Minors Entering the UK: 1948 to 1971

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and all right hon. and hon. Members across the House who have participated in the debate. They have spoken with passion, knowledge and indeed determination.

As we can clearly see, there is significant public interest in today’s debate, and rightly so. I thank members of the public who have attended, as well as all those people—nearly 200,000 of them—who added their name to the petition. The debate was obviously scheduled before the tabling of the urgent question, and I am probably at somewhat of a disadvantage compared with those Members who could be in the main Chamber for at least some of the earlier debate. The message conveyed by the new Secretary of State for the Home Department makes it clear that he is absolutely, personally invested in this issue.

Let us be in no doubt about the debt of gratitude that this country owes to the Windrush generation. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay described in his opening speech, they were invited to come to the United Kingdom immediately after the second world war and in the decades that followed to help us to build modern Britain.

As I said, the new Home Secretary was on his feet in the main Chamber when this debate began. He has rightly made it his clear priority to address Windrush, building on the work of his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), who showed commitment to addressing the issue. It was a pleasure to work with her in the Home Office, and I look forward to supporting the new Home Secretary in continuing that vital work.

I would like to do justice to the comments, questions and individual cases raised by Members this afternoon. All of them are important. Many Members will have noticed that I took copious notes throughout the debate, but I mention first the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) even though, somewhat shamefacedly, I wrote very little about his contribution. That is because I preferred to listen—to his passion and to his determination to convey to me, Members, the public and the Government how strongly he feels that we must right this wrong. We are determined to do so.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who is not in his place, on his tone. In fact, I congratulate all hon. Members who have contributed on their tone. There has been real consideration of the issue and real determination to convey the message to me as powerfully as possible. I therefore wish to start by saying that of course I feel shame and of course I am deeply, deeply sorry.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) raised three cases, highlighting real and personal stories, which were similar to the personal stories that I heard over the weekend when I was in Croydon and in Sheffield with caseworkers who are on the frontline, doing their best to help people through the process. I have to say that I was very impressed with the determination of those caseworkers to be sympathetic and understanding, and to talk people through the process as gently as they possibly could while at the same time enabling them to give their stories and to provide a picture of their life in the UK—helping them through a process with which we should have been helping them much earlier.

We cannot fail to be moved and to be ashamed when confronted with the individual stories, but as a result, be determined to get the wrong righted, to sort the cases out and to make sure that the legal status is confirmed. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned three cases; we have done a very rapid trawl of those appointments that are already scheduled and I believe that one of those cases will hopefully be resolved tomorrow.

It is important that we as Members convey to our constituents and to the public at large the fact that this process is designed to be constructive and to help. When I first spoke on this issue, I tried to impress on everyone the fact that we needed to have confidence built in the system, so that people would have the courage to come forward. Undoubtedly, the strongest advocates are the people who have been for their interviews and had their status confirmed, who have been willing to speak to the media to confirm that that has happened.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) spoke of the melting pot of Cardiff; I represent part of the city of Southampton, another area that has a very large port. I was very fortunate last Thursday night to go and meet, albeit in the road that crosses the edge of the constituency, one of my constituents called Don John, who for many decades has been a leader of the Caribbean community in Southampton.

I discussed the issue with him, knowing very well that this weekend, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) was holding an event in her constituency attended by Home Office officials, in order to give confidence to those from Bristol who might be affected that the Home Office is there to help. I said to Don on Thursday night, “Let’s see how the event in Bristol goes, but what I can do as a local Member is to make sure that people in Southampton have the opportunity to have an event. I will make sure that there are Home Office officials there.” I say that to all Members: where there is a significant community that they think will be affected, let us reach out to communities; let us not be just a reception centre in the various places that we have up and down the country; let’s make a real effort to go to communities and make sure that events take place in places that are comfortable for people.

I am the first to acknowledge that there can be barriers to coming and making contact with the Home Office. Working with my right hon. Friend the new Home Secretary, they are barriers that I am determined to beat down, because they should not be there.

[Lyn Brown]

I am genuinely delighted to hear what the Minister has to say. She is a very competent Minister, but there is an issue of trust. I do not see my communities beating their way to her door, because that trust has been badly damaged.

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to talk about trust, which is why I take her comment on the chin. We have a duty to rebuild that trust, and I am determined that we must do so through demonstration and through action, and through an assurance from me and those working on the taskforce that no case will be passed to immigration enforcement. When somebody contacts that helpline, we have absolutely undertaken that none of those details will be passed on to immigration enforcement.

[Mr Lammy]

The Minister will recognise that the Government still say that there is a burden of proof, although they have lowered it. If there were Windrush generation or Commonwealth people who contacted the Home Office who did not meet that burden, so did not get their status, would they be subject to enforcement? That fear is very real.

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important question. I give that assurance. People may well come forward who cannot not produce the proof. It is imperative, if we are to build trust, that we say, “We will not pass those details to immigration enforcement.” The message has to be what I saw on Saturday: we want to be able to help people to build their own story. We want to be able to use whatever disparate pieces of information they may have. A gentleman came to Croydon on Saturday morning who could produce his City & Guilds qualification in horticulture, I believe. That one certificate was pretty much the only evidence that he had of where he had been at school. We have to listen to people and use our own records.

[Catherine West]

Does the Minister have a view about the legal aid question? In the old days, we all had legal aid centres that people could go to, but they simply do not exist in communities in the way that they did, due to Government reductions. [Interruption.] Will she comment on the possibility of legal aid?

[Caroline Nokes]

I am slightly concerned that there is an outbreak of coughing in the debate.

[Catherine West]

It’s freezing!

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady is right—it is absolutely freezing. I have been shaking throughout the debate, although that may not be due just to the temperature.

That is an interesting question, and we are already working with the Ministry of Justice on a review of legal aid. I do not want people to have to use lawyers; I want them to be able to go through an easy process. I get the message from the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) that we have to build trust, and I am determined to do so.

[Eleanor Smith (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)]

rose—

[Caroline Nokes]

I will finish this point. I do not want people to have to incur more stress and cost—we will reimburse them for their legal costs already, as part of the compensation scheme, which I will address.

There is an important aspect here: we are determined to make this easy, by having the most senior and able caseworkers—who we are trying to empower, through a change of culture in the Home Office—to take decisions. We want not the “computer says no” attitude, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset and many others have referred to, but a position where, better than the computer saying yes, the human says yes. That is a real change.

[Eleanor Smith]

I am one of the second generation of Windrush; my parents came in 1954. I really do not understand why people have to prove that they live in this country when they have children aged 30 or older and probably have grandkids, too. Why are we talking about having to prove it? Why can we not just give them a blanket exception? I do not understand why, if people have entered the country from 1948 onwards, and up to 1974, which is about 45 years ago, the Minister is talking about having to prove that they live in this country. Is that what she is saying?

[Caroline Nokes]

There is a significant question of deemed leave and processes in 1973 that did not give people a legal document that demonstrated their status. That is the failing that we have to put right. There may well be people out there who do not come forward. We have to work to give people confidence, but also to give them an important document that enables them to go on and get their British citizenship—all at no cost. I do not want anyone to fall foul of this going forward. If we just grant deemed leave again, we may find ourselves in this situation again.

Many Members have mentioned the difference from EU settled status. That is an important and difficult point. Since I came into this job, a great deal of my time and energy have been taken up with making sure that the settled status scheme, which we will open later this year, will work. It matters to me that it works digitally and easily, and that, rather than the “computer says no” mentality, we have a default position whereby if people are here, the computer will say yes.

The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) asked about whether the app will work on iPhone; we have been working on that for many months. It works on an Android phone, but Apple as yet has not released the update that would enable it to work on iPhones. I recognise that that is a problem. I encourage all right hon. and hon. Members to talk about that, because I cannot force Apple to participate—I wish I could, but I cannot. It is important that, for those EU citizens, many of whom have been here for years just like the Windrush generation, we make the process simple, straightforward and digital.

[Afzal Khan]

I thank the Minister for the clarification that no case will be passed on for enforcement, but we have seen that this is not simply a question of enforcement. There is the health issue—people are suffering from cancer and dying—and people are becoming homeless or losing jobs. What will she do to help them?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. It is absolutely right to say that the taskforce is prioritising appointments for people in vulnerable positions—those who are out of employment or at risk of falling out of employment, those with health conditions and those with problems with tenancies. There is a significant group of people with whom we must work, but it is right to prioritise people on the basis of need. We are working really hard. In Sheffield, it was great to see call-backs going on, appointments being made and people having conversations.

My right hon. Friend the former Home Secretary made it very clear that we will compensate people for loss, but it is right that we get the compensation scheme right from the outset. Members have raised interesting points about what should be included in that, many of which might seem really self-evident and straightforward—it should cover legal costs, loss of employment and housing, and so on—but there might be other aspects to it. A number of people have talked about counselling for stress and trauma. It is important that we have an independent person who enables and empowers us to get that right from the outset. That will take a little time, but it is important that we have someone independent of the Home Office who is able to engender trust.

[John Spellar]

Will the Minister give way?

[Caroline Nokes]

I will take an intervention from the right hon. Gentleman, even though he has not been here long.

[John Spellar]

I thank the Minister for the welcome remedial measures she is outlining, which could help to deal with the outcomes, but does she not recognise that this issue comes from deep systemic and cultural problems inside the Home Office? Members of Parliament raised cases and pointed out the flaws in the Home Office’s arguments, but it utterly refused to reconsider them. This is not just about the computer, or the initial person at the end of the line, saying no; it is about a failure of management then to remedy things. That is why we are having to get into compensation, taskforces and everything else. The Home Office will still have those deep problems. What is she going to do about that?

[Caroline Nokes]

Unfortunately, the right hon. Gentleman takes me away from the contributions that have been made and towards the—I do not know how to describe it—somewhat drier technical detail provided to me by officials. I am happy to move on to that, but I would like first to respond to the points made by Members who have been here for the whole debate.

I have addressed some important points about settled status for EU citizens and the responsibility for getting that right, but I would like to highlight the history lesson and information provided by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). He painted a picture of how the Government can use evidence that is already at our disposal. That is really important. We can share data with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—the list is long. That is exactly what the taskforce is doing. We are trying to lift the burden from individuals and place it on ourselves so that we provide the information and ensure we get it right.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) rightly started by thanking all those from the Windrush generation who have contributed so much. She raised difficult and important questions for me about how we stop this happening again, and she was absolutely right to do so. We have to stop it happening again. We have to ensure that the same cannot happen to future cohorts.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) mentioned the Gurkhas—that Nepalese community —who are so numerous at their base in Hampshire, and we must be mindful the whole while that other communities may well be impacted. I have indicated time and again that uppermost in my mind is the truly enormous number of people from the European Union—3.3 million—who are already here. I do not underestimate the scale of that task.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East asked how we can right the wrong done to her constituent, Paulette Wilson. Mrs Wilson absolutely deserves a personal apology. I am not sure that me saying sorry today is adequate. If the hon. Lady would like me to do so, I would be very happy to meet Mrs Wilson. Every one of us was struck by the severe and cruel injustice that was done to her.

The hon. Lady and the Opposition spokesman raised questions about how many people have been affected, how many have been detained and how many may have been subjected to letters asking them to leave the country voluntarily, or potentially even to removal. We are trawling through the Home Office computer system—the caseworker information database, which goes back to 2002—and scrutinising cases very carefully, using both date of birth and nationality information to verify that, as one might expect. I do not wish to get into numbers until I can be confident that they are correct. We have an absolute duty to ensure that we get that right. To date, we have not found any single individual who has been removed from the country wrongly. However, I wish to ensure that we get it right.

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Catherine West]

rose—

[Caroline Nokes]

Everybody is leaping to their feet. I will take a final intervention from the right hon. Gentleman, but I have to crack on a bit.

[Mr Lammy]

There is an important group of people who may not have been removed but who are watching and listening to this debate and communicating with their families in this country. That is the group of people who went back to the Caribbean, most often to attend a funeral, and were not allowed to come back to this country. It is very important that those people have access to the hotline and to compensation—many of them lost their jobs and are still there—and that they are properly tracked and attended to.

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point those people out, and I am very conscious—

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Will the Minister give way?

