Immigration: Hostile Environment

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Handsworth (Lab)]

My Lords, I am mindful that in five minutes this House will participate in a minute’s silence. I therefore seek the Minister’s advice as to whether I should start my speech or wait until the five minutes has elapsed and the minute’s silence is observed.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

Given that the noble Lord has addressed the question to me, I would be very happy if he would like to start his speech and resume it afterwards. It is entirely up to him.

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[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, for securing this debate, and all those who have spoken for their varied and interesting contributions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, for his particularly thoughtful contribution, and pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Morris—our very own Windrush Member of your Lordships’ House.

It is true to say that the work of the Home Office is vast. Millions of visa, citizenship and settlement applications are granted every year, and thousands of people are provided with international protection thanks to the decisions of Home Office case workers. However, as the Home Secretary has made very clear—a number of noble Lords have alluded to this—as well as having a fair and humane immigration system, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has just mentioned, we need one that clearly distinguishes between those who are here legally and those who are here illegally, as the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, very articulately pointed out. It is important to recall that successive Governments have put in place controls to deter illegal migration and protect public services.

It remains the case that the public expect us to enforce immigration laws approved by Parliament as a matter of fairness to those who abide by the rules. A recent YouGov poll showed that 71% of the public support our policy of requiring people to show documents to prove their entitlement to be here, work, rent a flat or access services and benefits. These measures have been introduced over many years. The first NHS charges for overseas visitors were introduced in 1982. The right-to-work checks were introduced in 1987, not 2014 as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said. The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 introduced restrictions on accessing benefits, social housing and social services. To return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, we have to clamp down on people who are here illegally.

Key elements of the compliant environment policy were put in place by the Opposition when in office, and it was during that time that the policy was described by Ministers as a hostile environment against illegal immigration. I am happy to answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Parekh: that is when it started. I am happy to confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that Alan Johnson used the term “hostile environment” and that the term was used by the Immigration Minister Phil Woolas in 2010 in his strategy paper on immigration, following a similar strategy paper in 2005. So the term has been used, and noble Lords have made the point that we can all go back and blame various different people for it, but the current Home Secretary has made clear that it is a term that he does not want to use and that the term “compliant environment” better reflects our values as a country, ensuring that fair rules are properly upheld.

More recently, measures to prevent illegal migrants from accessing the private rented sector have been introduced to bring consistency with well-established controls on accessing social housing. Further controls on access to bank accounts and driving licences introduced in the 2014 and 2016 Acts carry on this trend. In relation to access to employment, which is one of the key draws for illegal immigration, employers have had a duty to prevent illegal working, as I have said, since 1997. Since 2008 this requirement has been underpinned by civil and criminal sanctions for non-compliant employers, which were introduced by the Opposition. If an employer is found to have employed someone illegally and they are unable to demonstrate that they have carried out the prescribed check, they may be liable to a civil penalty. There is a sliding scale of penalties and the maximum is currently £20,000 per illegal worker.

Employers comply with the law by undertaking a simple right-to-work check on new employees and repeat checks on those with time-limited status. This is a face-value check of an original document set out in secondary legislation as being acceptable for this purpose. Employers need to contact the Home Office only in certain specified circumstances, including when a potential employee has an outstanding immigration application or appeal, during which time they may be entitled to work. Employers can also contact us if they believe that someone has the right to work but does not have the necessary documents to evidence that right. Retrospective checks on people who were employed before checks were introduced are not required.

In setting the list of documents that individuals may provide to demonstrate their right to work, we have prescribed documents that most lawful residents already have or are able to obtain at minimum cost. For example, UK citizens may use their UK passport or alternatively their national insurance number in combination with their long birth or adoption certificate. I hope that that helps the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, but I understand her point about the Irish question. The Home Office provides guidance for employers, an interactive tool on checking a right to work and an employer checking service for employers who are unsure whether a potential employee has the right to work. The statutory code of practice makes it clear that employers should conduct checks on all prospective employees, not just those whom they believe may not have the right to work in the UK.

Several “compliant environment” measures have been the subject of public consultations, impact assessments and policy equality statements prior to introduction. Noble Lords will be aware that the Immigration Act 2014 also introduced the right-to-rent scheme, which noble Lords have referred to today. Engagement with the sector, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Northern Ireland Equality Commission and housing charities had a major impact during the design of that legislation. As a result of that engagement, we incorporated exemptions for accommodation occupied by vulnerable groups and enabled individuals to demonstrate their right to rent using a broad range of commonly available documents without a passport or photo identification.

