this House addresses this and I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to give a clear indication today about how we are going to honour the word given to these children in the British Nationality Act 1981 and to deliver access to that right, instead of preventing them achieving it.

I will support the amendment if it goes to a vote, but I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to explain to the House how the Government will deliver.

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

My Lords, I declare my membership of the Roma, Gypsy and Traveller APPG which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said, represents some of the children who may be particularly affected by our current discriminatory system, which is effectively impossible to navigate. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, made a hugely powerful introduction, so I will be brief in offering the Green group’s support for this amendment. I add my hope to that of many noble Lords that the Government will the see the sense of it and agree to adopt it. We are talking about rights that people are entitled to. We cannot allow people to be excluded from them by lack of knowledge, lack of funds to access them or lack of access to the systems needed to exercise them. Keeping that exclusion would be a profound injustice.



I think I have to declare a personal stake in this issue. I chose to become British, as I chose, before that, to live as an immigrant in Thailand for a number of years. But I was able to make both moves very easily, reflecting my relatively privileged background. In Thailand, the Australian state, through Australian volunteers abroad, sorted out my paperwork, then my employer did. It was then through grandparent rights that I was able to come to Britain. The family story is that my grandmother came back to the UK to have a baby. Then, after a period of residence, I was easily able to secure citizenship, back when the price of a British passport was close to the actual cost of administering it, in the early 1990s, which was not really that long ago.

It was only recently, when I read the excellent book, Bordering Britain: Law, Race and Empire, by Nadine El-Enany, that I was educated about the racism behind that arrangement, the grandparent right. There is much that should be tackled in our law to clear the taint of racism, colonialism and expropriation that remains central. But after Windrush, surely we can do something to clean up the structure of our systems—modest changes, as noble Lord after noble Lord, including from the Minister’s side of the House, has said before me—particularly systems that deny children and young people their right to security and a stable place in the world. Equality before the law is a foundational principle, but the letter of the law is not enough, as Windrush has demonstrated. The practice of government has to be fair and non-discriminatory.