[Catherine West]

rose—

[Caroline Nokes]

May I conclude my point before more people jump in? The right hon. Gentleman is right to point that issue out. As the former Home Secretary said last week, we will facilitate those people’s coming home if they wish to. Of course, we must also ensure that visas are available to those who have settled back in their country of origin or elsewhere, should they wish to come here on a visit or relocate here permanently. That is crucial. It is important that we ensure that we enable that to happen for them.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

It may be that the Minister wants to write to the right hon. Member for Tottenham after the debate. Officials may want—not today, but in time—to consider and advise Ministers on checking with airlines. Often, those people went with a valid ticket to an airline desk and were refused boarding by the airline because they might be refused entry to the country. The airlines will almost certainly have a record of that. It would be useful information.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which I have made to officials. I was very concerned that people might be turned away at airline desks. We absolutely must not let that happen. Equally, the Border Force in the UK has to understand that this is a generation of people to whom we owe a duty to get things right from this point forward. We cannot allow this dreadful situation to arise again.

[Lyn Brown]

On the issue of trust, my constituents are concerned that deportations are continuing, despite our debating the issue and despite reassurances from the Minister, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister. One of my constituents, Zita, contacted me to ask about flight PVT070, which she tells me is about to go to Jamaica with people on board who are being deported.

[Caroline Nokes]

indicated dissent.

[Lyn Brown]

I would be grateful if the Minister put that shake of the head into words and on the record.

[Caroline Nokes]

It is absolutely not. We are looking very closely at all our enforcement practices to make sure that nobody can be impacted in this way, and that is crucial.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Caroline Nokes]

I hope hon. Members will not object if I move on somewhat. I apologise, but there are some important matters that I must get on the record, and I intend to do so.

I am very clear that there has been a failure by successive Governments to ensure that individuals who arrived before 1973 have the documentation they need. We are putting that right as a matter of urgency. My right hon. Friend the former Home Secretary made a statement to the House last week in which she set out our approach to the Windrush generation, including the compensation scheme, which I have already referred to.

I am a pragmatic politician, and I do not apologise for that. I have always been focused on finding solutions, and that is exactly what we are trying to do now. When we saw Windrush cases emerging, we became focused on the operational side of helping those individuals. As the former Home Secretary said, we were too slow to identify the pattern and recognise it as part of a wider issue. For that, I am very sorry.

I want to make sure that we not only put this right but improve our mechanisms, to ensure that if a similar systemic issue were to arise again, the Home Office would be able to identify and resolve it much more clearly. The new contact centre will be at the centre of that, monitoring trends from incoming calls to understand where the problems are. We will supplement that with insight and customer feedback to UK Visas and Immigration. I was asked whether there would be a time limit, and I can reassure Members that there will not be.

[Catherine West]

I thank the Minister for being so generous with her time. Will she clarify whether Home Office staff receive a bonus for the number of removals they make?

[Caroline Nokes]

I am absolutely unaware of any bonus scheme for removals. What I want to focus on today is not removals but making sure, for the Windrush generation, that we get their British citizenship granted as swiftly as we can and at no cost to them.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Lady has sat silently so far—I am surprised.

[Yvette Cooper]

I have been listening, and I wanted to hear the contributions—I will want to speak in the debate on Wednesday. My hon. Friend’s question is important, because I heard rumours that the head of immigration enforcement and senior enforcement officials have had bonuses linked to enforcement performance, including meeting removals targets. I appreciate that the Minister may not know the details right now, but it is really important that she finds some urgent clarity on that. It would be very disturbing to have a target-driven system that rewards people for removals they make, when there are no independent appeals against many removals and enforcement.

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Lady has asked a specific question about bonuses, and I have said on the record I am not aware of any such system of bonuses. However, I will undertake to go away and find out, prior to Wednesday’s debate, when I look forward to being able to go over this issue in more detail, with more time, in the main Chamber.

I know, as everyone here and—I believe—everyone in this House knows, that we regard the Windrush generation as being of us and part of us. I believe the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green referred to them as being “part of the furniture”. We regard them as British, but we need to ensure that they have the legal documentation confirming that. Nationality law is incredibly complicated, and I want to ensure that their legal status is cemented as soon as possible. We have made it clear that we wish the process to be simple and that nobody should have to undergo a life in the UK test or attend a citizenship ceremony unless they wish to. Some may, and we would want to make that available to them.

Of course, some may not wish to be British citizens at all. We respect that position, but we still need to confirm their status here—free of charge—as someone able to remain in the UK and access services. This point was made earlier: there will also be people in the Windrush generation who, having worked all their lives in Britain, have retired to the country of their birth but obviously retain strong ties here. We should respect and nurture those ties. Should they wish to come back, we will allow that.

I sympathise with anyone who has found the process difficult, and I would like to assure hon. Members that we are doing everything we can to ensure that it is as smooth as possible. I am pleased that more than 100 people have now been issued with the documentation they sought, but please be assured that I am in no way complacent about that. We will continue to improve the service provided.

[Mr Lammy]

There is another important point. The Minister will understand that some important Caribbean countries—St Kitts, Antigua, St Lucia and others—got their independence after 1973, and a bunch of people are concerned about the 1973 cut-off. Will she say a little more about the situation for those people, some of whom may have come to this country as British subjects from countries whose independence did not come until later in the 1970s or early 1980s? Antigua’s was as late as 1981.

[Caroline Nokes]

Of course, my right hon. Friend the previous Home Secretary addressed how we solve the status and situation of those who may have come here between 1973 and 1988. I am aware of this issue, and, going forward, I want to ensure that we have a comprehensive package for those whom I am going to regard as the Windrush children, of whom there are very, very many.

As I have said, I was in Sheffield and Croydon over the weekend, listening to the calls being made and the quality of the conversations going on—they were conversations; they were in no way interrogative. In our process, we have a script that is evolving over time. At the end of every day, the script changes and the lessons that have been learned from those conversations during the day are used to ensure that things are better going forward. It is an evolving, iterative process.

I think I have addressed most of the questions raised. If important aspects have been raised that I have not addressed, I will make them very clear to the House on Wednesday. We are working hard to resolve the situation. The new Home Secretary has made his position, personal investment and commitment very clear, and we are working to ensure that it cannot happen again.

As we have heard, this year is the 70th anniversary of the Empire Windrush arriving at Tilbury docks, which makes the situation all the more poignant and tragic. The Government will be celebrating Windrush day, and in the next few days I will have the opportunity to speak to the new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government about how we can use that occasion to build trust with those we have let down. It is not lost on me that our new Home Secretary has come to the Home Office from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and, of course, he introduced the paper on integration, which is so important going forward. He has a strong ally in the new Secretary of State in his old Department, which I am sure will provide a strong link.

I reassure right hon. and hon. Members that the Government are committed to righting the wrongs for the Windrush generation, to ensuring that those who have the right to be here in the United Kingdom are never treated in such a way again and to restoring trust in the Home Office to deliver the outcome that people deserve. I am proud of the work that has been done over the past fortnight to set us on the right course, and I look forward to working with colleagues and officials in the coming months to accomplish those aims.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

14. What progress the Government have made in placing vulnerable Syrian families in the UK.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

It is important that we focus our support on the most vulnerable refugees in the region who are fleeing the atrocities in Syria, whatever their nationality. We are more than halfway towards reaching our commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees. As of December, 10,538 refugees had been welcomed in the UK under the scheme. We will continue to work closely with local authorities and devolved Administrations to ensure that we meet our commitments.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

Northumberland County Council is providing homes and resettlement family support for 28 Syrian adults and their 41 children, but we currently have no Syrian refugee children as we are short of foster carers to provide the necessary support. Does the Minister agree that we must encourage people who want to support those Syrian children to apply to be foster carers?

[Caroline Nokes]

I am very grateful to all the local authorities, including Northumberland County Council, that have participated in both the resettlement scheme and the national transfer scheme for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Northumberland County Council recently received funding through the controlling migration fund to boost its capacity to look after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The Government are reviewing funding arrangements for local authorities that look after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. In last year’s safeguarding strategy, the Government committed to further boosting fostering capacity, including by commissioning 1,000 training places for foster carers and support workers who are caring for unaccompanied children.

[John Howell]

Is my right hon. Friend continuing to work closely with local authorities? She mentioned a figure of 10,500, but how is she doing at meeting the 20,000 target within a couple of years?

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of working collaboratively with local authorities. We also work hard with charities, housing associations and civic society to help refugees on the road to integration. During the recess, I was fortunate to visit World Jewish Relief, Coventry City Council and Horton Housing, among others, which are working with resettled families who are being helped into work as part of their integration. He is right to mention the 20,000 target and I am absolutely confident that we will reach it by 2020.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Families belong together, and vulnerable refugee families from Syria in particular belong together. Will the Minister use the opportunity of the current attention on Syria to commit the Government to standing by Members on both sides of the House who support the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill, the private Member’s Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil)?

[Mr Speaker]

What wonderful pronunciation, upon which the House will want to congratulate the hon. Lady.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question; I am conscious of her keen interest in this subject. She will of course know that, since 2010, 24,000 family reunion visas have been issued, but I will look very carefully at the Bill from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), which has received cross-party support. We will continue to look at what we can do to help the most vulnerable families from the region. They should, quite rightly, be our priority.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

13. What steps she is taking to recruit a broad range of people to the police and law enforcement agencies with the skills required to tackle modern crime.

UK Passport Contract

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on why the contract for the new UK passport has been awarded to a French-owned company.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

Her Majesty’s Passport Office is currently procuring services to design, manufacture and personalise UK passports from summer 2019, when the current contract ends. HM Passport Office has undertaken a rigorous, fair and open competition in accordance with UK law, and in line with EU and World Trade Organisation rules. This process began in March 2017, at which point HM Passport Office clearly set out the requirements under which potential suppliers should table their bids.

The security of the passport and passport holders’ personal data is paramount, and the tender requirements clearly set out the high standard of security that must be met to undertake the contract. For example, under the next contract, all passports will continue to be personalised with the holder’s personal details in the United Kingdom, which ensures that no personal data will leave the UK. However, the printing of blank passports in the UK is not a new requirement. Robust processes that have been established over a number of years have determined that manufacturing passports overseas presents no security concerns. Under the current contract, up to 20% of blank passports are produced in Europe. There is no reason why overseas production should not continue in the future and, as such, a national security waiver could not apply.

While there are no security or operational impediments to outsourcing the production of passports, there are significant benefits in terms of both value for money, and production innovation and development. This procurement has identified the supplier that best meets the needs of our passport service—keeping the UK passport at the forefront of travel document security, while offering the best value for money. I am unable to confirm any details of the bids while the process remains subject to commercial and legal sensitivities. However, a public announcement to confirm the winning bidder will be made once the contract is formally awarded.

[Liz Twist]

Last week, I visited staff at the De La Rue factory in my constituency who currently work on the passport contract. They provide secure, quality-assured passports with great pride. Can the Minister tell the House and my constituents what assessment has been made of the security implications of the production of UK passports by a non-UK company, or their production outside the UK? What assessment has she made of the deliverability and reliability of Gemalto’s bid, which I understand was over £100 million less than other bids, in the light of the Government’s experience of Carillion’s failure? Why was it felt appropriate for the Prime Minister to open the new headquarters of Thales—the French security and defence company that has recently taken over Gemalto, one of the bidders for the passport contract—during the procurement process? The Government must provide clarity about whether the bid was discussed at all during the visit.

In responding to press inquiries about the contract, the Home Office has drip-fed information and referred consistently to price and best value. However, does the Minister agree that best value is about more than money? It is about having a secure and reliable passport system that works for the UK. There must be questions about how Gemalto can make a contract worth £390 million work. In fact, I understand that the bid from De La Rue was significantly less than the previous price, and that it operates a gain-share agreement whereby any excess profits are returned to the Home Office.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question; she is quite right to champion the excellent staff in her constituency. However, I reassure her that the winning bidder will of course comply with the UK’s security policy framework and international security standards to mitigate and prevent internal and external threats to the manufacture and onward transportation of blank books. It was very important to the Home Office to abide by international rules, and WTO, UK and EU law, regarding the fairness of the procurement process. A great deal of financial due diligence was done on all the bidding companies, and we are of course determined to have a UK passport that will contain the most up-to-date and innovative security features, making sure that our travel document is at the forefront of security globally.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

There has been a slightly childlike, jingoistic element to the debate on this issue from the moment it started, as we could have had whatever colour passports we wanted while still remaining members of the European Union. However, given that we are embarked upon this, does my right hon. Friend agree that De La Rue is a very successful British company that wins fair, international tender contracts, and earns a great deal of money for this country by printing other people’s currencies and official documents? When we negotiate trade agreements in the future, we will be pressing other countries to open up their public procurement processes to genuine, fair, international competition. It would be totally ridiculous to abandon that principle now to give into not only constituency pressures, which I understand, but otherwise nationalist nonsense that ought to be ignored.