The scheme was extended to cover the whole of England in February 2016, after an evaluation of its operation in the West Midlands found no evidence of discrimination arising, no impacts on levels of homelessness, no further barriers to people with little formal documentation accessing the sector and no impacts on the availability or costs of let accommodation—to answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that was posed by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. The evaluation also found that, where landlords engaged with the checks required, they found them to be straightforward and easy to operate. Landlords are not asked to be immigration or forgery experts, contrary to the assertions by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. The checks do not require all tenants to have passports or immigration papers.

For example, a check can be satisfied by presenting a letter from a charity involved in the access to the private rental scheme and a letter from a professional who can confirm that they have personally known the holder for at least three months. The scheme was modelled on the checks that many landlords have been carrying out themselves to establish the credentials of prospective tenants—for example, credit checks, which have been taking place for many years and which, for obvious reasons, landlords carry out diligently.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked me about immigration bail and the issue of study. As she acknowledged, I answered her very clearly on this point and I hope that she is satisfied with that. The case still stands as to what she asked me last week.

[Baroness Hamwee]

The problem is that in practice, practitioners are finding that it does not.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I was about to go on to say that the Home Office is performing a check to ensure that no one is having study restrictions placed on them inappropriately. I hope that she is satisfied by that.

The noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report on the right to rent. We welcome that report. It made four recommendations, and noble Lords referred to recommendation 3 on the consultative panel. It will be reconvened and we will ask the noble Lord, Lord Best, to continue to co-chair it. Somewhere in my pile of documents, I have the make-up of the panel. It will be co-chaired by the Immigration Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Best, as I said. It will be made up of Crisis, Shelter, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, bodies representing landlords, agents and local authorities—those people with housing expertise.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank the noble Baroness for giving way; it is very kind. We have raised this point before, but why are the Government not going with the right to rent committee? Instead, they have come back with the previous committee and are not going to include the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants or the anti-slavery commissioner. They would be important to include for their expertise.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Given that the noble Lord worked through the housing Bill with me, I hope that he would agree that the noble Lord, Lord Best, is a very experienced member of your Lordships house in the area of housing. Having the Immigration Minister co-chairing, as he asked, will lend great credence to the panel. I am sure he would agree that the bodies I mentioned are the type that we would want represented on the panel to ensure its housing expertise. I pay tribute to the groups that he mentioned, but they are not necessarily in and of themselves housing experts, although they have expertise in the area of immigration and slavery.

I must now turn to the Windrush generation, because I want to spend some time on that. I again pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, and all those from the Windrush generation who came here quite legally to help to rebuild this country after the war. The Government, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have all said that the Government deeply regret what has happened and have made it a key priority to resolve the problems that have arisen and to ensure that it does not happen again. I also join the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in paying tribute to his friend and all that he achieved in his life.

The Home Secretary has commissioned an independent lessons learned review, which will look at how members of the Windrush generation came to be entangled in measures designed for illegal immigrants, why it was not spotted sooner—this has been going on for decades; it is not a new thing—and why the right corrective measures will now be put in place. The review will take into account the experiences of those involved and wider reflections on Home Office culture as a whole. We have established the Windrush Scheme task force, which is working with members of the Windrush generation to resolve their status and ensure that they obtain the documents they need to evidence it.

My right honourable friend the Home Secretary also issued a call for evidence to inform consultation on a compensation scheme for members of the Windrush generation who have been wrongfully impacted by immigration measures. That call for evidence closed last Friday and we are currently analysing the responses. Simultaneously, we have strengthened the checking services provided to employers, landlords and public service providers to ensure that we are not denying work, housing, benefits or services to those who are here lawfully. We will be providing regular updates to the Home Affairs Committee on the progress of that work. Our focus now is on putting right what was so wrong in the past.

The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, asked me for an update on Windrush figures. As of 10 June, the task force has received 20,145 calls. It has referred 5,750 for call-backs and completed 5,740 call-backs and issued 1,651 documents.

We owe it to the public to ensure that we maintain effective controls on immigration and have measures in place to protect taxpayer-funded services. The compliant environment forms an important part of those measures.

The noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Taverne, asked about tier 2 visas and for an update on NHS workers and doctors. As they will know, because it has been widely reported in the media this morning, the Home Secretary is currently reviewing that and he will make an announcement on it very shortly. I will be able to say more after the announcement, so I hope that the noble Lords will bear with me.