[Caroline Nokes]

I very much appreciate my right hon. and learned Friend’s contribution—how could I not? He is absolutely right to point out that we wish to be a global, outward-looking trading nation. All the companies that participated in this tender process provide identity documents and bank notes, and other passport providers have bid. The reality is that in a fair procurement process, we had to look at quality, security and price, and this was the contract that provided the best value on all counts.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware of the concern among supporters of every party in this House and none about the prospect of a British passport being printed by a Franco-Dutch company. The Government cannot be allowed to hide behind EU procurement rules. They must take responsibility for the potential fallout on workers, their families, the community and the Government’s wider industrial strategy. Does the Minister accept that it was wrong that the workers at De La Rue were not directly informed of the Government’s decision, but instead heard from the media that their jobs were at risk? Is this what senior Ministers in the leave campaign meant by “taking back control”?

Far from taking back control, it seems we cannot control where our passports are printed. We understand that passports may be manufactured partially in the UK, but it is telling that for security reasons—security reasons that the Minister does not appear concerned about—in countries such as France state-run companies make the passports. What is the total cost of the switch to blue passports? We read reports of savings of £120 million made in the allocation of the contract. Last December, the then Immigration Minister estimated the cost to be £500 million. We are now told that it is £490 million, so the original estimate seems to have been almost exactly correct.

Finally, the Minister must understand why the public see this whole episode as a farce. Labour Members call on Ministers to re-examine this decision and to meet De La Rue, the trade unions and others to ensure that this industry, the quality of the jobs that come with it and our security are protected. Ministers have to understand that the cheapest is not necessarily the best.

[Caroline Nokes]

I gently point out to the right hon. Lady that it was in 2009 that the rules were changed to enable the British passport to be made overseas and that 20% of blank passports are already printed abroad—[Interruption.] She refers repeatedly from a sedentary position to taking back control. Yes, we are: we are taking back control by awarding a contract within procurement rules—WTO rules as well as EU rules, which are embedded in UK law—and it is imperative that we have the most secure and up to date passports at the best value for money.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am concerned for the De La Rue plant in Bathford in my constituency, which produces the very high-quality security paper used in Chinese passports, among others. Would it be possible for the Franco-Dutch consortium to buy its secure paper from Somerset, which would of course be De La Rue paper and of very high quality?

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend has done well to point out that De La Rue already prints documents for many different countries. Quite rightly, as with any British company, we wish it to be outward looking and global in its perspective. He makes an important point about paper milling in his constituency that I am sure the successful bidders will have heard.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that everything in North East Somerset is of the very highest quality, and often rather refined.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The Scottish National party sympathises with the workers whose jobs are threatened by this decision but, to be frank, the issue of where the new United Kingdom passport is printed as a result of the Government’s handling of Brexit is the least of our worries. Getting a dark blue passport—as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said, we could have had one all along, had we wanted it—will be little consolation for the loss of our EU rights, including the right to travel freely for work, study or pleasure, the right to free healthcare, and the rights protected by EU law and the Court of Justice. What benefits will we get from the dark blue passport to outweigh these losses? How many British citizens lucky enough to have a parent from another EU member state are, like me and many of my constituents, applying for an Irish, French or German passport so that they can hang on to those EU rights?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. and learned Lady appears to have focused on the colour of the passport and Brexit rather than the issue at hand: the need to obtain the best possible value for money in the new passport contract, and also to ensure that whatever the outcome of Brexit, we have one of the most secure travel documents in the world, with a range of innovative features.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

The French Government own 26% of Gemalto, and De La Rue was not allowed to compete for the making of the French passport. Is my right hon. Friend aware of any soft loans or subsidies that have been supplied to Gemalto by the French Government, and will she make public the financial assessment of this £120 million so-called saving?

[Caroline Nokes]

This procurement is still subject to the full legal process, and I have no intention of making public anything that might jeopardise that. My hon. Friend has pointed out that 26% of Gemalto is owned by the French Government. Having their own national provider enables the French to get around EU procurement rules and, indeed, World Trade Organisation rules. What matters to me is that Conservative Members believe in both fair competition and global trade. We should welcome the fact that we have in De La Rue a company that trades successfully around the globe and secures contracts for all sorts of identity documents and, of course, banknotes. We should welcome the fact that we are not going to nationalise that company.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Given the policy of taking back control, will the UK have its own procurement policy for large contracts such as this one for passports separate from the Official Journal of the European Union process? Will that also mean that British firms will be less able to compete for public sector contracts in other EU countries in the many ways in which they can now?

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that there will be all sorts of opportunities post Brexit for the UK to determine its own rules, but I should gently point out to him that this is subject to WTO rules, by which I think we should look to be well guided.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend can be reassured by the fact that in 2010, when I was doing her job, the Labour MP Michael Meacher complained bitterly about the awarding of the contract to De La Rue because it had been taken away from a firm in his constituency. What was interesting about that firm was that it was an American firm, which had been given the contract by the previous Labour Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a degree of chutzpah in the modern Labour party’s saying that the British passport contract needs to be given to a British firm, given that when Labour was in power, it gave that contract to an American firm?

[Caroline Nokes]

As ever, I can rely on my right hon. Friend to get straight to the point. There is a long history of British passports not necessarily being printed by UK companies. What is important to me is that we award contracts within the rules, that the Government do not seek to circumvent those rules, and that the process is handled fairly.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

When the Prime Minister said that we would have a red, white and blue Brexit, we did not think that she was referring to the Tricolour. Why is protecting British jobs not a priority for this Government?

[Caroline Nokes]

Seeking to protect British jobs in the way in which the hon. Lady outlines would be protectionist. I want British companies to be able to bid on a global stage for all sorts of contracts, and to be able to compete fairly throughout the world.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is right to call for a fair and open competition on a level playing field, but is she confident that there will be a level playing field, given that 26% of Gemalto is owned by the French Government? Is she confident that Gemalto’s bid, which was significantly lower than others, is sustainable in the long term?

[Caroline Nokes]

As my right hon. Friend might expect, there has been close scrutiny of all the bids received—that has included a significant amount of financial due diligence—to ensure that the bidders can deliver on this contract, and deliver in a way that provides a British passport with the most up-to-date and important security features to be found in any travel document anywhere in the world.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) as she stands up for her constituents, but does the Minister agree that a lot of young people in this country will look at this debate with absolute bafflement? They never had blue passports; I never had a blue passport. What this actually represents is taking away rights as European Union citizens, which we discussed at great length the other day. That is the real damage in this situation.

[Caroline Nokes]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that this is not about taking away rights; it is about awarding a contract within the rules.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The EU leadership group is in turmoil: it is worried about the British passport being made in France, because when the French people see this symbol of freedom and independence and realise that the British people are gaining control of their borders, money and laws, they will rise up and want to leave the EU. What does the Minister have to say to the French?

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend tempts me to say something I am really not going to say. What I welcome as part of this whole process is that we have companies in this country and abroad that can take part in a fair bidding process, where the best quality, the best security features and the best value for money wins, regardless of nationality.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

An awful lot of the De La Rue staff in Gateshead live in my constituency, although the plant is in the Blaydon constituency. Has the Home Office carried out any assessment of the loss of revenue from national insurance, corporation tax and income tax to the Exchequer when this contract goes to a French Government-owned company?

[Caroline Nokes]

It is important to reflect upon the fact that the new bidder will be providing new facilities and new jobs in the UK. We will of course seek to work with any company that experiences issues regarding the redundancy of staff, as any responsible Government would, but it is also very important to us that we make sure that we get best value for money for the British taxpayer.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

My constituents in Harlow will welcome a saving of £120 million to the taxpayer, but may I put in an early bid by asking my right hon. Friend to spend that £120 million on the NHS by putting it towards scrapping hospital car parking charges?

[Caroline Nokes]

I never fail to be impressed by my right hon. Friend’s ability to raise the issues about which he rightly campaigns and cares a great deal. Of course we need to consider how we spend any saving to the taxpayer in the best possible way. It is worth reflecting on the fact that the Immigration Act 2016 enables us to use any income received from passport fees to contribute not just towards the costs of the passport, but to securing our borders and making sure that there is easy and safe passage for British citizens through the border.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

How many jobs would have been secured had the contract been awarded to Gateshead?

[Caroline Nokes]

It is important to reflect on the fact that we do not believe in a protectionist policy. I can tell the hon. Lady that we anticipate that 70 jobs will be created in the UK as a result of the award of this contract, but this is about making sure that we get the best deal for the taxpayer, that we have the most secure and up-to-date travel document and, of course, that we abide by the rules and do not seek to implement protectionist policies in this country.

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

I absolutely support what the Minister has said, but can we perhaps move forward? What plans does the Home Office have for having not a paper passport, but a piece of plastic rather like our driving licence?

[Caroline Nokes]

The new passport will incorporate a polycarbonate page, which is the most up-to-date security feature, but there will still be paper pages, so the new passport will not look so radically different from what my right hon. Friend expects, although it is important that new security features are contained the whole way through it.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Many of my constituents who work in the Royal Mint in Llantrisant are proud of the fact that they produce not only British coinage, but coinage for 60 other countries around the world, so we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. However, it is extraordinary that the only argument the Minister has so far advanced for the French being allowed to protect their French-made passports for French-made people is that the company is state owned, because that is just an argument for nationalising De La Rue, is it not?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Made by other French people; yes.

[Caroline Nokes]

I do not think that I have at any point advanced an argument for state ownership. To be quite frank, we know that that produces poor value for money and higher prices in general. I am old enough—just—to remember the great British invention of British Leyland’s Allegro, and that was hardly a triumph.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

At a time when President Trump is clearly looking to go down the road of protectionism, may I say how welcome it is to hear a Government Minister robustly defending free trade? She has our strong support in pursuing competitive tenders that are in the public interest and the taxpayer’s interest, rather than sentimental jingoism.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no place for sentimentalism. I am as sorry as anybody that we do not have a British company at the top of this process, but the reality is that, as a Minister, I have to reflect on value for money, quality and security. Those were our main considerations when determining where this contract should be awarded.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

May I bring the Minister back from the fantasy land of free trade to the real world, where countries look after their own industries and their own workers? It is interesting that she says she is unable to tell us any details, given that Government spokesmen are briefing the media on the exact financial details. Will she take the opportunity to do so when she makes the announcement? Will she make the announcement to the House, or is she hoping to do it during the parliamentary recess?

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are at a standstill point in the process, and I intend to make no announcement until that is well and truly over. He paints a picture of protectionism and a little Britain that I do not recognise. I want us to be an outward-facing, global country in which our companies can have the confidence to bid on the world stage.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I am rather disappointed by the outcome of this process, because a company in my constituency known as Morpho was going to invest hundreds of millions of pounds and create hundreds of jobs. When the Minister finally winds up this process, will she let that company know exactly where it has fallen short, because I do not believe that it would have done?

[Caroline Nokes]

As part of the procurement process, it was important that we scored issues such as quality, our confidence in the ability to supply, security features and value for money equally. When this is over, we will of course seek to inform all companies as much as we can within the law.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

In Perth, there have already been spontaneous demonstrations, with placards abound, and there are even rumours that the Daily Mail has sold out. Does the Minister agree that the billions of pounds of Brexit pain and international isolation will be all for nothing if we cannot have this new symbol of British freedom—the blue passport—British made?

[Caroline Nokes]

Well, if the Daily Mail has sold out in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, I have indeed done well, haven’t I? What matters in this process is that we have the best possible passport made at the best possible value to the taxpayer, and that we ensure that we award the contract fairly and, indeed, within the rules.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

May I tell my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) not only that they make excellent paper down there, but that they make very good plastic notes at De La Rue? May I tell the Minister that my constituents feel that passports are already too expensive and that the last thing we should be doing is choosing a contractor that is not competitive. She is doing the right thing.

[Mr Speaker]

I think that that question was rhetorical. No more than a single sentence is required in reply, and not even that, if the Minister does not want to respond.

[Caroline Nokes]

I will just, as my hon. Friend entices me to do, say yes.

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I have constituents whose jobs are at risk as a result of this decision. The Minister says that this is a question of value for money, but my understanding is that the new contract represents a considerable reduction compared with the present arrangements, and I believe that De La Rue has been aggressively undercut by what might turn out to be an unviable bid. Would it not be better to award the contract to De La Rue, secure the jobs in the north-east, and enter into a gain-share arrangement so that the taxpayer can benefit from any efficiencies?

[Caroline Nokes]

We had to consider financial due diligence and ensure that all bidders were capable of delivering the contract within the quality standards set out and, indeed, with the new security innovations that will be included in the new passport. Ultimately, I believe in free and fair competition, and that is exactly what this result has shown.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Croatia

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Written Statements

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

We will today inform the European Commission and the Croatian Government of our decision not to extend further the transitional restrictions on Croatian citizens’ access to the UK labour market when they expire on 30 June 2018. This is in line with the provisions of the accession treaty for Croatia, under which temporary restrictions have been in force since Croatia joined the European Union on 1 July 2013. There are only three remaining member states (Austria, Slovenia and the Netherlands) who also currently impose transitional restrictions on Croatians, and will need to consider the case for extending these before July.

Since 2013 when Croatia joined the EU, their citizens, unless exempt, require authorisation from the Home Office before they can take up a post in the UK. After 12 months’ employment, Croatians are free to work in the UK without restriction.

It was always the case that these restrictions were temporary and it would only be legal to extend them further if there was an economic case that to do otherwise would cause or threaten serious labour market disturbance. We have examined the evidence carefully and no such case can be made.

The UK labour market is very strong with near record levels of unemployment and employment. There is a low volume of flows from Croatia to the UK, and a low number of resident Croatians in the UK. Long-term international migration flows suggest an estimated total as low as 4,000 long-term immigrants from Malta, Cyprus and Croatia arrived in the UK in the year to June (ONS, 2017). Estimates of the total number of Croatians resident in the UK in 2016 are below 10,000 (ONS, 2016). The cultural/social network ‘pull’ factor is limited, particularly given the much larger Croatian diaspora size in other EU member states (e.g. Germany).

This is in contrast to our consideration of extending controls for the EU2 (Romania and Bulgaria) when our economy was still fragile after the recession. Figures at the same point of those transitional controls showed there were around 57,000 Romanians and 35,000 Bulgarians living in the UK.

Our conclusion is that there is insufficient evidence to satisfy the test of ‘serious labour market disturbance’ that is required to extend the restrictions.

The decision not to extend the restrictions will mean that Croatian citizens will be able to seek and obtain employment in the UK on the same basis as currently enjoyed by all other EU citizens.

We will not discriminate between nationals of the EU member states in our implementation of the citizens’ rights deal. Croatian citizens will be able to apply for settled status on the same terms as all other EU citizens.

We have been clear that we will take back control of immigration and our borders when we leave the EU, and we will put in place an immigration system which works in the best interests of the whole of the UK.

[HCWS560]

Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab) (Urgent Question)]

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the detention centre at Yarl’s Wood.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

Ensuring that individuals abide by immigration rules is an essential part of an effective immigration system. This includes individuals leaving the UK if they have no lawful basis to remain. Of course, we all hope that those with no right to remain in the UK will leave voluntarily, and we have measures in place to assist those who wish to do so. However, this is not always the case, and detention is therefore an important tool.

The dignity and welfare of all individuals detained is of utmost importance, and any decision to detain is made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account individual circumstances. But let me be clear: Home Office officials work with any individual with no right to be in the UK, both detained—including those at Yarl’s Wood—and in the community, to assist with their return at any time, if they decide to leave the UK. In fact, 95% of people without the right to be here are managed in the community and most people detained under immigration powers spend only very short periods in detention.

In 2017, 92% of people were detained for four months or less, and nearly two thirds were detained for less than a month. As well as regular reviews of detention, individuals can apply for bail at any time. I visited Yarl’s Wood on 8 February to see that all detainees were being treated in a safe and dignified manner, and I understand that the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) is meeting the Home Secretary to discuss this issue very shortly.

The provision of 24-hour, seven-day-a-week healthcare in all immigration removal centres ensures that detainees have ready access to medical professionals and levels of primary care in line with individuals in the community. Any detainees who choose to refuse food or fluid, including the declining number of residents at Yarl’s Wood who are currently refusing food, are closely monitored by on-site healthcare professionals. Home Office staff will not only ensure that detainees are informed about how their actions may impact on their health, but make it clear that we will continue to seek to progress their case. The Government are committed to protecting the welfare and dignity of those in detention and we will always set the highest standards to ensure the safety and wellbeing of detainees.

[Ms Abbott]

The shadow Attorney General and I travelled to Yarl’s Wood detention centre on Friday 23 February to inspect conditions and speak to some of the people detained there. The Minister will be aware that I have been pressing for such access to the centre since the autumn of 2016. The timing of our visit coincided with a hunger strike by some of the detainees, who were protesting at what they described as the inhumane conditions there. But in response to my repeated inquiries, the authorities at the detention centre, the Home Office, Serco and G4S said categorically that there was no hunger strike. It now seems that we were misled.

Is the Minister aware that newspaper reports show a letter that has been sent to these women by the Home Office? The letter has been reproduced in some media outlets. It is a signed letter, on Home Office headed paper, which begins by stating that

“the fact that you are currently refusing food and/or fluid…may, in fact, lead to your case being accelerated”.

To some Opposition Members, this sounds like punitive deportations for women who have dared to go on hunger strike. Furthermore, I was contacted at the weekend by lawyers and others attempting to prevent the deportation of a young woman and her mother. This is wrong. The personnel at Yarl’s Wood are paid for from the public purse, yet Members of Parliament seem to have been misled by officials. Now we learn that the Home Office is apparently threatening these women with accelerated deportation.

The Minister has a series of questions to answer. When did she first know about the hunger strike? When did she know of the existence of the threatening letters, implying that deportation would be accelerated for those continuing on hunger strike? Did she or her officials approve these letters? How is it possible to accelerate deportations and conform to natural justice, as surely all cases are expedited in any event? Does the decision for removal supersede any health concerns that a detainee may have? Is the Minister aware that the primary demand of the hunger strike is to end the inhumanity of what, in practice, is indefinite detention? Finally, will the Government, in line with their own policy, stop detaining women who have been trafficked or sexually abused and stop misleading this House about their detention of these most vulnerable women?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Very good.

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Lady has raised some very important points. I will first clarify the circumstances in which a letter is given to individuals who may be refusing food or fluid while in detention. A letter will only be handed to people after an extensive welfare interview, which happens with a medical professional, and is used to explain to individuals the very real risk that they are putting themselves at by refusing food and fluid. We want nobody in detention to be in that situation and it is important that we explain to them the risks involved.

The letter is, in fact, part of official Home Office guidance and was published on the gov.uk website in November last year. It was agreed after consultation with NHS England, Medical Justice, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association and a range of non-governmental organisations, because it is important that we get the correct information to detainees who are choosing to refuse food and fluid.

I was first aware that individuals at Yarl’s Wood were refusing food and fluid at about the same time that the right hon. Lady undertook her visit. Of course I regard it as very serious. Nobody wants detainees to be at any risk, but it is important that they should not regard this as a route to preventing their removal from this country. As I said clearly in my opening statement, ensuring that individuals abide by immigration rules is an essential part of our immigration system. I wish to do nothing that encourages them to put their own health at risk by suggesting that doing so might prevent their removal from this country.

Indeed, there are some circumstances whereby people could be prioritised, such as if we anticipated that somebody needed escorts to be removed from the country, because there is always a long wait for that service. We can also talk to embassies to understand whether there is a problem with papers from someone’s home country, and get those expedited, so that the individual can be returned to their home country as swiftly as possible.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Accelerated processing would only be a threat if the judicial process was not seen to be fair and independent. Is it?

[Caroline Nokes]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is an extensive judicial process, whereby individuals seeking to stay in this country may apply to the first tier and, indeed, the upper tier tribunal at any stage in the process that they may apply for judicial review. We are determined to make the immigration system as fair as we possibly can, but also to uphold our rules.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

The large-scale, routine detention of thousands of human beings in private prisons for an indeterminate period simply at the discretion of immigration officers is, frankly, a stain on our democracy and an affront to the rule of law. This most recent horrible episode in a detention facility is far from the first, as hon. Members know, and it will not be the last unless there is radical change. Why does the UK detain more than other European countries? Why can every other EU country manage with a time limit on immigration detention, but not the UK? Why do the Government continue to detain vulnerable people, including victims of torture, to the serious detriment of their health and wellbeing? It is very welcome that the shadow Home Secretary has brought this issue to the House, but will the Government have the courage to allow this House a binding vote and the chance to make it clear that it is time for radical reform of the UK immigration detention regime and that it is time for a limit?

[Caroline Nokes]

Immigration officials always consider individuals in detention on a case-by-case basis and put their welfare absolutely at the forefront. Some 95% of people with no right to be in this country are managed within the community. Only 5% will be within the immigration removal centres at any one time. They are only there when there is a realistic chance of removal, and we always seek to ensure that they are removed as soon as possible.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the superb job that she is doing as check Immigration Minister. My constituents in Kettering want to see firm but fair border controls, and the detention centre is absolutely part of that. Will the Minister assure me that the 5% of applicants who end up in a detention centre are there because there is a very real risk that they will abscond and we will not be able to deport them?

[Caroline Nokes]

There are several reasons why an individual might be in immigration detention. First and foremost, those for whom there is a realistic chance of removal from the UK may be there for a short period, as we seek to get them to removal as soon as possible. There are also those in immigration detention who are foreign national offenders and those who pose a risk to our society.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome the work that the shadow Home Secretary has done to pursue this issue. I share her concern about the state of Yarl’s Wood and some of the policies that underpin it. I understand that the Immigration Minister this weekend responded to calls from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) to prevent the deportation of two of her constituents from being accelerated as a result of one of them being on hunger strike. But as well as that individual case, will the Minister address the wider issue and confirm that no individual should have their case or their deportation accelerated or prioritised simply because they have gone on hunger strike or made some kind of protest in response to the very difficult conditions that they face? I am sure that she would not want that kind of punitive action to be taken in response to protest.

[Caroline Nokes]

We take the issue of individuals refusing food and fluid very seriously indeed. We do not want any individual to put their own health and wellbeing at risk. It is important that we have an immigration policy that includes detention, but that we administer it in as fair a way as possible, always seeking to use detention as a last resort. The right hon. Lady referred to a specific case. I am not going to comment on individual people’s immigration status on a case-by-case basis. However, it is important that I am always prepared to listen when Members ask me to review their cases.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her statement and for the assurances that she has given the House. It is right that we have to have detention centres. Nobody likes them, but they have to exist as part of a policy that is the right policy to pursue. But will she be absolutely clear and give us all an assurance that the welfare of anybody—whatever their status may be—is always the primary concern?

[Caroline Nokes]

Of course the welfare of individuals at any of our immigration centres is of paramount importance. I assure my right hon. Friend that Yarl’s Wood was inspected by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons between 5 and 16 June last year, and the report was published on 15 November. In addition, Yarl’s Wood was subject to a review by Stephen Shaw, who reported in 2016. He is currently looking at the recommendations that he made and the progress that the Government—and Serco, our operative there—have made in implementing them.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

My constituency has already said no to a part of the UK Government’s immoral immigration policy—a short-term holding facility near Glasgow airport. One of the main reasons cited for that refusal was the UK’s indefinite detention policy. The UK is the only country in the EU that has indefinite detention. Is the Minister proud of that policy?