The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, talked about a specific case. He will understand that I will not discuss it on the Floor of the House, but I will write to him about it. He also talked about HMRC and people being refused resettlement on the basis of their tax returns. This is not about people making minor tax errors. We are now able to check what applicants told us in the past about their self-employment and compare it to what they have told HMRC for the same period. There is a clear pattern of abuse where, more often than not, the self-employed earnings used to claim points in the tier 1 application have been £10,000 higher than the self-employed earnings reported to HMRC. Where employment circumstances do not add up and applicants claim to have been working in a full-time low-paid manual job while simultaneously earning very high amounts from self-employed work for which the evidence is weak, we must consider paragraph 322(5), to which the noble Lord referred, and refuse the application where the evidence shows that the individual has not played by the rules and their character and conduct is such that they should not be granted settlement in the UK.

Before the noble Lord intervenes on me, I will make just one more point, because he then may not need to intervene. I will write to him on the case he raised separately and in no way am I saying that what I am outlining is anything to do with that case.

[Lord Taverne]

Will the Minister deal with the point that paragraph 322(5), which is concerned with terrorists, is used in connection with mis-statements in tax returns?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I will write the noble Lord on that when I write him on the specific case, if that is okay by him, because I am rapidly running out of time and I want to get through points that other noble Lords made.

The noble Lord, Lord Morris, talked about reduced numbers of staff. The work of the immigration system is vast, as noble Lords will appreciate. Every year, we make more than 3 million decisions on visas and have 250 million people crossing our borders. We are not complacent about this. The immigration system is constantly and continually improving, such as with ePassport gates.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, made a very important point about identity assurance. I particularly draw to noble Lords’ attention, as she did, the issue of EU citizens when we leave the EU. That is why we have put in place measures to ensure a very clear process, so that what happened with Windrush will not in future years happen to EU citizens. So all EU citizens who are here lawfully when the UK exits the EU will have the opportunity to regularise their status to remain in the country by applying for settled status. On identity assurance, we have operated a new scheme for settled status from scratch. So the application system will be simplified, user-friendly, and it will draw on existing government data to minimise the burden on applicants.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I will run out of time; I am pretty much out of time.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve]

Will the noble Baroness answer the Irish citizens’ question? It is quite different from that for EU citizens in general because of the common travel area legislation.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I shall write to the noble Baroness on that, as I know it is completely different.

On the point about limbo, asked by the noble Lord, Lord Jones—and before the clock gets to “21”—when an application is made during the period of extant leave, leave is extended by statute until the application is determined. Where the right to rent or work checks are required, the Home Office can confirm entitlement to an employer or a landlord.

I have run out of time. I am terribly sorry.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I can give the Minister some clarification. The debate started at 11.39 am, and as it is a three-hour debate, there are 20 more minutes left.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I noted from the guidance that I had 20 minutes to speak; in fact Ministers rarely get more than 20 minutes to wind up, but I will continue if the House does not object.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, also asked about visa performance. Obviously he knows I cannot comment on an individual case, but the majority of UKVI decisions are made within the established service standards. In complicated cases it can take longer, and if so, we write to advise when a decision is likely. The noble Lord will no doubt tell me that he knows of cases where we have not written in a timely fashion. We have introduced a range of measures since 2010 to improve the quality of decision-making in UKVI, including training and mentoring programmes for new caseworkers, as well as wide quality-assurance processes. He also raised the issue of the health surcharge. Applications for indefinite leave to remain are not required to pay the health surcharge.

The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, made the point that Home Office staff should have training in race relations. There is mandatory training for Home Office staff on race relations and discrimination—and unconscious bias, for that matter. It is mandated by the Cabinet Office for all civil servants and is a core element of the Civil Service code. The noble Baroness also made a point about stopping illegal migrants coming to the UK. They are not just people coming to the UK without permission, but those who remain unlawfully when their leave expires. It is worth mentioning that people here illegally are some of the most vulnerable people in the country. They are not protected as UK taxpayers but are vulnerable to people traffickers, and endure some of the less savoury elements of exploitation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, talked about victims of crime. There is no obligation for the police to report victims of crime to immigration authorities but they have the power to do so, and we are working closely with the police to ensure that victims of trafficking are supported. Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked about statistics on illegal migrants. He will know that by their very nature, it is very difficult to produce statistics on illegal migrants.

I thank all noble lords who have taken part in the debate.