[Caroline Nokes]

There is an automatic review of detention after a month and at every recurring month. Individuals may apply for bail at any time. It is important to reflect on the fact that only 5% of the immigration offender population will be found in detention at any one time. We seek to manage them in the community wherever we possibly can. They will be held in detention only when there is a real risk of absconding or of public harm, or where we are seeking to move somebody to removal as soon as possible.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister, but her statement that this happens only when people are at risk of absconding is not one that I recognise from immigration casework that I do every single day. A woman in my constituency rang the police because of a threat to kill her from a violent ex-husband. She was taken to Yarl’s Wood, not to a place of safety. We detained a woman who was a victim. She has now been given indefinite leave to remain because her case was going through the process. This is not an isolated case. Does the Home Office think that it keeps vulnerable women who are at risk of rape, sexual violence or domestic abuse safe by basically deterring them from calling the police because they will be sent to a detention centre?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady will be aware that we have a very clear policy on adults at risk in immigration detention. I do not want any woman to be at risk of harm from either a current partner or a former partner. She raised a particular case. I urge her and all Members to bear in mind that if such cases occur in their constituencies, I will always want to look at them personally. We must remember, however, that we have in this country an immigration policy that seeks to implement the rules as they are set out, and it is important that we are able to uphold those rules at all times.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

In the Minister’s answer to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), she mentioned Stephen Shaw’s second review of the detention of people in immigration centres, particularly the experience of vulnerable people, and said that he is looking at the Home Office’s implementation of his first review. Has the second review been concluded, and has she received the report on it? If not, when does she expect to receive it, and when does the Home Office expect to publish it?

[Caroline Nokes]

The honest answer is no, I have not yet received it, but we anticipate it very shortly indeed.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) is travelling with the Defence Committee, but as Opelo and her mother are her constituents, she has asked me to put on record her thanks to the Minister for her intervention at the weekend. She also asked me to put on record her thanks to the Rev. Ashley Cooper and all those at Swan Bank church for the welfare support they have been giving to the immediate friends and family. Does the Minister agree that the fact that Members of Parliament have to resort to weekend telephone calls directly to Ministers to try to stop individuals from being deported before they have had their due process is a sign that the immigration system in this country is simply failing?

[Caroline Nokes]

I said very clearly that I was not going to comment on individual cases, but we do follow due process very closely indeed. I put on record my thanks to the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), to whom I spoke over the weekend and with whom I am in regular contact. It is quite right that she should be able to make those representations to me at, quite frankly, whatever time of day.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am very proud to be the son of immigrants and proud of this country’s record on supporting refugees and immigrants. Does the Minister understand that at the heart of her answer is an indifference, first, to indefinite detention and, secondly, to the fact that many women at Yarl’s Wood have been there for months and months, running into years? That is why many of them are refusing food. The possibility that the Government will accelerate deportation on that basis must be contrary to human rights. Can she satisfy the House that this satisfies all the obligations that the Government have to meet in their human rights record and that it is not cruel and unusual punishment?

[Caroline Nokes]

It is important to reflect on the fact that detention plays an important part in our immigration system and will continue to do so. Of course we put the welfare and wellbeing of individuals who are in detention at Yarl’s Wood, and at every other centre in this country, at the forefront of our policies. It is important to remember, however, that some people in detention, including foreign national offenders, are there because if they were in the community they would have very high potential to do harm.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

A constituent of mine was detained in Yarl’s Wood last summer. She was at risk of losing her eyesight due to a serious eye condition that had already left her blind in one eye and, if left untreated for a short time, risked her going blind in the other. Despite people being made aware of this information, she was left for some time before being seen by a nurse. In the end, my office had to intervene directly to ensure that urgent medical assistance was provided to my constituent, to avoid her losing her sight. This appalling case is one of many. Will the Minister make an assessment and overall review of the conditions that women in Yarl’s Wood are subject to?

[Caroline Nokes]

Upon detention, individuals at Yarl’s Wood are given access to a healthcare professional within two hours and then have the ability to make an appointment with a general practitioner within 24 hours. It is really important that we provide healthcare to all those in detention. That is why it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and referral onwards to external healthcare services is also available. The hon. Lady asked whether I would review welfare at Yarl’s Wood. In fact, that is the job of the independent monitoring board, the independent inspector, and of course Stephen Shaw, whom we have asked to go back to review the recommendations that he made two years ago and provide us with an update on progress.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

How can the Minister say that the justification for detention is severe risk of harm or women absconding when so many of them are very quickly, or ultimately, released back into the community and sometimes go round the loop of “detention and release, detention and release” on a number of occasions?

[Caroline Nokes]

In upholding our immigration rules, we seek to assist those who have no right to be here to return home, whether on a voluntary basis or indeed, on occasion, by force. It is really important that we have an immigration system that is robust. We do not have indefinite detention. The hon. Lady will have heard me say that 92% of those held are released within four months and 63% are released within a month. It is important that we have a system where we can be confident that when we are able move people to removal, we have the capacity to do so.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to put on record my support for the work that the shadow Home Secretary has been doing on this issue and for the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), who has fought tirelessly for her constituents. I am grateful that the Minister has listened and agreed to review the case. For many of us, the trouble with this is that we are talking about an environment where we know that two thirds of the women in Yarl’s Wood have experienced rape or sexual torture and that 85% of them are then released back, not deported. Does the Minister recognise that, rather than continuing to keep Yarl’s Wood open, there may be not only cheaper but much more compassionate and humane ways in which we can manage our immigration system that would speak to the best of British values?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady will have heard me say that 95% of immigration offenders are in the community and only a very small proportion—5%—are in detention. However, detention does play an important part. We will keep people in detention where there is a realistic prospect of removal and where they might cause harm out in the community. It is important that we retain that facility.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

At Yarl’s Wood and many institutions like it, vulnerable people are being held for long periods, despite the fact that the majority of them have committed no crime. Does the Minister agree that there must be an urgent review of the UK’s detention system?

[Caroline Nokes]

I think that I have been very clear this afternoon that, although we regard detention as a last resort, it is an important part of our suite of immigration policies. We use detention to enable us to remove people from this country, to make sure that those who might cause harm in our communities are kept away from society and on occasions when we are seeking to remove foreign national offenders as quickly as we can.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

How many people in Yarl’s Wood are currently on suicide watch?

[Caroline Nokes]

We keep the welfare of detainees under very close supervision, and I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that a declining number of people are choosing to refuse food and fluid. Of course, where people have mental health issues or there are concerns about their health, it is absolutely right that we keep them under very close supervision.

Seasonal Migrant Workers

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) on securing this debate. I pay tribute to her for the eloquent way in which she made her points. I have absolutely no doubt that her constituents have an extremely effective representative in this House.

I am grateful, too, for all the other speeches we heard this afternoon. There has been a great deal of consensus, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) rightly pointed out. We have had a series of well-informed contributions, although early on I felt that I should perhaps have had lunch first, given the wide variety of produce we got to hear about. I thank the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) for reminding me that today is the first day of spring.

This Government place great value on the UK’s food and farming industries. We recognise them as crucial to the UK economy and to the fabric of rural Britain. Let me be clear that I say that both as a representative of the Government and in a personal capacity. The constituency I have the honour to represent covers 162 square miles, and I reassure the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who yelled from a sedentary position, “You need to get out into the fields”, that I certainly do so in my constituency. I am astonished to hear that he was in the House when the seasonal agricultural workers scheme was originally introduced, as that happened in 1945. He is clearly ageing extremely well.

My constituency is far smaller than the constituency of Angus, but it is still large and has sizeable rural areas, so I am very aware of the role that the farming community plays in shaping the rural economy and preserving the countryside—to say nothing of the vital role it performs in putting food on our plates.

As hon. Members know, this week the Government published “Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit”. I am delighted to have the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), here with me this afternoon, and he will no doubt concur that we want to see a more dynamic and more self-reliant agriculture industry as we continue to compete internationally, supplying products of the highest quality to the domestic market and increasing our exports. Alongside that, we want a reformed agricultural and land management policy to deliver a better and richer environment in our country.

As we have heard, there is a huge opportunity for UK agriculture to improve its competitiveness by developing the next generation of food and farming technology. I reassure hon. Members that their comments about automation in soft fruit picking have not fallen on cloth ears—I am very conscious that huge parts of the sector are reliant on arduous manual labour.

We want to help attract more of our graduates and domestic workforce into this vibrant industry. Importantly, the White Paper also addresses the issue of apprenticeships. We will create more apprenticeships, widen participation and create progression for apprentices. Our reforms will help meet the skills needs of employers by putting them in control and enabling them to work with education providers to develop their workforce now and in the future. We heard that message from across the House. My hon. Friends the Members for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), all mentioned the need to make working in the sector more attractive to our young people.

We have heard much this afternoon about the UK’s exit from the European Union and the issues that that brings for the labour force. The Government have been very clear from the start that our first priority is to safeguard the position of the 3 million EU citizens already in the UK and of the British citizens living in Europe. The practical consequence is that all EU citizens currently working in the UK, whether they are fruit pickers or farm managers, can stay and settle in the UK if they so choose.

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in her Florence speech last year, it is our intention that, for around two years after we leave, EU citizens will still be able to come and go and to work in any capacity with a registration system, so there will be no cliff edge for employers. Only yesterday, we set out what the rules will be for those who arrive during the implementation period, so that individuals planning to live, study or work in the UK after March 2019 will know what the arrangements will be if they want to stay for longer than two years. It is crucial to business that those arriving during the implementation period will have certainty that they can stay for the long term.

We have clearly stated throughout the negotiations that we value EU citizens and the contribution they make to the economic, social and cultural fabric of the UK. Our offer is that those EU citizens and their family members who arrive, are resident and have registered during the implementation period will be eligible, after the accumulation of five years’ continuous and lawful residence, to apply for indefinite leave to remain. That was an issue that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) raised.

For the time being, the UK remains a member of the European Union, with all the rights and obligations that membership entails. Employers in the agricultural and food processing sectors, and elsewhere, are free to continue to recruit EU workers to meet their labour needs. This debate is very timely, in that it follows the publication last week by the Office for National Statistics of two important sets of numbers. The first were the quarterly net migration statistics, which show that although the rate of European net migration has slowed, it is still positive. The ONS figures indicated that in the year ending September 2017 there were 90,000 more EU citizens in the UK than there were a year earlier. Secondly, the ONS published the labour force statistics, which demonstrate that in the period October to December 2017 there were 100,000 more EU citizens in the UK labour force than there were a year earlier, including 79,000 more Romanians and Bulgarians. Of course, I appreciate that there is a difference between established workers and seasonal workers of the kind who predominate in agriculture, but it is important that we recognise that there are many EU citizens in the UK and that there are more than there were at the time of the referendum.

In 2013, the last seasonal agricultural workers scheme was abolished, on the independent advice of the MAC. We know that since then the agricultural sector has been working hard to recruit the labour it requires. The hon. Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned an important aspect of this—the treatment and condition of workers who come over to this country. It is important that we continually have an eye to modern slavery, that we look at the conditions in which people are living and that they are paid the minimum wage. In an important part of the review that we undertook with Matthew Taylor, he emphasised the need to make sure that employees had good conditions and indeed had payslips. That remains a priority for the Home Office.

We recognise the concerns raised by Members from across the House about labour shortages. That is one reason why we have commissioned the MAC to conduct a review of the UK labour market’s reliance on EU labour and the read-across to the industrial strategy. I know that the MAC has received many submissions from within the agricultural sector and from DEFRA—I say that to reassure the hon. Member for Bristol East. They will weigh heavily in the MAC’s deliberations and recommendations. My door is always open to representations, and Home Office officials regularly meet representatives from all sectors of the economy, from business and from academia—

[Pete Wishart]

rose—

[Caroline Nokes]

Given that many Members took a great deal of time, I am not going to take any interventions.

I also assure Members that we keep the situation under constant review, referring specifically to a seasonal agricultural workers scheme. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made that point clearly when he addressed the National Farmers Union conference last week. That applies equally to all sectors of the economy. We have heard a little this afternoon about tourism and other sectors that might also be affected.

This Government are determined to get the best deal for the UK in our negotiations to leave the EU, including for our world-leading—

[Pete Wishart]

rose—

[Caroline Nokes]

No, I am not going to give way. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues took many minutes up earlier.

As I was saying, we are determined to get the best deal, including for our world-leading food and farming industry. In the meantime, we will continue to support the industry, to work with it and to review the situation going forward. I would like the industry to be assured that it has friends in government. I look forward to discussing these issues again and to keeping the recommendations under close review, and I will be appearing shortly before the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when I am sure this matter will be raised—

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman can see that the Minister does not intend to take an intervention. [Interruption.] Order. He knows that he cannot make points from a sedentary position. He has already made his points and the Minister has heard them.

[Caroline Nokes]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also heard you when you exhorted people to keep their contributions short. The hon. Gentleman has made many contributions from a sedentary position, some of which I have even deigned to answer. As I said, I will look forward to continuing to discuss these matters with colleagues across government and to making sure that the views of the agricultural sector, which have been expressed so effectively by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, continue to be heard. I conclude by, again, thanking all Members for speaking and thanking my hon. Friend for initiating this debate.

Draft Passport (Fees) Regulations 2018

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 General Committees

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Passport (Fees) Regulations 2018.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this slightly chilly Committee Room, Ms McDonagh. The regulations would, for the first time, set passport fees under the primary charging powers in the Immigration Act 2016.

In 2017, Her Majesty’s Passport Office issued nearly 7 million passports worldwide. It continues to provide excellent customer service: over the past year, the average turnaround for the vast majority of passport applications was approximately seven days. Its excellent performance has resulted in high levels of customer satisfaction; in a recent customer satisfaction index survey by the Institute of Customer Service, HM Passport Office ranked once again as the best-performing public service organisation. It has improved its customer satisfaction index scores over each of the past five years and has now appeared for the first time among the top 50 high-scoring organisations in the survey.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

By way of evidence, I renewed my passport very recently indeed and it came back in five days. Under the new system, in which applicants can upload their photograph from an iPhone, the application took 10 minutes. What a fantastic service!

[Caroline Nokes]

I am delighted to hear that feedback from my hon. Friend, the former Immigration Minister.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

As a counterpoint to that excellent experience, I know of a case in which a passport that had been correctly applied for was delivered by courier to the wrong house. How often does that happen?

[Caroline Nokes]

There are two points that I would like to address. My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby makes the valid point that the proportion of passports issued within seven days has surpassed 95%; the vast majority are issued very quickly and with huge customer satisfaction. However, I am always concerned to hear about instances of the process going wrong. If the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood raises the case with me outside the Committee, I will raise it personally with the head of the Passport Office.

[Maria Eagle]

I raised it at the time with the then Home Secretary, who is now our Prime Minister. The situation has been ameliorated, but the problem has not been solved. A new, full and correct British passport was delivered to what was obviously the wrong address and never, to my knowledge, has it been recovered.

[Caroline Nokes]

By her own admission, the hon. Lady refers to a case that must now be several years out of date. [Interruption.] Well, at least 18 months. I reassure the hon. Lady—

[Maria Eagle]

It is not out of date. It has not been resolved.

[Caroline Nokes]

As I have said, the customer satisfaction with Her Majesty’s Passport Office has increased significantly. We have made excellent improvements with the digitisation of the service, which my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby referred to, but I am absolutely prepared to take up the issue of the missing passport, find out where it has got to and, of course, ensure that it is cancelled, so that no one can use it fraudulently.

We now score alongside organisations such as Amazon and John Lewis on customer satisfaction. We are the only public sector body on the list, and we scored higher than Prudential, Debenhams and Hilton. I welcome those accolades as testament to our hard-working officials across the UK.

The 2016 Act includes powers that allow Home Office fees to reflect the costs not only of considering an application and issuing a passport, but of any other function of the Secretary of State in connection with UK passports, including costs associated with British citizens leaving and entering the UK. The full costs associated with processing applications and issuing passports are funded by income from fees charged for passport services, but the number of passengers arriving at the UK border continues to rise: approximately 130 million passengers arrive each year, of whom approximately 70 million are UK passport holders. This leads to a significant cost for the Home Office that is largely funded by the Exchequer. Allowing passport fees to reflect the costs to the Home Office associated with UK passengers leaving and entering the UK means that we can reduce the burden on the Exchequer and move towards a “user pays” basis for our overall service to UK passport holders.

[Maria Eagle]

The impact assessment suggests that if the draft regulations are implemented, £50 million of additional income in the next financial year from these increases will come into the Exchequer. If that happens, will the Minister tell us what percentage of the costs that she describes will be met by income from passports?

[Caroline Nokes]

I will move on to explain how the income received is only part of the £100 million investment that the Home Office will make in our borders in the coming 12 months. It is important that we recover any additional costs in a balanced way that incentivises the use of the more efficient online application process, which we intend to become the standard passport application channel. Although we are proposing to increase most fees, people who submit their application online will be charged a lower fee than if they submit their application by post.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that constituencies such as mine, which have an older population who have limited access to the internet, will be discriminated against by that? Has she done any equality impact assessment on constituencies such as mine?

[Caroline Nokes]

We have looked very carefully at this issue, and I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that 90% of the UK population have access to the internet. I recently made the point in a different Committee Room that many older people use the internet very successfully and with great efficiency. It is important that we reflect the difference in cost to HM Passport Office between a postal application and the online application, which obviously is much more simple and more straightforward. We also provide an assisted digital service for those who might have difficulty submitting their application online.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Could the Minister give a bit more information about how the assisted service works for people with disabilities or the elderly in remote or rural areas, such as parts of my constituency?

[Caroline Nokes]

We are enabling people to submit their application via a third party, so they can ask people to assist them if they have particular disabilities or challenges; that applies particularly to those who have a visual impairment. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point about areas that might have lower broadband speeds. In my constituency in the south-east, I have some of the lowest performing wards for broadband in the country, although I am very conscious that my excellent colleague, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has made huge strides and has hit our targets for increasing high-speed broadband across the country. I accept that there is still work to be done on that.

We intend to increase the online adult fee by only £3, which is broadly in line with inflation. That will mean that the adult fee will increase to £75.50, which is still below what was charged between 2009 and 2012, when an adult passport cost £77.50. The child passport fee will increase by the same amount, and will be set at £49. Fees for adult and child passports applied for via post will each increase by £12.50, to £85 and £58.50 respectively, to reflect the additional cost of processing postal applications. HM Passport Office provides excellent priority services for applicants who wish their applications to be processed faster, or who prefer to apply in person. It is right that applicants pay more for these priority services. We intend to move the fees for these services towards full cost recovery sooner than online or postal services, given their optional nature and the additional benefits that the customer receives by using them.

Finally, we are introducing a new and specific power in the regulations that allows the Home Office to consider waiving fees for replacement passports where they have been lost or destroyed during an incident considered a national emergency or crisis, where the UK Government have activated exceptional assistance measures overseas. This will allow the Government to ensure that we can provide the appropriate support to vulnerable individuals in emergency situations and crises.

We are committed to ensuring that the Government continue to move towards a position where the border, immigration and citizenship system is funded by those who directly use it, and where, as a key part of that, passport application fees include the cost of UK passengers leaving and entering the UK. The additional income from the proposed fee increases will help to protect vital frontline services, and ensure that we continue to operate a world-class border system.

[Conor McGinn]

Could the Minister confirm that the additional revenue raised will be used to re-employ some of the 1,000 border control staff whom this Government have got rid of in the last seven years?

[Caroline Nokes]

I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that, as part of our plans for Border Force, we have already recruited 300 additional staff, and we are launching a recruitment campaign for a further 1,000 staff. Of course, he will be as conscious as I am that as we move towards Brexit, it is imperative that our Border Force has the necessary number of staff.

[Maria Eagle]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. I wonder whether she has had time to gather her thoughts about my earlier question, which was: if these regulations are implemented, what percentage of the full costs will be recovered by the fees for issuing passports?

[Caroline Nokes]

As I have said repeatedly to the hon. Lady, we acknowledge that this change will increase the amount of revenue by about £50 million, but we are investing £100 million in our borders and our passport control system over the coming year. I think that is a very straightforward answer: 100% of the fees recovered will be reinvested in our borders, immigration and citizenship service, as I very clearly stated.

I have nothing more to say, other than that I commend these fee regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

I certainly thank hon. Members for the consideration they have given the draft regulations. I want to pick up some of the issues that have been raised, particularly about assistance for people who need it when applying for their passport online. In addition to providing phone support and suggesting help from friends and family—assistance from a third party—we have designed the online application to comply with screen readers for those with sight impairment, but we will come forward with a full range of proposals. We have worked with organisations such as Age UK to ensure that they are sighted on this and understand the assistance that can be given. We are finalising the guidance that we will bring forward.

On high street assistance, which a number of Members raised, we have worked with the Association of British Travel Agents to see what support travel agents up and down our high streets might be able to give their customers who are not able to get online.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Only a handful of travel agents in my constituency come to mind, and I cannot think where in their small spaces they would be able to put computers for my constituents to apply for passports.

May I press the Minister on the digital divide? Everyone in this room can afford a mobile phone, owns one and knows how to use it, but thousands, if not millions, of people across our country do not have those skills or access to those resources. Particularly in the wake of the most recent plans by the Department for Work and Pensions to close jobcentres, including two in my constituency, my constituents have fewer opportunities to access computers. What will she do to ensure that people really can access provision and apply online?

[Caroline Nokes]

As I have indicated, there are other facilities that people can use. We have heard that it is perfectly possible to apply on a smartphone, but Age UK is there to support people who want to avail themselves of its services. I noticed that there was some scoffing at the suggestion that people could use computers in schools. The Romsey School and the Mountbatten School, which are community schools in my constituency, welcome in members of the wider community and like to regard themselves as hubs that encourage access. Further education colleges across Hampshire are able to bring their communities in, too, so I dismiss the idea that there is a barrier to communities. Actually, those institutions have discovered that it is a way to have a much more rounded community.

A comment was made about broadband speeds, particularly in Scotland. I note that Ofcom commented in a 2016 report that there was a 79% satisfaction rate, and that broadband take-up in Glasgow in particular has gone up significantly.

[Alison Thewliss]

The Minister seems to have misunderstood my point. I was not talking about broadband speeds in Scotland; I was talking about broadband access—people being able to use a computer and access digital services. That is the issue I was trying to point out. There is a digital divide in cities: many people and communities just do not have access to the internet at all.

[Caroline Nokes]

I regret that I do not have the figures to hand, but I would be interested in the number of smartphones that are used across Glasgow and in the hon. Lady’s constituency. A number of Members mentioned universal credit, which many users of DWP services access via their smartphone or tablet.

The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood asked what percentage of the cost of primary control points would be associated with UK passengers. This increase will enable that to be a 40% contribution, which is still some considerable way from covering the entire cost. However, as the powers in the 2016 Act set out, we will be able to review those costs going forward. Hon. Members will note that, when it comes to priority services, which are, by and large, optional, we have sought to move to quicker full cost recovery.

In certain circumstances, Her Majesty’s Passport Office has the ability to exercise compassion and discretion. I have to say that my experience, even before coming into this role, was that it was always keen to make sure that the best service was delivered to constituents who found themselves in difficult situations in which, at the last minute, an emergency passport is needed, whether for compassionate travel or when somebody had not anticipated that their passport would expire.

Passports are only one way to prove identity, and across Government we certainly seek to encourage people to look at all sorts of different ways to prove their identities, including ambitious plans for digital identity. However, we will continue to make sure that those who need a passport as a form of ID will be able to use it. I point out to the hon. Member for Glasgow East—

[Alison Thewliss]

Central.

[Caroline Nokes]

Central; I apologise. I point out to her that passport fees went down in 2012. She provided us with a comprehensive list of the increases since 2001, but I make no apology for the action of the last Labour Government.

[Luciana Berger]

I had a moment to check the statistics on smartphone use in the UK. This year, it is 73.12%. Does the Minister therefore accept that we cannot expect the just under 27% of the population who do not have a smartphone to be able to access the service in the way she set out just a moment ago?

[Caroline Nokes]

I respectfully point out to the hon. Lady that, just because somebody does not have a smartphone, it does not mean that they do not have access to a computer via a library or a desktop computer either at home or at work. As we have heard, a range of steps have been taken, including the work we are doing with ABTA to make the service available in high street travel agencies.

The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood makes an important point on chip failure, although those are rare events. I have to say that I suffer myself from a nine-year-old passport whose chip no longer works. I have never found that to be an impediment to travel, but I cannot use e-passport gates, which makes me very cross. However, I will be renewing the passport shortly. In the event of chip failure, customers can send their passport to us, and if it is confirmed that the chip has failed, we will replace it for free.

An important question was raised about fee waivers. That is a very specific power that we chose to introduce after the recent horrendous tragedy at Grenfell Tower. There was no specific power for Her Majesty’s Passport Office to automatically reissue passports lost in that dreadful tragedy. We have introduced the waiver power, I have to say, sincerely hoping that we are never in a situation in in which we will have to use it. However, as I said, the Passport Office acts with compassion. Certainly when British travellers are overseas and need passport documents restored very quickly, it has a very strong track record in meeting its customer service objectives—I will not say duties. It is absolutely committed to that, and I think it has done well in proving its compassion when those circumstances arise.

As I sought to explain, the planned fee increases are a vital step towards meeting the Government’s ambition for a border, immigration and citizenship system that is increasingly funded by those who use it. They will ensure that we can continue to fund the world-class passport service that British passport holders already receive. There were 46 million passenger crossings through e-passport gates using UK passports in 2017. The UK passport remains excellent value for money. As I have pointed out, fees were reduced in 2012, and there has not been a fee increase since 2009. We currently process 99.9% of straightforward applications within three weeks, and on average, customers making a non-priority application can expect their passport to be issued seven working days after the application is made.

We are committed to meeting the needs and expectations of those who increasingly wish to use digital channels to access Government services, and I am conscious that 33% of applications are already made online. The new fee structure reflects the fact that it costs more to process postal applications than those submitted online, and is in line with key Treasury charging principles.

Operationally, Her Majesty’s Passport Service often works with speed and flexibility to respond to particular customer needs where there is a compassionate case for it. Only recently, the public counter in Glasgow remained open for business despite severe adverse weather conditions, working beyond normal opening times to honour a priority appointment that an applicant had missed due to the bad weather.

With more than 90% of adults in the UK having access to the internet, and third parties being permitted to apply on a person’s behalf, the vast majority of people should face no obstacle to applying online. However, as I have said, we are developing further help for those who wish to apply online but need additional advice or support. We are working to deliver an assisted digital leaflet for relevant support groups to enable them to help their clientele apply online. They will also ensure that their online application route is built in such a way as to be extremely simple to use and compatible with various aids, such as screen readers.

[Alison Thewliss]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Caroline Nokes]

For a final time.

[Alison Thewliss]

When does the Minister expect the service to come into force, and will it be before the passport fee increase?

[Caroline Nokes]

As the hon. Lady will know, the passport fee increase is scheduled for March of this year. It is certainly our ambition to make sure that all the assistance is available as soon as is practically possible.

We will continue to provide an excellent service to millions of passport holders and applicants. As such, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

Question put,

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

2. What her policy is on residence rights for EU nationals after the UK leaves the EU.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

European Union citizens resident before we leave the EU are covered by the agreement we reached in December. We welcome the contribution they have made both to our economy and our societies, and they and their families can stay and carry on living their lives here.

[Alan Brown]

The reality is that many sectors that rely on EU nationals are struggling with recruitment, and the Government have created further uncertainty with mixed messages about the status of EU nationals who come here during any transitional period, so will the Minister provide clarity for businesses and people thinking about coming here? What will be their rights, and will they match the rights of the 3 million EU citizens already living here?

[Caroline Nokes]

At various points over the last six weeks I have in this House—and, indeed, in Committee—highlighted the rights that will be available to EU nationals living here. The Government have undertaken to provide regular updates, and I can assure the House that that will indeed be the case going forward.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

When might the immigration Bill actually be brought forward, and what is the reason for its lengthy delay?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Of course, that Bill was the subject of an urgent question in the House, and I made it very clear then that it will be coming forward in due course.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

While protecting the rights of EU nationals who are already here, can the Minister reassure my constituents that, whatever the other details of the final Brexit agreement, it will include the end of free movement?

[Caroline Nokes]

We have been very clear that, when people voted to leave the European Union back in 2016, that involved the end of free movement, so I can certainly reassure the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents that that will be the case.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I am pleased that the Government are delivering on their pledge to secure the rights of EU citizens here—especially those from Taunton Deane. Will my right hon. Friend comment, however, on how straightforward applying to stay might be, and whether we might have a little more detail?

[Caroline Nokes]

It is very important that we make it clear that, for EU citizens already living here and who have come here before the specified date, we want as smooth and seamless a process as possible. They will be able to apply digitally online, and we want that process to open on a voluntary basis later this year.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

The most recent migration statistics show immigration from outside the EU, which the Government have always been able to control, going up, while EU citizens are leaving in their largest numbers for almost a decade. The Government have again postponed their White Paper on post-Brexit immigration strategy. Rather than taking back control, are this Government in fact driven by confusion and inaction?

[Caroline Nokes]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are working very hard to make sure we have a sustainable immigration system both now and going forward. I welcome the fact that there are so many students coming here to study—he will of course be aware that there is no limit on the number of students who can come to this country—but what I really welcome is the number of EU citizens who came to this country not just looking for a job, but with a job to go to.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

3. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of regional organised crime units in tackling serious and organised crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

5. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of removing the tier 2 visa cap.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

The cap on tier 2 visas was set in 2011 following advice from the Migration Advisory Committee. It enables the Government to control migration and encourages employers to look first to the domestic workforce before recruiting from overseas. The Government are clear that carefully controlled economic migration benefits the economy, but we remain committed to reducing migration and protecting the jobs of British workers. We keep all immigration routes under review to ensure that the system serves the national interest.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the Minister, but given that the cap has been reached three times in the past three months, what would she say to employers that are desperate for skilled staff, such as Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge? They find those people, but then discover that the Government say that they cannot come here. Is it really Government policy to deny the national health service the skilled people that it needs?

[Caroline Nokes]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that no medical professionals on the shortage occupation list have been refused a visa. It is important that we keep things under review and ensure that we recruit more doctors and nurses from within the UK, and my right hon. Friend the Health and Social Care Secretary is committed to ensuring that the number of training places for both nurses and doctors increases.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware of the levels of staff and skills shortages in a series of economic sectors, including the NHS and social care? How does she see the impacts on these sectors if there are further restrictions on migration for such purposes?

[Caroline Nokes]

Nurses are on the shortage occupation list, meaning that no nurse is turned away. The important thing is that we keep the matter under review and that we understand the situation through our work with the Migration Advisory Committee, which is looking at the pattern of EU work routes in this country, so that we come forward with an immigration policy that reflects the needs of our economy.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Has the Home Office decided whether EU citizens wanting to come to the UK to work in our NHS post Brexit will be subject to the tier 2 visa cap? If no decision has yet been taken, when do Ministers intend to end the uncertainty facing NHS employers?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He will have heard me say earlier that we will come forward with an immigration Bill in due course. He will also have heard me undertake to ensure that the House is updated on our EU exit policies in regular time, and that will of course happen.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I start by associating my party with the Home Secretary’s remarks about the tragedy in Leicester. Our thoughts and prayers are very much with the families.

The Minister suggests that the tier 2 cap situation is under review. With respect, that is not good enough. Failed applicants in the past three months may have no option but to apply again in the months ahead, making it ever more competitive for tier 2 certificates of sponsorship, which will make the problem much worse. Surely, if there is some sort of review, or if we have to wait for the Migration Advisory Committee, it makes sense to lift the cap in the meantime.

[Caroline Nokes]

We are very clear that businesses should look first to employ people from within the UK, and we remain committed to reducing migration to sustainable levels. Interestingly, businesses have told us that our system compares well with our global competitors and that businesses like its speed and certainty.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The system works well for some businesses, but not for all. Breaching the tier 2 cap essentially meant that, to qualify for a certificate of sponsorship in December 2017, a job was required to offer a salary of £55,000 or above. That might be common enough for multinational companies in London, but it is much rarer elsewhere.

Given the Government say that they want a system that works for the whole United Kingdom, will the Minister make available information on the geographic spread of jobs that qualified for certificates of sponsorship over the past three months when the cap was breached?

[Caroline Nokes]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that, of course, we keep a separate shortage occupation list for Scotland, if that is what he is referring to, but that broadly reflects the shortage occupations across the whole UK. We look carefully at this issue, as he might expect, but it is important that he reflects on the fact that we are determined to have an immigration system in the UK that works for the whole country.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

6. How much and what proportion of the Government’s actual and planned spending on security in Calais will be allocated to anti-trafficking and child protection.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

Since 2014 the United Kingdom has invested approximately £200 million to fund joint co-operation on illegal migration in northern France and committed another £44.5 million at the recent UK-France summit. Funding focuses on improving port security and infrastructure; facilities for children; accommodation; tackling organised crime, including trafficking; and support with returning migrants. We have allocated £3.6 million to work with France to improve identification and transfer of asylum seekers between the UK and France, including children, under the Dublin regulation.

[Stella Creasy]

Border Force tells us that it is stopping around 1,000 people a week who are trying to get to the UK, a third of whom are minors, but those children are not being taken into care or asked whether they have family elsewhere—just like Mohammed Hassan, a teenager who had family in Bahrain but was stopped by our Border Force, sent back and died two days later trying again. What action are the Government taking to make sure that our Border Force people are not sending children into the hands of traffickers?

[Caroline Nokes]

I am sure the hon. Lady would welcome my comment about working to combat organised crime, and we should always reflect that many perilous journeys that are made are in the hands of organised criminals. Any loss of life is an absolute tragedy, but it is important we reflect that our juxtaposed controls are an important part of our border. Our Border Force staff are incredibly well trained and look for vulnerabilities wherever they might see them. She makes an important point, and we are committed to doing more to make sure we meet our allocation of Dubs children. Also, under the Dublin regulation, we continue to resettle thousands of children every year.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that our recent agreement with the French Government will not merely treat the symptoms of the problem but address the deeper-rooted problem by reducing the number of migrant journeys to northern France?

[Caroline Nokes]

An important component of the recent treaty looks at the whole route of migration. It is critical that we understand we cannot solve this solely by working with France. There is a real commitment with both Italy and Greece to make sure that, particularly with reference to our Dubs commitment, we resettle the children we are determined to bring to the UK.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Thousands of unaccompanied children at risk of trafficking and exploitation still sit in camps in Europe and further afield. Many of them have family members in the UK, so will the Minister amend the immigration regulations so that these desperate children can join their relatives here in the UK to be granted safety and sanctuary?

[Caroline Nokes]

We have a number of schemes that already allow children to come to the UK, including Dublin and the Dubs commitment that I have outlined. We are determined to make sure that we meet our international commitments and our humanitarian commitments, to make sure that, where we can help children in desperate need across the continent and, indeed, in the wider middle east and north Africa region, we do so.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

7. What steps she is taking to safeguard people from online radicalisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

The Department continues to make preparations for a range of possible outcomes from the UK’s negotiations with the European Union, working in close co-ordination with the Department for Exiting the European Union and others. We are already recruiting additional staff in Border Force and across the wider UK Visas and Immigration department to ensure that the correct preparations for leaving the European Union are well under way.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Can my right hon. Friend tell the House how much has been invested in our borders since the referendum and how much is planned between now and Brexit day in March 2019? Will the Home Office be ready on day one, prepared for every single eventuality?

[Caroline Nokes]

As I reassured my hon. Friend, we are making preparations for every eventuality. The Home Office has already invested £60 million in 2017-18. We will continue to review the funding position as negotiations continue and details of the final agreement become clearer. As he might expect, we are in continuing discussions with Her Majesty’s Treasury.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The phase 1 agreement before Christmas rightly confirmed the Government’s commitment to the avoidance of a hard border in Northern Ireland, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls. The Minister will know the concerns of the Police Service of Northern Ireland that any infrastructure at all could pose a security threat. So far, the Government have not set out any way in which to operate border and customs checks—if the UK is outside a customs union—without some kind of physical infrastructure such as, for example, cameras at or near the border. Will the Minister confirm that the Government’s commitment to no physical infrastructure also means a commitment to no cameras at or near the border, which would also pose a security threat?

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Lady will be aware that we have made a very firm commitment to no hard border, and that we will continue to update the House as negotiations progress.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Ind)]

15. What recent assessment she has made of the effect of alcohol abuse on levels of crime and costs of policing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

T5. Many constituents have contacted me about the limited provisions on refugee family reunion. Will the Minister undertake to expand those provisions, in line with my constituents’ concerns?

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She will be aware that we had a Westminster Hall debate on that subject last week and that the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) has a private Member’s Bill on it, which will come forward on 16 March. This is a policy area where we enable some refugee families to be reunited here. We have a proud track record of so far resettling 10,000 of the 20,000 we are expecting under the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. This is an important policy. We are determined to be as compassionate as we can within the commitments we have already made.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

T4. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Kent police, which has been rated outstanding for the third year in a row by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary? It is the only police force to get such a rating and is doing a fantastic job in keeping the residents of Kent and Medway safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

I have been contacted by a local optician in Elgin. He is a tier 2 sponsor, but because optometry is not listed as a priority profession, he has been affected by the tier 2 cap being reached in recent months. Will the Minister and colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care consider including optometrists as priority professionals for tier 2 visas?

[Caroline Nokes]

The tier 2 cap operates to ensure that our immigration system brings the best talent to the UK while still controlling numbers. Any profession on the shortage occupation list automatically gets priority. The shortage occupation list is determined by the independent Migration Advisory Committee. It has not yet included opticians on the list, but as my hon. Friend will know, it is currently carrying out a major labour market review.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

We know that we have a flat-cash police settlement this year and we know that local ratepayers are going to have to pay increased rates to meet the need, but do we yet know who is going to pay for the police pay rise, given the Police Federation’s 3.4% request today?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I note the encouraging words from the Immigration Minister, as well as her excellent pronunciation. Refugees would be greatly helped by the passing of the private Member’s Bill on family reunion, which will receive its Second Reading in the House on Friday 16 March. It is supported by the British Red Cross, Amnesty International, the Refugee Council, Oxfam and United Nations agencies. Given the Minister’s good, warm words, which I welcome, how much thought have the Government given to supporting that Bill to enable families to have very clear rights to be together, which of course is the best security they could have?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I am sure he will understand the trepidation with which I seek to pronounce his constituency name—that was the second time I have managed it in a week. As I have said, we will look very carefully at his Bill, which I understand he published only at the beginning of last week, and we will have a full opportunity to debate it on 16 March.

[Mr Speaker]

The pronunciation struck me as magnificent, and I hope it will be shared with the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, preferably sooner rather than later.

Refugee Children: Family Reunion in the UK

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

Thank you, Dame Cheryl. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) on securing this debate and I reassure him I will certainly leave him a couple of minutes at the end.

I start by thanking everyone here today who has contributed with thought-provoking and compassionate contributions. I have listened carefully to the many accounts of how important it has been for refugees in Members’ own constituencies to have their family members join them, to support their wellbeing and their integration into society. Like other Front-Bench spokespeople, I will not pick out individual contributions at length as I am conscious that I am very short on time, but I would reassure hon. Members that during the past five weeks or so that I have been in this role, I have taken the time to meet representatives from charities in my own constituency and nationally. I was particularly moved to meet Lana and Yameena, two Southampton University students. Lana had very specific experience of refugees when she was living in France and her family had welcomed a number of young refugees into her home. She was very clear to describe them to me as her brothers.

I assure the House that we are listening to the concerns about refugee family reunion. I know from my early discussions with non-governmental organisations and international organisations the importance placed on the issues, and that has been reinforced during our debate today. They are also issues my predecessor discussed on many occasions with NGOs, in the context of our wider asylum and resettlement strategy. I look forward to continuing that important work.

Several colleagues have focused on the question of extending the family reunion criteria, which is the subject of Baroness Hamwee’s private Member’s Bill and of the private Member’s Bill from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil)—if the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) can be nervous about the pronunciation of that, he can probably imagine how I feel—which was introduced earlier this week and is due to come before this House for Second Reading on 16 March.

The Government’s policy objective for refugee family reunion remains to ensure that we are able to bring together pre-flight families and dependents who are in precarious or compelling circumstances. We must ensure that our policies support those who need our protection who cannot remain in their country or region of origin. I would therefore ask hon. Members to reflect on the policy objective of the private Member’s Bill, because the proposals, as currently drafted, would go far beyond that. It could lead to the policy being used by significantly more people who have no protection needs or who are not necessarily in precarious positions.

The Government strongly support the principle of family unity and we have a comprehensive approach to refugee family reunion set out in the immigration rules and our family reunion policy. Our starting point is that family reunion is a matter for immigration rules and policy, rather than primary legislation. Many hon. Members have highlighted that the family reunion rules provide only for immediate family members of refugees, but the immigration rules and resettlement schemes provide for extended family members to join their family here, if they are in the most precarious and dangerous circumstances.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The Minister is right to highlight that there are other routes available to different family members, but will she comment on the maintenance and accommodation test? Even if an applicant can show that they are living in the most compelling compassionate circumstances, that application could still be rejected because the sponsor in the United Kingdom does not meet a certain financial or accommodation threshold. Surely that is an unjust way to go about things.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that with me. That is one of the points that I will take away with me from today’s debate.

We provide for British citizens to sponsor family members, there is provision to grant visas outside the rules in exceptional cases, and the mandate refugee scheme enables those recognised by the UNHCR as refugees to join close family members here in the UK.

I have noted the concerns raised today that so-called family reunification under the Dublin regulations may no longer be available post Brexit. However, Dublin does not confer immigration status simply because an individual has a family member in the UK. It is a mechanism for deciding the member state responsible for considering an asylum claim. It is for those seeking asylum and not those granted refugee status.

Having said that I was not going to pick up particular points, I would like to pick up on those made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who raised the Sandhurst treaty. Many Members have referenced Dublin III and the Dubs scheme. I was fortunate in 2015-16 to be a member of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe with Alf Dubs—he insisted that I call him Alf at all times, so I apologise if I refer to him incorrectly today. Travelling abroad with Lord Dubs was an incredibly instructive experience. The Sandhurst treaty was signed very soon after I came into this role—I think within the first two weeks.

I reassure the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport that we have committed £3.6 million to enable us to strengthen our co-operation with France on the operation of the Dublin regulation and the development fund, and to work with it to identify projects that support genuine claims through the Dublin process. A significant part of the Sandhurst treaty was about looking at the whole route for refugees. It is crucially important that we do not look at it in isolation either in the middle east and north Africa region or in Calais. We have to look at the entire journey that individuals make.

On the 480 children that will be accepted under Dubs—the number was at 220 when I came into this role—we are determined to ensure that, by changing the date and working closely with Greece and Italy, we fulfil that requirement. I regard it to be an absolute priority to take the 480 young people we have committed to.

Anyone transferred under the Dublin regulation will be expected to leave the UK if they are found not to need protection. Our family reunion rules will continue to enable immediate family members to reunite with their loved ones in the UK safely, regardless of the country in which they are based.

Pretty much every hon. Member raised legal aid and the cost of legal representation for family reunion cases. On 30 October, the Lord Chancellor announced the start of a review of legal aid reforms, which will include an assessment of the changes to the scope of legal aid for immigration cases, and will report later this year. Although family reunion cases generally do not fall within the scope of the legal aid scheme, exceptional case funding may be made available where it is legally required. We are committed to providing clear guidance and application forms to support applicants through the family reunion process, and are working with key partners such as the British Red Cross and UNICEF to improve the process for considering family reunion applications.

It is vital that our focus remains on those most in need of our protection—particularly those fleeing conflict. The Government have invested significantly in supporting the most vulnerable refugees through our resettlement programmes, which offer safe and legal routes to protection and are designed to keep families together. By 2020, we will have resettled 20,000 refugees from Syria. We announced this week that we are at the halfway point, so 10,000 vulnerable families have been resettled in this country and a further 3,000 children and families have been resettled from the wider MENA region. Last year, we provided 6,212 people with protection under all our resettlement schemes. Over the past five years we have issued 24,700 family reunion visas, and since 2010 we have provided 49,830 people with protection status in the UK—they are entitled to apply for their qualifying members to join them.

I believe that our comprehensive approach to refugee family reunion already caters for the types of case that hon. Members are concerned about and provides safe and legal routes for families to reunite here. However, we need to concentrate our efforts on ensuring that our existing resettlement schemes are used to full effect, and that the current rules work properly and effectively. In that way, we will continue to help those who need it most.

I have already met representatives from UNICEF and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I thank the Refugee Council for sending me the report “Safe but Not Settled”, which looks at how the separation of refugees in the UK from their family members affects their successful integration into their new life in the UK. I look forward to further meetings with representatives of the Refugee Council, the Red Cross and other non-governmental organisations to discuss the important issue of family reunion in the coming weeks.

I therefore ask hon. Members from both sides of the House and representatives of NGOs to continue working with the Government to build on the existing family reunion policy and process to make our resettlement schemes and immigration rules work in the most effective way. In that way, we can ensure that more families are reunited as quickly, legally and safely as possible.

Rights of EU Citizens Resident in the UK

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Written Statements

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

The Government have been clear since the start of negotiations with the EU that protecting the rights of EU citizens in the UK, together with the rights of UK nationals living in EU countries, was their first priority.

Since the opposition day debate on 29 November 2017 secured by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) on the vital issue of safeguarding citizens’ rights, we have delivered on that commitment and reached an agreement with our EU partners on citizens’ rights. The agreement was set out as part of a joint report issued on 8 December 2017, and provides more than three million EU citizens living in the UK with certainty about their future rights and, most importantly, allows them and their families to stay in the UK.

The agreement will protect EU citizens who have been exercising free movement rights in the UK at the time of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Family members, including those from outside the EU, living lawfully in the UK with a qualifying EU citizen at this point are also protected.

As part of our citizens’ rights agreement, we have agreed with the EU that we will introduce a new settled status scheme under UK law for EU citizens and their family members who are covered by the agreement. Those who have already had five years of continuous residence in the UK will be eligible to apply for settled status. Others will be able to remain in the UK to build up their five years’ residence.

We have agreed with the EU that the eligibility criteria for UK settled status will be the same as, or more favourable than, those set out in the EU Directive 2004/38/EC for acquiring permanent residence. In line with this, we have already committed to setting the evidence requirements to suit the demands of this unique situation and have taken a unilateral decision to introduce more favourable provisions to ensure that everyone lawfully in the UK on exit day will be able to stay. For example, we will not require evidence that economically inactive EU citizens have previously held comprehensive sickness insurance or apply a “genuine and effective” work test. We are engaging closely with representative bodies for EU citizens in the UK to understand all the different circumstances under which they have built their lives in the UK so as to tailor evidential requirements appropriately.

Those who obtain settled status under the agreement on citizens’ rights will be granted indefinite leave to remain in UK law. This status will provide the holder with the same access to benefits, education and healthcare as those who have obtained permanent residence under EU law.

In addition, those granted indefinite leave to remain in line with this agreement will also benefit from certain more favourable entitlements than those with permanent residence under EU law. For example, their status will not lapse unless they have been continuously absent from the UK for over five years, as opposed to two years.

Importantly, our agreement on citizens’ rights has also opened the door for us to finalise work on the development and delivery of the new system for settled status applications.

The scheme, which will open for applications by the end of 2018, will be streamlined, user-friendly and will draw on existing Government data to minimise the burden on applicants to provide evidence.

The Home Office will work with applicants to ensure that their application is not refused on minor technicalities, and caseworkers considering applications will exercise discretion in favour of the applicant where appropriate. As a result, we expect the vast majority of cases to be granted.

To ensure all EU citizens and their families have enough time to apply for UK status, the scheme will remain open for applications for at least two years after the UK leaves the EU. During this period, they will enjoy the rights conferred by the agreement. The application fee will not exceed the cost charged to British citizens for a UK passport, and for those who already have a valid permanent residence document there will be a simple process to exchange this for a new settled status document which will be free of charge.

The agreement reached in December will now be converted into the legal text of the Withdrawal agreement. The withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill will incorporate the contents of the withdrawal agreement, including the agreement on citizens’ rights, into UK law by primary legislation. This will mean that the agreement on citizens’ rights will have direct effect in UK law and EU citizens can rely directly on it.

We are pleased with the progress we have made on citizens’ rights. Reaching an agreement with the EU on this and other separation issues is an important step on our journey towards a new relationship with our European partners.

The Government hugely value the contributions that EU citizens and their families make to the economic, social and cultural fabric of this country, and we have been clear from the start that we want them to stay. The agreement we have reached with the EU will allow EU citizens to do this and continue living their lives as they do now.

[HCWS471]